Sunday's coming!

Jeremiah 20: 7-13     Matthew 10: 24-39    Today we celebrate the Chapel Anniversary – 203 years since The foundation stone was laid June 25th,1823. I wonder how you feel about the passing years? It’s good to look back & I hope there are many happy memories. But we might also feel that we’re not what we were – and we’re not really sure where we’re going. And yet we know that the same God has been present for Jesus’ followers and loving them, throughout those 203 years   Today is also Father’s Day. How you feel about that might depend on things like what kind of father you had, or whether you knew your father, or whether you have been a father yourself.   And both the anniversary & Father’s Day might colour how we feel when Jesus calls God ‘Father’, which he does very often in the gospel accounts. What sort of Father does Jesus declare God to be – how can we better understand what Jesus means when he refers to God as ‘your h...

As it happens, I have written this Sunday's worship notes for the United Reformed Church. They are available Here    I will also post my own sermon notes, as usual. 

Praising when our hearts are heavy        At Joyce’s funeral next week we will hear the 23 rd Psalm – the Lord is my shepherd. I read it at the commital for Mary the week before last, too. It contains that amazing phrase..      even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Psalm 23 might be the first psalm we turn to in times of trouble: it is enormously comforting.   We might feel like we need comfort right now – the news has been so unsettling – with attacks in the streets in Northern Ireland following a stabbing incident; yet more attacks on Iran by the US; Israeli strikes against Lebanon; and violent protests against the police in Southampton. In our family and church lives, too, it sometimes feels there is more bad news than good. Life can really feel like a shady valley, in which surely we need the guidance of the Lord, our shepherd.   So I confess that at first my heart sank when I r...

  With thanks to Susan Durber for the "church meeting minutes from the early church" in this sermon!            When I was growing up in Merthyr we had lovely next door neighbours: Ed & Elma Evans. They made us very welcome when we moved in, had children about the same ages as us lot, and the 2 grandads used to enjoy talking over the wall. So I was baffled to find so many references in the New testament to what a bad person the gentle dad next door, Ed, was – because he worked in the tax office – he was a tax-collector.   There it is in our gospel reading today – the Pharisees ask Jesus’ disciples “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”.   As I grew up, I realised that the tax-collectors of the time of Jesus and the tax-collectors of today are very different. Tax, in Jesus time, was not the money everyone paid to help society run better – it was a charge laid by the Roman authorities on the people of the lan...