Sunday's coming!

Isaiah 2: 1-5   There is a wonderful story, which may or may not be true, that during the approach to Christmas in 1948, a radio station in Washington DC asked ambassadors to the United States, from a number of countries, their preferred Christmas gift. The replies were recorded for a special Christmas broadcast. Most of the answers were what you would expect from a diplomat: Asked ‘what gift do you most want this Christmas?’ the French ambassador said he most wanted 'Peace throughout the world,' the Russian ambassador said he would like to have 'Freedom for all people enslaved by Imperialism,'   Then the request went through to Sir Oliver Franks, the representative of the Government of the United Kingdom, ‘what gift do you most want this Christmas?’ 'Well, it's very kind of you to ask,' he replied. 'I'd quite like a small box of crystallised fruit.'   Whatever you have said you want for Christmas, Advent Sunday helps us re...

  Colossians 1: 11-20; Luke 23: 33-43   Christmas is most certainly coming closer – today we have given out our sheets describing all the opportunities to celebrate and worship in the pastorate this year, through Advent and Christmas. We will soon start singing about shepherds and angels, stables & mangers, donkeys and sheep… and most of all about the baby, Jesus.   You might wonder why today’s Bible readings seem to be focussing on the end of Jesus life – on the cross – but these readings invite us to reflect on just who this baby is – and what it means to say not only that Jesus is born, but that ‘ Jesus Christ is King’. The church has been reflecting on this for centuries, but I hope there’s always something new to say as we see in each generation what the rule of Christ means in our place and our time. We need to look and see, afresh.    Today I’d like to focus on what one of the criminals on the cross sees.   This is a story we al...

  Proper 26    Luke 21: 5-19   I came across an article this week entitled “What is wrong with the world?”. It gave a few suggestions: -        Tribalism – the sort of nationalism which oppresses others -        The lack of a common vision for good -        Inequality of wealth and resources – which leads to envy and hatred -        Lack of love for people who are ‘not like us’.   I know that the same author has written, too, about the importance for the world of forgiveness, faith in God and love for the widest possible definition of family.   He’s also written one of the hymns in our hymnbook – "O God of earth & altar" – it’s GK Chesterton, author of the Father Brown stories, and a convert to Catholicism. His article ‘what is wrong with the world?’ was written in 1910.   It feels as though there is ...

  Reading one: Luke 6: 20-31 Talk 1 You don’t need me to tell you it’s a difficult time of the year – as the evenings get dark ever more quickly, the weather gets more wintry, and as we face news of the death of loved ones, and our diaries seem to fill up with funerals.   In all that gloom, All Saints Day (which was yesterday) and All Soul’s Day (which is today) shine like a beacon of hope.   We might sometimes feel that saints are people we put on a pedestal, to be looked up to and admired. The sort of people – whether official saints or people we admired – who make us say “we could never be like that”. They were blessed, they were a blessing to us, and when we sing the hymn ‘For all the saints” we sing with real feeling the line   “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine..”.   An extraordinary example is of one of the most recent and youngest saints – St Carlo Acutis: an English-born Italian Catholic who died of leukaemia in 2006, at the age of 1...

Luke 18: 9-14    Susan is not with us today because she is at the World Council of Churches 6 th World conference on Faith and Order, in Egypt. Their theme is “Where now for visible unity?” – reflecting one the 1700 th anniversary of the council of Nicaea (of course) and the purpose of the World Council of Churches “to call one another to visible unity”.   You might well think that we could all do with a little more unity in our polarised world – between churches of course, but between all people who find themselves, or make themselves, divided. This week we have had the Caerphilly by-election for the Senedd – causing division as any election tends to do – and so much of the world news shows us conflict between people and reflects the sort of division which so easily leads to hatred of the other.   In our divided world, how are those who follow Jesus Christ supposed to live?   One simple answer is – following Jesus’ teachings. ...

  
 Psalm 121 
 Luke 18:1-8 Oh Lord hear my prayer… When I call, answer me O Lord hear my prayer… Come and listen to me.   It is only natural sometimes in our lives to feel that we need answers in our prayers. We call, we wail, we weep, and we wonder if anyone is actually listening.   Perhaps as you were meant to be listening to our Bible readings you were finding it hard to concentrate. Perhaps you’ve been worrying about a member of the family – an elderly relative with health problems, or a younger one in financial difficulty; perhaps you’re worried about your own health, or fearful of the future in some other way.   Perhaps you’ve confided in someone else or maybe you’re the only one who knows what it is that you’re bothered about. With all this potential for distraction going on in our minds and in our lives, how are we meant to quieten our own voices for a moment and listen to the Bible?   I hope some of us found Psalm 121 helpful “I lif...