Sunday's coming!

This service was a church anniversary, reception of new members and a 'taster' for lego church... Exodus 1:8-14. This might seem a very gloomy reading with which to start our anniversary service, but we’re taking our Old Testament reading in three parts today to help us reflect on the way life can be; the help God sends us; and the way we see God in action. This first part helps us reflect on the way life is, sometimes… Joseph’s life certainly had its ups and downs (even if you just think of the events recounted in the musical version “Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat”). He was the favourite of the 12 sons, his brothers plotted against him which led to him being sold into slavery in Egypt, he was wrongly accused of attacking Potiphar’s wife and was imprisoned, he managed to gain respect as a prisoner because of his ability to interpret dreams, which led to him being summoned to the Pharoah, made an official in charge of food distribution in a time of famine, so tha...

Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28   Matthew 14: 22-33 As the readings today teach us to wait for the help God gives us, so the sermon is in two parts – we will look at the Genesis reading first, and wait a little while in our service to hear the Gospel reading and reflect a little on that.   We might think we know the story of Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat and of Jacob -  Jacob and sons   - thanks to Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice and their musical. But the way the book of Genesis actually tells the story is distinctly less perky and, at first, strangely less ‘religious’: God isn’t mentioned at all in this first part of the story.   Instead what we have is a complex family drama – which might be thousands of years old, but still resonates with us today. This is the same Jacob who tricked his brother Esau out of his birth-right, and then acquired a new name ‘Israel’ when he met and wrestled with God. Jacob’s 12 sons have 4 different mothers – sisters Rachel ...

Isaiah 55: 1-5; Matthew 14: 13-21   Our reading from Isaiah prompted one of my friends, Phil, who is a minister in Cambridge to say that, for him, this is a description of “the department store of God’s grace”. I love that phrase  - the department store of God’s grace.   Everything people need is offered to them by God – free of charge – come if you are thirsty or hungry or tired; come if you are dispirited, or feel unloved, or hopeless. Come  - listen and see – and God’s grace will provide everything you need.   The original message was given to the people of Israel when they were about to return to their land having been held in captivity in Babylon. It was a message of comfort, of assurance that God still cared for them, that the department store of God’s grace was open to them and that God would supply everything they needed. This is a message which is just as relevant for our society today. We were discussing this at the Zoom Bible Study on Tuesda...