Sunday's coming!

Candlemas/Week of prayer for Christian Unity I know there are people here who dislike the word ‘ecumenical’ – and prefer the more descriptive ‘churches working together’. And as we gather to celebrate the week of prayer for Christian unity we are demonstrating ‘churches working together’ – we have chosen to worship together today, to sing together, pray together, open scripture together & celebrate communion together. So it would have been easy, preparing this sermon, to focus on what more we can do together, how we can work together more closely and more effectively so that we can be a more effective witness, to the world, of the God we worship and serve together. But then I read the Gospel reading more carefully – and it challenges me to say something rather different. There is so much happening in the story of the presentation of Christ in the temple. Mary & Joseph come with their offering to give thanks for the safe delivery of Mary’s child, and to bring Mary herse...

Notes for Sunday's sermon on Mark 1: 14-20 There’s something fishy about this story of the call of the disciples – and I don’t mean Peter, Andrew, James & John themselves. At first hearing we probably wonder how they did it. We imagine ourselves, going about our ordinary everyday business: just as the fishermen were. Jesus walks along the shore and says, almost casually ‘follow me and I will make you fish for people’. And immediately they leave their nets, and James & John leave their father, and follow Jesus. We might wonder what someone would have to say to us to get us to drop our whole lives like that, and follow. And John the Baptist has just been arrested – so maybe this isn’t a good time to be associating with his cousin Jesus, the one who John has called ‘the lamb of God’. These fishermen – how brave, how daring, maybe how foolish. Could we be that brave? That daring? That foolish? But the first fishy thing is that this story of Jesus, the one whom they wi...

Readings for this week: 1 Samuel 3: 1-10 , John 1: 43-51 I blame Sunday school. That and the hymn ‘hushed was the evening hymn, the temple courts were dark’. But I have always read this story of God’s call in the temple as the call of Samuel. The young boy is woken by God’s voice calling in the night. Samuel assumes that it is Eli who is calling him, and is taught by the old priest how to respond to God’s call & listen to what God has to say. You can see why it’s a favourite in Sunday schools: God speaks to a young child, so all young children better sit up and listen! But when Samuel does listen to what God has to say, this is what God says: ‘See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfil against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blasphem...

So finally the three kings make it to the Christmas party. But perhaps not quite the three kings we were expecting. There are the magi, of course – the visitors from the East who come with their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and myrrh. Sometimes we assume that as there were three gifts there were three of them – but Matthew doesn’t tell us. But whether they are kings or simply astronomers their gifts and the story of their journey tell us important things about kingship. Their kingship is that of knowledge and wisdom and the willingness to enter into adventure in search of the truth. Along their journey, the magi encounter a second king, Herod. His kingship is of a very different kind. He exercises power over his kingdom – he defends himself against the potential threat of another king. He is a king who is keen to show the authority tat comes with his position. Of course journey’s end for the magi comes with the king they are actually seeking all along – the third king of the stor...

After a wonderful church celebration of Christmas (many, many services, but I wouldn't have missed them for the world!) followed by a lovely family celebration of Christmas & then a great break away for the New Year, here I am back in harness. Sunday we will be marking Epiphany: how Jesus Christ shows us God. the readings are: Isaiah 60.1-6 & Matthew 2.1-12 I am struck by the three kings of the Matthew reading: not the three we assume came with the gold, frankincense & myrrh, but the kingship of Herod (which is about power & fear); of the Magi (which is about wisdom); and the kingship of Jesus (which is about sacrifice - the self-emptying to come to our world in order to touch and heal and save us.. ultimately expressed in death on the cross). The three gifts of the magi point us to this - gold (power & riches), frankincense (wisdom & mystery) & myrrh (death & self-offering). At some point I will post the notes which will form the 8am sermo...