Sunday's coming!

Isaiah 5: 1-6 Matthew 6: 25-30 What are we doing when we celebrate harvest festival? I have been following quite a few conversations on Facebook this week – some headed up by people who say “harvest festival is sentimental tosh and in any case most of the harvesting happens in August in the UK and not in September or October, so the church should stop wasting its time” and the other point of view being “harvest festival reminds us to be grateful for our food and teaches children that milk comes from cows, not Tesco’s”. I wonder whether the fact that you’re here at this service means you love harvest festival – or are you just here because you have to be and are you secretly loathing every minute? Don’t panic, I’m not about to take a vote. What I’m going to do is suggest (in that way that preachers usually do) that our celebration of harvest should be neither a sentimental occasion that doesn’t go far beyond “don’t the apples smell great” (though the...

Matthew 21: 23-32; Philippians 2: 1-13 Jesus teaches the parable of the two sons. Which son does what the father wants? Actually, neither. The father wants a son who says he will do the work, and then goes and does it. But I don't think Jesus tells the story to make us believe that what God, our Heavenly Father, wants from us in instant unquestioning obedience. The God of the Bible seems to go to sometimes extraordinary lengths to give his children, you & me, freedom of choice. He places his creation in a world of infinite variety, provides pointers for behaviour in the form of the teaching of the Law and the Prophets and then patiently waits for each person to turn to Him of their own free will. However long that takes – he is waiting for the wayward to return, not so that God can give him or her a flea in the ear, but so God can throw a party. No wonder Jesus so often uses the term Father for God. Just as a human parent wants their child to gr...

J onah 3:10-4:11, Matthew 20: 1-16 Reading both the parable of the workers in the vineyard and the end part of the story of Jonah together, I am struck by a question from the owner of the vineyard: “Are you envious because I am generous?”. It is the question the vineyard owner asks the grumpy slaves – but it could so well be the question God asks Jonah when he is grumpy at the end of the story. How grumpy are you feeling this morning? Whose side are you on when you hear these stories? Are we on the side of Jonah “I knew you would spare the people of Nineveh and make me look like an idiot”, or on the side of the people and animals of Nineveh – who have listened to Jonah and changed their ways and ask for mercy. What do you think? Pride and ego, or Mercy and compassion? Meanwhile in the parable, where do your sympathies lie? Do you find yourself sympathising with the workers who were hired first? They work hard, all day – in the scorching heat. Th...

A sermon for a unity service, based on Acts 20: 17-38 As we are here to celebrate an ecumenical partnership of the Methodist and United Reformed Church here in Tiverton, I hope we can agree on something, as we read this passage from Acts with its teaching from Paul. Paul can be a bit annoying. And in case I get mis-understood here, I mean St Paul. “…serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews.   I did not shrink from doing anything helpful..”. It’s all a bit much isn’t it.. Paul’s sense of suffering for the gospel and serving until he drops. Or is it just me? But putting our reactions to that aside, what does Paul teach about ecumenism – about different traditions of church deciding to travel side by side, for the good of the people around them? Paul describes how hard the road can be, sometimes. He certainly doesn’t pull any punches about the fact that following Jesus can l...