Sunday's coming!

 John 18: 33-37;   Revelation 1: 4b - 8 Next Sunday is Advent Sunday, December 1 st .   Christmas is undoubtedly getting closer and I wonder how we’re all feeling. Do you feel excited when you see Christmas lights lit up – or do you feel that it’s all too early and does it just make you despair at the commercialisation of Christmas? I was talking to someone last week who observed that ever since the 2020 pandemic, it seems that people are putting up their Christmas lights, decorations, and even trees earlier and earlier. There have certainly been lights up among our neighbours since the beginning of November -  weirdly overlapping somewhat with the Hallowe’en decorations. Perhaps it’s that the more life feels to be hard and out of our control, the more we long for bright lights in the darkness and something to take our minds off the news bulletins. My older brother thinks that all Christian faith is like this – just a way of distracting ourselves from the grimne...

Psalm 16   John 15: 13-15 Joseph Scriven was born into a wealthy, devout family in Northern Seapatrick, Ireland, in 1819. He completed his education at Trinity College, Dublin. Scriven’s life took a tragic turn in 1844, just before his marriage. His fiancée was thrown from her horse and drowned in the River Bann, the day before their wedding. Overwhelmed by grief, Scriven left Ireland for Canada in 1845, settling in Port Hope, Ontario. In Canada, Scriven committed his life to God and service. At 25, he vowed poverty, sold his belongings, and helped those in need. He preached and read the Bible in community gatherings, taught in a school, and even cut wood  - all for no pay. He was known as “the good Samaritan of Port Hope”. In 1855, Scriven penned a poem titled ‘What is this Friendship for Which We Long?’ to comfort his ailing mother in Ireland, never intending it for public eyes. She kept the poem safe in the pages of her Bible. A decade after his first fiancée’s death, ...

Mark 12: 38-44   I’m sure we all come with our own collection of memories, feelings, regrets, and concerns this Remembrance Sunday. Even though very few people are left alive who fought in the second world war, there is always family history, the memories passed down, and there have been other conflicts – just as there are conflicts today.    I am always struck by the power of the two minutes’ silence. People are always having to remember those they have lost; remember lives blighted by injury; remember how fragile justice can be; remember how precious peace is…   In the face of current global conflicts or personal disaster or the weight of history we might just feel too small to matter. We want to speak up for peace, act for peace, pray for peace…but we are just one insignificant person.   If we feel too small to be significant, what Jesus teaches in the temple, in the story we heard from Mark’s gospel, has something to say to us.   Jesus watches a poor wi...