Sunday's coming!

Readings : Leviticus 19: 1,2 and 9-18; Matthew 5: 38-48 Just this week, the old chestnut of ‘should the church get involved with politics?’ has reared its head. 43 Christian leaders, including 27 Anglican bishops, signed a letter urging David Cameron to ensure people get enough to eat. This did include some URC moderators and some Methodist Chairs of District – although some of the press reports focused rather on the bishops. Alongside the questions the letter raises about food justice and food banks and benefit cuts, some reporters wanted to ask ‘should the church be saying anything about political issues at all?’. My answer to that would be that for Christians not to speak out about the lives of people who are suffering would be to try to break the link between what we believe and what we do, and it seems to me that Jesus was very concerned that we should not allow that break to happen.  Instead Jesus wants us to ask ourselves ‘how does what I believe ab...

Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 Matthew 5: 21-27 This is proper ‘Old Testament God’ stuff from Deuteronomy: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish”. On the face of it this is fairly straight forward – choose to follow God’s laws, or perish. And it’s no good looking for a get-out in the words of Jesus, either. The Gospel reading had Jesus saying: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, `You shall not murder'; and `whoever murders shall be l...

This Sunday I am preaching on  Isaiah 58:1-9a,  1 Corinthians 2:1-12 and  Matthew 5:13-20 to a church,  Southernhay URC,  who are celebrating the end of a phase of building redevelopment.  What are you here for? What a dangerous question to ask a church full of people. You might all suddenly slap your hand to your forehead & say ‘well, now you come to ask, we have no idea – there are so many other things we could be doing this morning – having  lie-in, reading the Sunday papers, washing the car .. the list is endless’. And if it’s not bad enough to have to face up to self-doubt. (why am I here? Let’s try not to obsess on that for the whole sermon) we hear a gospel reading in which Jesus says to us “ you are the salt of the earth” – and we all know that salt isn’t mean to sit in the pot on the table, any more than light is meant to be hidden, it is meant – salt a...