Sunday's coming!

We heard the part of Luke’s gospel where he tells us the story, from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, of Jesus going back to his home town of Nazareth, to start teaching and healing. It should be a day of great celebration – local boy makes good. Jesus reads the bit of the book of Isaiah which says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to being good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind and freedom for the oppressed”. Jesus is setting out his stall – some people call this the ‘Nazareth Manifesto’. At the start of his ministry, in the place where he has been brought up, Jesus makes it clear what he is there for - God has sent him to tell everyone the good news of God’s love and to make the world a better place. We didn’t hear the end of the story. You might imagine that the people of Nazareth would be pleased – Jesus  has come to do good things, to tell them good news, and he’s going to spend the rest of his life helping other people...

this is a version for a baptism service - I am now working on a longer version which uses Luke 4: 14-21 and 1 Cor 12: 12-18 - will post longer one too when I can. So today is a day to celebrate: we’re celebrating Esmae’s baptism into the church, and I know we’re celebrating Ella-Rose’s second birthday , too. It’s a day to give thanks to God for beautiful daughters and wonderful friends, and all the good things God gives us in life. It’s a day to be with other people, a day to think about the needs of others, and a day to recognise that God promises us strength to help us be our best selves. We heard the bit of Luke’s gospel where he tells us the story of Jesus going back to his home town of Nazareth, to start teaching and healing. It should be a day of great celebration – local boy makes good. Jesus reads the bit of the book of Isaiah which says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to being good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind and ...

John 2: 1-11 “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” I’m sure I’ve preached – and I’m sure you’ve heard, many sermons about the wedding at Cana and what it teaches us about Jesus and who he is. The lectionary writers have put it for us in this season of Epiphany, when traditionally we think about how Jesus shows us the glory of God the Father in all he is and all he does. This is certainly a powerful sign of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah. But perhaps it is also something else. Last week in the Observer I read a column about friendship, which had the intriguing strapline “It’s our friends who teach us how a person should be”. The article is here The author, Eva Wiseman, was suggesting that instead of looking for ‘role-models’ far away in life – in celebrities, sports stars, or those we admire from afar – we should look nearer to home. There are ways in which our friends help us ...

Only an 8am sermon to write this week - on Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22. ‘Now when all the people had been baptized..’ Picture the scene: a crowd of people, who have been baptised by John, standing on the banks of the Jordan, drying in the sun.. wondering what this fresh start will mean to them. And then, as Jesus is baptised – last, by the sound of Luk’e account, the voice from heaven “You are my beloved”. I wonder how many of the crowd thought that God the Father was addressing them. Maybe that’s what this fresh start, this repentance John is talking about – really means -   new life as beloved children of God. But then the Holy Spirit comes to rest on just one of the crowd – on Jesus. He, not John, is God’s chosen one. And yet, the gospel Jesus comes to proclaim is that God’s love IS for every person there. God’s love and blessing is declared to Jesus – the Holy Spirit rest on him and he begins his ministry. But this is also the start of the adoption of many sons and daugh...

With apologies to any regular readers who have thought I had stopped posting altogether: I've just posted up a few of the sermons from Christmas - life just got too hectic to keep this blog up to date. But now - 2 colds and a bit of time off later - I'm back 'in the saddle'. Baptism of Christ on Sunday.. more to follow I hope.

Post Christmas                   Isaiah 61:10-62:3          John 1: 1-18 Just before Christmas I read this online comment from a man in his 20s “ The hardest time of the year for me is Christmas Day until March, whenever spring appears. I love autumn, from Halloween to Christmas Eve, but then the season comes to an abrupt end with the exchange of a bunch of stuff, and it's over. Then we get 2 months or so of bleak weather with no holiday charm, except for that atrocious New Year's Eve to really rub it in.”. It’s a pretty good description of what many people would describe as the ‘Post Christmas blues’. After all the build up to the celebration of Christmas, now it’s over. The crackers are cracked, the bin is full of used wrapping paper, and we’ve almost finished the turkey. So now it’s more important than ever that we, as the church, try to be heard whe...

Carol Service You might have wondered why we had to read on past the usual stuff of nativity plays to the unpleasant bit about Herod and his slaughter of the innocents. I had already decided on these readings for tonight before the terrible news of the school shootings in Newtown Conneticut, 10 days ago. Believe me, I thought about changing them. This year, I’ve found it hard to hear the words of Away in a manger ‘bless all the dear children in thy tender care’, without feeling a pang of pain.   You might have heard the news report that said that after the tragedy, many people in Newtown were taking down their Christmas decoration, because they felt guilty celebrating Christmas. But as tonight’s readings have made clear, Christmas is not just a sweet tale of tinselly angels and fluffy sheep – there is hardship in the story, and people abusing power, and real cruelty. This shouldn’t surprise us – if Jesus was God come to Earth to share our human life he needed to e...

Isaiah 9: 2-7, Luke 2: 1-14 I don’t know if you caught the news story about 10 days ago that a pub landlord in the Wiltshire village of Shrewton had gone off to France with the contents of his customers’ Christmas saving scheme – a total of about £30,000. The part that made me saddest was an interview with one of the people affected who said “We had £800 saved – and without that money there’ll be no Christmas for us”. The good news is that the village rallied round and made money available to people for presents and food. But how sad it was for the man who thought that Christmas would not come without the money? Of course we all like to have special food and drink and of course it’s lovely to see the faces of your loved ones light up when they open a present they really like – but Christmas will come – whether we spend our money or not. Christmas will come because the clock will tick around and we’ll cross the days off the calendar and soon (very soon!) it will ...