Sunday's coming!

Genesis 21: 8-21 I wonder if you’re still watching or listening to the News? Sometimes it just seems as if there is so much bad news, one thing after another, I have great sympathy with people who say they are having a rest and not keeping up for a while – they just can’t bear any more. And yet, we who say we believe in a loving God surely need to watch and listen and hope and pray – and ask ‘where is the love of God in all this?’. In just the last two weeks we have had the attack on London Bridge, the Grenfell tower fire, the attack on Finsbury Park mosque, and continuing terrible news of the ongoing war in Syria, as well as violence in Pakistan. That some of this violence happens in the name of God is especially appalling. But I really believe our reading from the Hebrew scriptures today can help us. I expect we are very familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac; but today we heard the story of another son of Abraham – his older son Ishmael, ...

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7 ,   Matthew 9:35-10:8 It is good to be here today, to help you to celebrate your 100 th anniversary as a United Church. As we were thinking about some of the events of 100 years ago in the all age talk, earlier, you may have been wondering how different the world of 100 years ago really was to our world today. At a time of violence and uncertainty and upheaval – during the first World War – people had to make a decision to act in faith, with hope for the future, to bring good news to the people around them by forming this church. I see from the website that your strapline today is “Knowing and showing the grace of God” – and in our world of continuing violence and uncertainty and upheaval you, too, need to act in faith and reach out in hope. Abraham is something of a by-word for faith. Yet in the reading we heard, we arrive at a bit of a crunch point for Abraham. He has travelled, at God’s bidding, from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran and then ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmweXyEeoBw We’ve got a story to tell. What do you think it is? Take a few minutes to just share ideas with a few people around you. What is the story to tell? How could you share it with other people? Every now and again in my Christian life I learn something that makes me think ‘why have I never thought of that before?’. A friend sent me her sermon, written for this Sunday, for Pentecost, to read. In it she had said that the disciples were “gathered all together to keep the feast of Pentecost – and that’s a feast that’s about celebrating the giving of the Law”. That was my light-bulb moment. The story of Easter doesn’t start with “it was Easter” the story of Christmas doesn’t start with “it was Christmas” but the story of Pentecost starts with “it was Pentecost”. Pentecost was already a thing – it was the Jewish festival that came 50 days after the Passover. If you’re sitting there thinking ‘well, yes, I knew that!’ – why has no-one ...