Sunday's coming!

Isaiah 2: 1-5, Matthew 24: 36-44 This Advent Sunday I am preaching at the closing service of a church, which had got down to its last two members. I am trying to preach hope in God's future... Today is the start of Advent – though of course you don’t get to start opening your Advent calendar until December 1st.  There are many kinds of Advent Calendars.  When I was growing up we had a traditional card one with little windows, which we opened each morning. Because there were four of us in the family and only one calendar, we took it in turns to open a door. I’m the youngest so I got days 4,8,12,16,20 & 24 (Christmas Eve – the one with the baby in the crib behind it!). Over the years it became a very predictable advent calendar.  These days you can get advent calendars with chocolates behind the doors – a sweet calendar; or ones linked to TV shows or celebrities – a starry, sparkly kind of calendar. But if Advent is meant to get us ready for the c...

Colossians 1: 11-20; Luke 23: 33-43 Christmas is coming,  there’s no doubt about it: next Sunday is the start of Advent for the church, you can start opening your advent calendar the following Thursday, even I have had to stop complaining that it’s too early for the Christmas adverts on TV. So how are we meant to respond to the Bible readings we’ve heard today? As we stand on the threshold of Advent, the lectionary invites us to think about ‘Christ the King’. The news of world politics often makes us think about wordly power, and that has been particularly true over the last few weeks – high court rulings about Brexit, Donald Trump elected president of the United States, predictions about the rise of the far right in France.. Who rules our world? The celebration of Christ the King was originally proposed by Pope Pius 11 th in 1925. In the time we now think of as ‘between the wars’, with economic instability and the rise of fascism, Pope Pius wan...

Ephesians 1: 11-23, Luke 6: 20-31 It is the time of year to grow melancholy and reflective. The nights are drawing in and now that the clocks have changed many of us will be getting home in the dark. We are digging out scarves and hats and gloves and trying to re-activate the central heating. Yesterday was Bonfire night – “remember, remember the fifth of November..” Next Sunday will be Remembrance Sunday.. So today it is good to remember the saints of the church. There are, though, some pitfalls to be avoided when we remember the saints. The first is the tendency to look at the lives of special holy people, who lived special holy lives and think ‘we could never be like that’.  The song we sang earlier tries to make the saints sound a bit more ordinary : ‘one was a doctor and one was a queen and one was a shepherdess on the green…one was a soldier, and one was a priest, and one was slain by a fierce wild beast’ – but these are references to the most extraordinary lives –...