Sunday's coming!

Luke 6: 17-26      When did a sermon last take you by surprise? For most of us – when we’re sitting in the pews, anyway – it’s time to settle down, pop in a mint imperial, and wait to hear some interesting things about God, or the Bible, or the life of Jesus. I wonder whether the crowd who first heard what we heard Jesus say today had similar expectations to us? Or has they seen enough of Jesus in action to feel that they might hear something amazingly radical? Because actually that’s what they got. “Blessed are you who are poor…   “Blessed are you who are hungry now …   “Blessed are you who weep now …   “Blessed are you when people hate you…" All this preached to people who had been told that those who are blessed by God will be rich, and fed, and will laugh and be respected. Their mindset was that surely God blesses and rewards his people with good things and punishes evildoers? People who are ill have been made that w...

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13, Jeremiah 1: 4-10 Commitment for Life offers us a definition of what it means to be a child of God and a follower of Jesus Christ. Life-giving faith; Defiant hope; Generous love. Our reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth brings the three things together – faith, hope, love. Paul says what we say, however eloquent; what we proclaim, however prophetic; the sacrifices we make, however total: none of these things compare with what we do. It is our acts of faith, hope and love which show the “more excellent way” to live. I talked earlier about praying ‘without seeing’, but I also wanted to share with you some of the acts of faith, hope and love we were blessed to see for ourselves in Zimbabwe when we visited. We met the leaders of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches. The ZCC has a vision for a strong Christian fellowship working for a united, peaceful, just and prosperous nation. They want to empower and renew the member churches so...