Sunday's coming!

Acts 2: 1-12; John 20: 19-23   The passage we heard from Acts causes some people problems. As well as being one of the passages of the Bible most filled with difficult names to pronounce, I think it is a passage which unsettles a lot of people. The church is born in loud noise, tongues of fire and strange languages – and we might wonder whether we can live up to that level of pyrotechnics.   How are we, gathered here quietly today, related to that strange and wonderful experience? We might wonder if we should be noisier, more showy, more “Pentecostal”.. or we might stare at the floor and hope that no-one suggests those kinds of changes here!   If Acts troubles you, there is a different story of the coming of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel.    Instead of having to wait the 50 days from Easter to Pentecost, the disciples meet the risen Lord on Easter Sunday evening – and he breathes the Holy Spirit into them. This seems a much gentler gift of the Holy Spirit tha...

  Coronation Day and John 14 :1-14   I hope at least some of you watched the coronation yesterday. I have to admit.. I loved it – I had looked at the liturgy of the order of service in advance, but even so there were moments that took my breath away, and others that moved me to tears.   There had been quite a lot of fuss over the last week, leading up to the coronation, about the oath of the people.  “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God”. And then the later response  “ God save King Charles. Long live King Charles. May The King live for ever”.    For anyone who was struggling to work out whether it is right for Reformed Christians like us to pray for an earthly king, these might have felt like problematic words – and to pray that anyone ‘lives forever’ might seem strange.     And yet, as I looked at the gospel reading for today I heard, in the words we were...

  Psalm 23 & John 10: 22-30 Just five days ago these walls were ringing as we gave thanks to God for Denzil Jeremy’s life: and one of the readings we had was the 23 rd  Psalm. A number of people commented to me later that they have attended too many funerals in the last year or so.  I think we all know what it means to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And sometimes it only takes particular hymn, a particular reading, the “Amen” at the end of Gwahoddiad, to take us back to a moment of grief of loneliness or sadness. Deep gloom is always there – the shadows of life are inevitable – no-one is spared or can live their entire life in the sunlit uplands. And yet…the Psalmist wants us to know that though the darkness cannot be avoided we are never left without a guide. The Lord is my shepherd. Perhaps just for today we can start the Psalm in a different place – in that place of darkness – and see all    the promises of God that can see us through the...

John 20: 19-31; 1 Peter 1: 3-9 In the run up to Christmas 2021 Marks & Spencer hit the headlines with a jumper in their women’s wear range : “Believe”. It became very popular with women ministers. Of course, it’s left to the wearer – and the observer  - to decide what you’re being encouraged to believe. It could be ‘believe in Santa Claus’; ‘believe in better times ahead’ (this was 2021, remember..); or for ministers – I guess something like ‘believe in the good news of Christmas’. Whatever we are being encouraged to believe, believing is not just an empty thinking that something is or is not true – believing is stronger than that – it has an element of consequence – I believe  ‘and so’. Believing is not just about head knowledge – it involves trust and faith and acting on your belief.   You might know that the new manse is on the Merlin’s Lane development in Haverfordwest, and they haven’t quite finished building yet, at the end of the road. This provides m...

Easter Sunday  (Matthew 28: 1-10; Acts 10; 34-43)   I wonder what we see when we look at our world this Easter Sunday morning. Perhaps we see a world in which on the global political stage the war in Ukraine continues, and the Israeli Police attack Muslim worshippers at the Al Asqa mosque, causing attacks of retaliation on Israeli citizens. In our own country we see the jailing of a man for murdering his partner’s daughter, Lola James; and a young woman, Bethanie Booth has died of sepsis at just 24. And in our own lives I know some of us are facing questions about our health; families are struggling with the cost of living rises; and mental ill health and grief touch almost all of us. Although signs of Spring are all around us, we also face the signs of climate change, endangering the life of our world.   There is a lot we might feel sorrowful about. And so we come seeking hope on this Easter Sunday.     Matthew tells us that 2 women set off to see the tomb of J...

  Micah 6: 6-8, Luke 10:25-37   I’m not sure there are many Bible stories more familiar than the parable of the Good Samaritan.   Just yesterday morning – listening to Saturday Live on Radio 4 with Revd Richard Coles, I immediately thought of the story of the Good Samaritan as I listened to the ‘thank you’ slot. If you’re not a fan of Saturday Live all you need to know is that people contact the show with stories of good deeds done for them in the past where, for whatever reason, they never got the thank the person who helped them. They get to tell the story and thank the person on the Radio.   The story yesterday was told by an older woman, who related how her daughter, unbeknown to her, had collapse in the street in central London. A man working in the hotel opposite spotted that the young woman had collapsed and that people were just walking past.    He crossed the street, picked up the woman, and took her into the hotel foyer, where she was able to give...