Listed below are over 100 sermons preached by Kevin Carey (unless otherwise indicated) since 2006.
Sermons are listed in Liturgical order by default (ie, by year A, B or C; then by Sunday/festival from The First Sunday in Advent through to The Forth Sunday Before Advent (The Feast of Christ the King)). Sermons that are not specific to a particular year or Sunday/festival can be found at the bottom of the list.
If you would prefer to see the most recently-added sermons first, click on "Date Added" below.
Articles in this category…
It may not be as easy as we think to separate the wheat from the weeds
Added: 18th November 2015
In the post COVID-19 Church we will need to be more active.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 24th June 2020
Morality is not as straightforward as we assume, a nostrum we should apply to forthcoming Government spending cuts.
Year C, The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2010
As lost coins or lost sheep our proper response to the God that finds us is worship.
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 30th September 2013
At root, all our crises are crises of worship
Year A, The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
We must consider some fundamental theological questions concerning women's ministry; and a good starting point is that they do better in Scripture than in concurrent culture.
Year C, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 19th July 2010
The courage and service of the women are important in the Passion narratives; but without the women those narratives would be fatally flawed.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 14th April 2010
Do we need a church and what is it for? The answer to the second question will give us the answer to the first.
Year C, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 3rd February 2016
I have some sympathy for Thomas; but we know that something cataclysmic happened between Good Friday and Pentecost, that his Disciples believed that Jesus was truly present with them and that nobody doubted the significance of these events.
Year C, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 23rd April 2007
We cannot think about war now the way we did 100 years ago; the default position must be peace, with all the unpleasantness that goes with it. The red poppy has been lukewarm to the peace agenda.
Year C, The Second Sunday before Advent; Added: 19th January 2008
From the sunny days in Galilee the life of Jesus grew ever darker until the Crucifixion; now, in the last seconds, he knew he was not abandoned.
Good Friday; Added: 27th March 2007
The Platonic tendency to view man as imperfect rather than created in love to create, has ultimately led to humanism and the subversion of religion into moralism
Year B, The Sixth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 22nd July 2009
The current pandemic leads us to ask fundamental questions about what church is.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 24th June 2020
We are not good at welcoming; sadly, that extends to our clergy. They are our prophets but also the most vulnerable among us.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
"Watch" means watching ourselves.
Year A, The First Sunday of Advent; Added: 20th December 2016
The contemporary equivalent of foot washing is a necessary precondition for Eucharist.
Year B, Maundy Thursday; Added: 20th May 2021
Public life is short of humility and silence, grounded in an understanding of human nature. IN thinking about war, we should distinguish infallibility and integrity, remember that love and force are not incompatible and we should avoid a superior moral tone.
Added: 13th November 2006
The Church has been under constant attack from "Dualism", ranking Agape above Eros; but both involve risk and vulnerability.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 18th January 2010
In vocation we are, above all, called to be ourselves.
The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 29th January 2019
The COVID-19 virus puts a new spin on familiar Holy Week Texts
Year A, Monday of Holy Week; Added: 24th June 2020
The vineyard, quite opposite from the Garden of Eden, is a place where we enjoy the fruits of our labour in exercising choice.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 11th November 2014
We should not take pride in our earthly achievement.
Year C, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 11th August 2016
Matthew's dark account of the Nativity contrast with Luke but they both focus on deprivation and suffering which should encourage is to empathise rather than emphasise difference.
Year A, Feast of the Holy Family; Added: 24th October 2007
Although we recognise that we cannot replicate the life of Jesus as the only full human being, we should lead self-critical lives as servants.
Year B, The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th October 2009
Samuel and Paul are key vocational figures respectively in the Old and New Testaments from whom we can learn that we all have a vocation.
The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 18th January 2010
If we think politics is too dangerous for Christians; it soon will be.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
One understanding of The Cross should not be held at the expense of all the others.
The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 12th May 2017
The history of the Chosen People and the promise of the Third Isaiah are sadly at odds; but whereas all will be saved, we have the assistance of God in Jesus and Jesus in the Eucharist.
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 30th September 2013
Two Lucan Parables: The Merciful Father
There is nothing we can do that will impair the Father's love
Added: 19th August 2021
Two Lucan Parables: Practical Morality
Loving one's neighbour is rather more practical than theoretical
Added: 19th August 2021
Most of us will not be asked to die for Christ but we should all live for him.
Added: 1st August 2019
We might be better thinking of what the entities of the Trinity do rather than what the Persons of the Trinity are.
Year B, Trinity Sunday; Added: 19th August 2021
Year C, Trinity Sunday; Added: 28th June 2023
Music can take us as near as we ever get in this world to the divine.
Added: 22nd March 2024
Our purpose is not to judge others but to carry the Good News to them.
The Forth Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 3rd February 2016
Words change their meaning through time (Vico) and those who do not accept this need to say when changes of meaning ceased. Reform and Mainstream are apparently rigid about meaning but question the Biblical meaning of church authority.
Year C, The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 25th January 2007
It is our Christian duty, as God's stewards, to organise the world for the benefit of the least advantaged.
Added: 15th January 2020
The rainbow represents God's Covenant with all of his people.
The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 14th May 2018
God's acts of creation and Resurrection are simultaneous, not sequential.
The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 17th March 2016
The doctrine of the virgin birth is less important than Mary's assent to be the Theotokos
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 15th January 2011
After an era of solidity, the 1960s brought a time of turbulence which persists and tempts us to nostalgia, just as the era of Jesus was nostalgic for David and Solomon; his listeners had not tools for recognising him; are our tools any better or do we rely on 'childish' religion?
Year A, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 27th March 2007
It is important to separate the literal from the allegorical in the Book of Revelation and to separate the iconography of the devil from the love of God.
The Twelth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st September 2011
Saint Paul cannot be easily characterised from a moral standpoint; ultimately he ranks love above moral judgement.
Year A, Peter and Paul, Apostles; Added: 14th July 2014
The image of the vine is incarnational; but being a vine requires faithfulness and suffering.
Year B, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 9th February 2007
Love is a better starting point than the Nicene Creed for an understanding of the Trinity.
Year A, Trinity Sunday; Added: 21st June 2011
Jesus' mission of love is now remembered in a church of fear; the image of God as a banker misunderstands God's fundamental purpose; no wonder it alienates so many. Matthew, Paul, Augustine and Luther were wrong on this point but that is because theology is a high risk business which must involve all of us.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 18th November 2008
Worship and kingdom building are symbiotic.
Added: 14th July 2014
In spite of our greatly increased knowledge of biology and psychology in the 20th Century we are still confounded by the border between sickness and sin.
Year C, The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 23rd June 2010
To be a servant is to offer unconditional service to Jesus.
Year A, Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 28th June 2023
The seduction of beauty is more dangerous than confrontational evil.
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th August 2014
At this time of financial hardship we should examine everything we keep and give instead of sticking to peer dictated packets of assistance
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th September 2010
We need to reclaim the wonder of Isaiah's promise
Year A, The Second Sunday of Advent; Added: 28th June 2023
The Revival of the Church Militant
Unless we revive the concept of the Church Militant we will become indistinguishable from our atheist critics.
Year B, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 12th December 2012
Isaiah 38.19-20 John 11.27-44
Year C, The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 1st August 2019
Behind Renaissance paintings of the Holy Family and contemporary glossy family photographs there lie some grim realities.
Year A, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 15th January 2011
The glory of god is part of the "real world".
Year C, The Sunday next before Lent; Added: 1st March 2016
Remembering Mary for what she actually was is quite enough.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 20th December 2016
A rainbow world needs a rainbow church.
Year B, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 8th March 2018
The problem with advent is that this time of quiet runs in parallel with the restless preparations for Christmas; the purple of the Church competes with the red of the superstore.
Year C, The Second Sunday of Advent; Added: 9th February 2007
The New Testament leper's story is relatively simple; but it is difficult being powerful and flawed, like Naaman. We think we are like the leper but we're more like Naaman.
Year B, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 6th March 2007
Isaiah and John Baptist are lighting pink candles amid the purple; getting ready we have the purple of penitence and the white of Christmas but also the secular red. Let us enjoy them and allow them to inform each other.
Year B, The Third Sunday of Advent; Added: 7th March 2007
We are not asked to behave like the merchant to obtain the Kingdom pearl; we must rank it higher in our daily lives.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Peace is not an absence nor an escape into emptiness, it is being open to the Spirit, imitating Jesus and making an unconditional offer to God. When we exchange The Peace it is not ours but the peace of the Cross.
Year C, The Sixth Sunday of Easter; Added: 24th October 2007
We have the Holy Spirit and enough earthly resources to emerge from the Coronavirus crisis.
Year A, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th June 2020
The Outrageous Demands of Jesus
Church attendance and obedience are not enough. What kind of "fishers of men" are we? We must witness in our daily lives and then we will better understand Isaiah's reply to the question: "Who shall I send?"
Year C, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 24th October 2007
The kind of wisdom we need is much more complex than that of Solomon.
Added: 18th November 2016
Can you remember the last time you held an intimate conversation about a big idea where you asked questions, listened and came away wiser?
Year A, The Second Sunday of Lent; Added: 20th February 2008
What if we are the mighty to be put down from their seats or the rich to be sent empty away?
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 31st December 2015
The message is the story, not the messenger.
Year B, The Third Sunday of Advent; Added: 29th February 2024
We might have to stop being the fudge church and be the Marmite church instead.
The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 15th January 2020
The crucified Jesus who hurts our heart is more important than the Jesus who inhabits theological libraries.
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday); Added: 17th March 2016
We must strike a balance between the power and the limits of enquiry.
Year C, The Twelth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th June 2023
In recent years there have been attempts to curtail competition because of its harmful effects on self esteem; but the problem is not competition but our attitudes to it. It is a part of our human nature but collaboration is often better. Jesus' love is unlimited but incomplete in us without our exercise of human love; in competition we must love the loser.
Year A, The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2008
The Transfiguration is more than a symbolic bridge between the Old and New Testaments.
Year B, The Sunday next before Lent; Added: 20th May 2021
Is prayer the last taboo? Prayer is the religious equivalent of going to the gym; it should be full of "lively hope"; but there is no connection between asking and receiving.
Year C, The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
Added: 25th September 2017
We need by embrace the foolishness of the Cross, put our light on a stand, and use salty speech to proclaim Christ.
Year A, The Forth Sunday before Lent; Added: 10th March 2014
The story of the Magi alerts us to our responsibility for the innocent and the exiled and after our encounter with Jesus we should, like Eliot's Magi, never again feel comfortable.
Year B, The Epiphany; Added: 19th January 2012
The conjunction of time and timelessness in the person of Jesus is one of Christianity's great mysteries.
Year A, Ascension Day; Added: 22nd March 2024
What we think of as timeless often encapsulates self interest
Year A, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 20th July 2011
Added: 18th January 2010
The problem of humility is that it can easily be inverted into pride.
Year B, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 10th October 2012
We are so accustomed to the culture of entitlement that it is difficult for us to see life as gift.
Year C, The Second Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st June 2013
In a paradoxical way, Dawkins is a gift to Christianity but we are failing to exploit our opportunity.
Added: 15th October 2009
Although Christians have their differences, the Gospel of salvation, the patient and generous Gospel, says that Jesus came to save the whole world.
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas); Added: 19th February 2009
We should concentrate on the fine detail of the Passion narratives as a necessary precondition for grasping their cosmic significance.
Monday of Holy Week; Added: 14th May 2018
Tuesday of Holy Week; Added: 14th May 2018
We should concentrate on the fine detail of the Passion narratives as a necessary precondition for grasping their cosmic significance.
Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 14th May 2018
The significance of the story of Joseph and Pharaoh's dream is that they prepared for the lean years; now that they have come to us we must put our Christian duty above our private interest.
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 19th July 2010
In the face of recent teenage murders, we are tempted to blame others; but 'outsiders' come from among us. Economic well being and social policy have failed to secure happiness. There will be calls for longer prison sentences and we must resist this but can only do so if we commit ourselves to engagement, love and sacrifice.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th July 2008
When we attend a Eucharist we need to have some idea of what is going on.
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th October 2018
If we accept that the Eucharist is part of our public mission and not simply an aid to our private piety, we will have made some progress along the missionary road which began with the passage of the Chosen People dry shod through the Red Sea.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 1st August 2019
The mystery of the Eucharist of liberation is a necessary, not an optional component of Christianity.
The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 12th May 2017
The dream of following Jesus has to be balanced with cruel reality.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 23rd January 2015
We should not, out of a sense of false humility, leave Christ's mission to others. As part of the human/divine economy, we are Christ's means of continuing his mission.
Year B, The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day); Added: 21st May 2012
The Disconnect between the Liturgy and the Contemporary
The prayers we say rarely relate to contemporary concerns.
Year C, The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 1st August 2019
The Apostles turned to Jesus in a crisis, as we often do; but prayer is not solely intercessory; we need to build up the discipline of prayer to bring us closer to the pulse of the heart of God.
Year B, The First Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
The crude bawling of John the Baptist contrasts with Johannine calm but, nonetheless, the Baptist died for his faith and we must stay faithful to our Creed.
Year A, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 19th February 2009
If we are to be fertile as the harvest of the Word of God we need to be grounded in the present.
Year C, The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st June 2013
The cosmic event of the Crucifixion emphasises our propensity for doing evil and God's unlimited capacity for doing good; and it is the Cross that binds the incarnation and Resurrection together. Salvation is for all mankind but Christians must pay what Bonhoeffer calls "The cost of discipleship".
The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 19th February 2009
One of the vital forces in society is our ability to turn imagination into reality; but this is nothing to God causing the Word to be made Flesh.
Year B, Sixth Sunday of the Year; Added: 19th February 2009
The Creator is in the world; The Spirit is in the Church; and the Jesus who was with us in Palestine is with us in Eucharist.
Year B, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th October 2006
The Concordance of Divine and Erotic Love
Because of a series of accidents, Christianity has sought to exercise control over erotic rather than economic behaviour and has frequently degenerated into dualism. Human and divine love (Eros and Agape) are symbiotic, if not isomorphic.
Laurence of Rome (Deacon, Martyr, 258); Added: 19th December 2008
Advancement of the Common Good depends upon our conduct and our language.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 20th May 2021
Our neighbour is the alien and the stranger; and we love, like the Trinity, like the three colours - red, green blue - which produce all the colours on television; in love we are different from but equal to God.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Before we can aspire to follow the exacting commands of the Sermon on the Mount we need to undergo a Christian Health check to enable us to develop our fitness.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 23rd February 2011
In order to pray, our Christian day-job, we need some skill as well as persistence.
Year C, The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity; Added: 13th November 2013
For the Christian, the price of love is eternal vigilance, prayer and sacrifice.
The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 13th July 2015
As Christians, instead of catastrophe theory (the butterfly flapping its wings) we have constructive practice because the Cross teaches us that every tiny decision we make affects the whole world.
Added: 24th October 2007
Added: 19th August 2021
Added: 19th August 2021
Added: 19th August 2021
Don't believe a word I say but find out for yourselves by reading The Bible.
Year A, The Second Sunday of Advent; Added: 20th December 2016
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
Humanity was responsible for the death of Christ; and Christ was responsible for giving himself in Eucharist.
Year A, Maundy Thursday; Added: 7th April 2008
Communities that avoid difficult issues are not communities at all.
Year A, The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 29th February 2024
During this week of sorrow we are asked to celebrate with joy the birth of the universal Church.
Tuesday of Holy Week; Added: 27th March 2007
We are all dwellings of the divine presence; Lent is a good time for spring cleaning before the Temple of Jesus rises from the dead.
Year B, The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 6th March 2007
Scripture tells us that we cannot opt out of politics.
Year A, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 29th February 2024
Of the great Reformation reformers, only Cranmer and Zwingli denied the real presence in the Eucharist in which Jesus under-wrote his physical reality. Reformation Protestantism tended to be dualist which accounts for it stance on the relative importance of incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Eucharist.
Year B, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th October 2006
The God of Love is worth a risk.
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th October 2016
The distinction between good and bad is not clear; when stewards act badly on our behalf the responsibility is ours.
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
The Passion and death of Jesus is a drama of vulnerability
Palm Sunday; Added: 23rd April 2011
Christianity should not be a safe haven but a difficult journey.
The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 14th May 2018
Holy Cross Sunday comes like Summer hail; it was the end of the blue skies by the lake and the journey to Jerusalem. In the return to Autumn routine we must take up our cross.
Year A, The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
It is wrong to apply the supposed certainty of science to the mystery of God.
Year C, The Sunday next before Lent; Added: 24th June 2020
The same quality that makes us strive makes us discontented but, unlike the Jews in the wilderness, we have been brought home in the Resurrection and fed with the Eucharist.
The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 9th February 2007
If it is so difficult to love strangers it makes sense to make them less strange.
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 6th July 2016
The Wise Men prostrated themselves before an infant; knowing what we know, we should prostrate ourselves before our Saviour.
Year A, The Epiphany; Added: 9th January 2017
Too often we simply repeat phrases about what Jesus has done for us without thinking them through.
The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 9th April 2015
To be true stewards of the earth we must protect the environment and enable social justice.
Added: 15th January 2020
We should be as thankful for Easter as we are for the late Spring.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th June 2013
Improbably though it may seem, Judy Garland's promise that happiness is "somewhere over the rainbow" is correct.
Year B, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 11th March 2015
Although we often see the world as hostile, our approach to it should not be like the weight lifter's snatch but should be more like taking part in a tug-of-war team.
The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 27th March 2007
We have the power to overcome our DNA and live for Jesus
Year A, Palm Sunday; Added: 24th June 2020
King David and Mary Magdalen, on one interpretation, an ex prostitute who sat at the feet of Jesus, are linked not by their sin but by their penitence.
Year C, The First Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
We may no longer believe in sin and the devil or a Sacrament of Reconciliation but it is so easy to slip away from our relationship with God and we need the corporate support of the church in facing up to penitence.
Year C, The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
Except for Martha and Mary, the women served and said nothing; from the time of his discovery among the elders of the Temple, Mary said little to a son who seemed difficult; but as she stood at the Cross, did she really know that something would happen?
Good Friday; Added: 27th March 2007
The recent move by the House of Bishops to refer the issue of women bishops to the whole General Synod shows how the simple division between sheep and shepherds no longer applies.
Year B, The Sixth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th October 2006
While we like to self-identify as shepherds we tend to behave like self-styled wise men.
Year A, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 29th February 2024
The metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep is only of limited value; we are called upon to exercise our consciences and Bishops should be more than 'Of Flock'.
Year B, The Sixth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 22nd July 2009
If our new church building is to be a power house of mission we must maintain a balance of public worship and private listening in the Spirit.
Year C, Pentecost (Whit Sunday); Added: 6th June 2013
The stories of Bathsheba and the anointing woman are linked by a spurious implication of female allurement and adultery; but they are really about power and exploitation.
Year C, The Second Sunday after Trinity; Added: 3rd September 2007
Sermons and Prayers for Lambeth
Reflections on the Forthcoming Lambeth Conference (2008)
Added: 15th July 2008
Jesus the gardener is interested in scrubby as well as opulent trees but his message only makes sense if we recognise that he has left us in charge of the garden.
Year C, The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 27th March 2007
Schism
Added: 25th September 2017
Just as creation and redemption are simultaneous, so are rejoicing and mourning at the Incarnation and Crucifixion
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 17th March 2016
We should not be concerned with our own salvation - God will take care of that - but with the salvation of others.
Year B, The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2022
If in nothing else we should be willing to follow in the saintly path of straight talking
Year C, All Saints' Day; Added: 28th June 2023
If we lose the Saints we might come to believe in money or, worse still, ourselves.
Year B, All Saints' Day; Added: 4th November 2015
Benedict, not the founder but the father of monasticism based on stability, reform of manners and obedience; but what we need to think about today is hospitality.
Benedict of Nursia (Abbot of Monte Cassino, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550); Added: 24th October 2007
The faith required at the end of the Sermon on The Mount is tough stuff, not to be confused with doctrine and its doubts. Faith is emptying ourselves out and recognising God working through us. Faith in God, not human sand, is the good foundation for a house.
Year A, The First Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
As Christians we must exceed legal requirements by exercising sacrificial love.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 29th February 2024
The sacred paradox of the vulnerability and glory of Jesus makes a nonsense of our simplicities.
Year C, The Sunday next before Lent; Added: 1st March 2016
Love is impossible in a perfect world.
The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 11th November 2014
If we lose our saints again we run the risk of believing in money, or even ourselves.
Year B, All Saints' Day; Added: 4th November 2015
Jesus died so that we could risk everything for love.
Year A, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 28th June 2023
Although the Resurrection irreversibly under-writes the promise of the heavenly kingdom, it must be understood as Christ rising within us if we are to realise our purpose of establishing God's Kingdom on earth.
Year C, Easter Day; Added: 14th April 2010
Today, simple choices are beyond us: sometimes we are Dives, sometimes Lazarus; we should never forget the power and wealth we have.
Year C, The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 8th March 2018
In keeping a balance between public and private worship our emphasis should be on the modesty of manna and not the richness of quails.
The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 3rd June 2015
We must reverse our culture of relentless incrementalism and increase our charitable giving, not least to our church.
Year C, The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 30th September 2013
As people of the promise we must keep our promises.
Harvest Festival; Added: 21st October 2020
Just as we need to balance the significance of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, we need to balance our shortcomings with the incommensurable plenitude of Christ.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday before Lent; Added: 24th October 2022
A Service of Thanksgiving and Celebration
Added: 29th February 2024
God's white light of grace passes through us to create earthly colours; the greater danger is not dirt but the contemporary tendency of selecting colours.
Year B, The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 13th November 2006
Church leaders who style themselves "Orthodox" or "Authentic" are endangering the "Anglican Spirit" of toleration by seeking to impose a high degree of confessional detail and oppression. Bishops should be shepherds not security guards. If we think of The Church as an aircraft, it will crash if we put operating procedures above ensuring that we have enough fuel, in the form of love, to stay airborne; all the instruments are on red.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 28th April 2008
Things are rarely as they seem and we should not confuse the caricature of the pantomime with real life.
Added: 18th November 2008
Re-Constituting The Royal Priesthood
Although the Church recognises that the harvest is great while the workers are few, it has become sclerotic and inward looking. The Lambeth Conference will only serve to show that the hierarchical model of church has broken down. We need to re-constitute the idea of Peter's "Royal Priesthood".
Year A, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 15th July 2008
We live in an unfocused, corrosive miasma of dislike so that our systems become toxic; so forgiveness is a self cleansing for which God has given us unlimited capacity.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Bishops who speak out against materialism are in a line going back to Samuel; but why do so few say anything? And do we support them or the politicians?
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 26th January 2009
We make promises for all kinds of reasons, sometimes sinful; and the readings contrast the shallowness of human promises with the depth of God's promise. Unlike Herod who couldn't deliver "anything you want" God can. We should concentrate on our own promises to God and not worry how well others appear to be keeping theirs.
Year B, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
Baptism is a privilege which confers the responsibility for proclaiming the good news of Christ
Year A, The Second Sunday of Advent; Added: 28th June 2023
If practice does not emerge from Principle then the principle is worth nothing.
Added: 1st August 2019
Although we are tempted to live in a state of nostalgia and fear of the future, hope calls on us to live for the present.
Year B, The Second Sunday before Advent; Added: 18th November 2009
We are all flawed and God knows best but prayer should still be argumentative.
Year C, The Eighth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 3rd September 2007
The point on the axis of time over which we have most control is the present.
Year A, The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 29th February 2024
We must always exercise power lovingly
Added: 21st October 2020
Power without service is hollow; Ezekiel and Matthew both show that the powerful must serve; and as subjects we should worship God as brothers and sisters of King Jesus.
Year A, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 7th March 2007
The best yardstick for making political judgments is the Magnificat.
The Second Sunday before Advent; Added: 15th January 2020
We must turn the assertion in the Lord's Prayer that the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory belong to Jesus into social reality.
The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 15th January 2020
Pouring Cold Water on the Flames
The Holy Spirit sustains us so that our initial passion can be transformed into a long-term relationship with God.
The Sixth Sunday of Easter; Added: 14th May 2018
Postmodernism and the Death of Doctrine
Steve Hollinghurst's exposition of Christianity in a Postmodern age presages the end of doctrine and priesthood; it certainly means the end of most church buildings. If we are to succeed in mission we must appeal to personal experience and get free of doctrinal red tape.
The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 19th December 2008
Properly understood, 'political correctness' is essential in a fair society but love must go much further.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 23rd February 2011
We must learn to understand better the causes of war and to pray for peace.
Year A, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 7th January 2014
There is humour in Isaiah's observation that we can't fool god; so it is better to get on with the hard work of being humble, not judging but offering ourselves in personal kenosis.
Year C, The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 23rd June 2010
Superficial forgiveness helps no-one. We must know the pain and work from there, probably with friends, to a holistic forgiveness, knowing we are sinners and that Christ is in each of us.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
The Feast of the Trinity is not an occasion for thinking about doctrine but for contemplating God's perfect love and our part in it.
Year A, Trinity Sunday; Added: 21st June 2011
We should see penitence and hope as integral to each other as we prepare to greet Jesus as our earthly guest
The Third Sunday of Advent; Added: 5th January 2010
When Mary broke open the jar of ointment she was breaking open all her pent up richness and poverty.
Monday of Holy Week; Added: 6th March 2007
The pandemic experience should make us a more loving community
Year B, Sixth Sunday of the Year; Added: 20th May 2021
The usual meaning of passion in the context of Jesus is his endurance; but he was passionate, too, as we must be.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 19th March 2013
We need to break out of our intellectual paralysis and go exploring.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday before Lent; Added: 28th June 2023
We may be capable in our own eyes but not in the eyes of God
The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 12th May 2017
At this time of crisis we regret our ability to see emerging paradigms; the Disciples suffered similarly when they went through the Holy Week experience.
Year B, Maundy Thursday; Added: 17th April 2009
We must strive to make living the socio economic Gospel painfully continuous rather than spasmodically gratifying.
Year C, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 18th November 2016
If Bregman's thesis that we are fundamentally good is correct, it alters our whole doctrinal framework.
Year A, The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day); Added: 24th June 2020
As we come out of our exile, we must be careful to put the communal above the private.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Advent; Added: 20th May 2021
The institutional church has tended to hijack the Holy Spirit as its own private property.
Year A, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 7th April 2008
We should not only tell the story of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday but also in the depths of Winter.
The Forth Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 3rd February 2016
It is more helpful to think about what God in Trinity has done for us rather than trying to formulate in human language what God is.
Year B, Trinity Sunday; Added: 12th June 2012
We need The Spirit within us to give us the courage we need to come closer to our dying king.
Year C, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 26th November 2010
The perfection of Jesus is a yardstick against which to judge our instinct for war.
Added: 13th November 2018
If the agony and triumph of Jesus do not grace us with a new resolve; we are lost.
Added: 12th May 2017
The problem of a Trinity that embodies the union of the timeless and the historic presents linguistic problems
Year C, Trinity Sunday; Added: 28th June 2023
John's "New Commandment", driven by the Holy Spirit within Peter, brings about a revolution, the recognition that non Jews can be Christians. Grace is our means of living the Commandment, in spite of the deluge of temptation.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 24th October 2007
The empty tomb 'asks' us to think of love as the creation of space for otherness.
Easter Day; Added: 28th April 2011
The ultimate Schadenfreude of Maundy Thursday 'asks' us to live in the present pain and leave ourselves open to hope.
Maundy Thursday; Added: 28th April 2011
As Jesus was "on the edge" between failure and disaster in obedience to his Father, so must we be vulnerable in our faith in imitation of him.
Palm Sunday; Added: 23rd April 2011
I believe, like those before Saint Augustine, and like Henri de Lubac, that we are the body of Christ.
Added: 20th August 2015
Unlike Shakespeare, The Bible isn't interested in psychology but in the relationship between the Creator and creatures.
Added: 18th November 2016
On the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman
The life and witness of John Henry Newman should act as a spur to our own efforts.
Added: 24th September 2010
As stewards of creation we must treat the world as a precious gift.
Year A, The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 10th March 2014
The Incarnation is the most important statement ever made about the nature of man and his duty to carry out Christ's mission.
Added: 25th September 2017
Love is not just about saying and doing but involves the self being vulnerable to the other.
The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 14th May 2018
To be saved and to do good are the twin twined strands of who we are which cannot be untwined until the Kingdom is established on earth as it is in heaven.
Harvest Festival; Added: 7th October 2016
Justice without sacrifice is impossible.
The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 2nd February 2015
It is not just the refugees who are asking the question, it is Jesus.
Year B, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 2nd October 2015
Although civic justice is an inevitable consequence of imperfection, Christian justice is reserved to God. We should resist calls for ever more punitive sentences. Although we are privately kind, we are often publicly punitive, even though we are not righteous of ourselves but only through God.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th July 2008
To proclaim Christ we must focus on public rather than private behaviour.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 10th March 2014
The only check on our pride is the inevitability of death.
Added: 25th September 2017
Service for Prayers of the Faithful: Our form of prayer, the Intercessory, must take its proper place alongside adoration, thanksgiving and contrition.
Added: 13th November 2013
We are all watched and watchers, prying and private, but our relationship with God should take place on open, broken ground.
Year C, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th August 2010
Matthew's story of the Talents bases our behaviour on fear and greed rather than on love. This strand of theology, elevated by Paul and Augustine, sees humanity as fundamentally corrupt, as opposed to the view of Aquinas that we are fundamentally good. Sebastian Moore poses questions in the context of desire and love which force us to ask where we stand.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 18th November 2008
As Christians we need to recognise that love, the unconditional reception of otherness, is much more than caring.
Year A, The Baptism of Christ (The First Sunday of Epiphany); Added: 10th March 2014
The language of God is difficult but we have Jesus to make all things clear.
Year A, The Baptism of Christ (The First Sunday of Epiphany); Added: 10th March 2014
It is easier to understand the "Two natures, one person" formulation if we begin with the standpoint that it is in our nature to do good rather than to be corrupt because then we can more readily come to terms with Christmas human nature.
Year B, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 9th January 2009
Religion is too separated from life.
Year B, The Epiphany; Added: 29th February 2024
Forgiveness is, in a way, the only thing required of us but without faith it is impossible.
Year C, The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th October 2016
The doctrine of eternal damnation raises some profound theological questions which we should not evade.
Year A, The Twelth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
As Easter children we should not withhold the good news.
The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 20th June 2014
We do not need to get heavier about our Christianity, but we do need to get more serious.
Year B, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 19th August 2021
We have separated church and state both by saying that religion and politics do not mix and by accepting the 'privatisation' of religion and ethics, narrowing the latter largely to biological issues and exempting finance from ethics. We must turn back to God (as the Jews did when times get hard) but we must not only accept the balance of Jesus' proposition, we must restore to God things we have recently rendered to Caesar.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2008
Although Lawrence is best known for his supposed good humour as he was being roasted to death, his exemplary life of service as a Deacon, Sacristan and librarian, culminated in his decapitation as an act of loyalty to his brother The Pope. We should heed his example, committing ourselves to Christian service, not relying on secular liberalism.
Laurence of Rome (Deacon, Martyr, 258); Added: 24th October 2008
The least we can do for the oppressed and for ourselves as the oppressed in waiting, is to refuse to collude in our own downfall.
Added: 20th February 2008
We are all sinners and we will all be saved. What more can we want?
Added: 17th July 2017
We have lost our understanding of interceding through the Saints and praying for the dead but they both have their value.
Year C, All Saints' Day; Added: 18th November 2016
Of Pride and Humility (Part 3)
As the result of pride we have catastrophically tarnished the world God created for us and only with humility can we understand the "foolishness" of the Cross.
Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 14th April 2010
Of Pride and Humility (Part 2)
As the result of pride we have catastrophically tarnished the world God created for us and only with humility can we understand the "foolishness" of the Cross.
Tuesday of Holy Week; Added: 14th April 2010
Of Pride and Humility (Part 1)
As the result of pride we have catastrophically tarnished the world God created for us and only with humility can we understand the "foolishness" of the Cross.
Monday of Holy Week; Added: 14th April 2010
It is not that our moral behaviour is insignificant in itself but that it is compared with the saving act of the Incarnate God.
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th October 2016
Although we often think of contemporary art as self indulgent, in thinking about a prophetic church we can learn from its self-criticism.
Year C, The Second Sunday of Lent; Added: 5th March 2010
The obsession with detail is less dangerous than the obsession with generalisation but both are manifestations of pride.
Philip and James, Apostles; Added: 6th May 2016
As Easter People we are not sheep but shepherds in the tradition of Peter.
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 24th October 2022
To be Incarnational in our theology is to become involved in the untidiness, pain and sacrifice which Jesus, as God, demands of us. There is no way out.
Added: 25th September 2017
Year A, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 12th May 2011
The twin liberations of the Exodus and the Resurrection will not be followed by a divine intervention in a catastrophe of our own making.
Added: 24th June 2020
Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea
In the face of oppressive orthodoxy Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea helped but was it enough; and what did they think would happen after the burial?
Good Friday; Added: 27th March 2007
Although we like stories to be chronological, our salvation story is not.
The First Sunday of Advent; Added: 30th December 2015
Never Let the Cross Be a Cliché
It is too easy to let the idea of the Cross become a cliché.
The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 9th April 2015
Our trouble is that we think we are the New Testament leper and are superior about Naaman; what matters is how we come to God, how we maintain our faith and are prepared to make sacrifices; but, remember, for all his poor behaviour, Naaman was cured.
Year B, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 6th March 2007
We are part of God's self sufficiency.
The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 2nd October 2015
Quintessentially, we are not sinners but struggling people who need encouragement.
Year A, The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 29th February 2024
One model of the Crucifixion should be held to the exclusion of all others
The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 12th May 2017
We have lost the physical and psychological shape of the seasons; we have lost the Austen parsonage and ancient controversies; and taking up our cross is different when we do not personally suffer as our forebears did; but preserving moral integrity has become more difficult.
Year A, The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
It does not matter what our picture is of being saved as long as Christ is at the centre of it; and that it is collective.
Year B, Palm Sunday; Added: 20th May 2021
What we are preparing to celebrate is the birth of the world's Messiah.
The First Sunday of Advent; Added: 16th December 2013
The egocentricity of self is embraced within the mystery of our createdness.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 14th April 2010
Praxis is better than exegesis, to love rather than to write about it. We are better than we think: only if we love all creation; if love is corporate; and if it embraces fusion and creating space for the beloved.
Added: 24th February 2009
It is more important to focus on what happens at the Sacrament of the Eucharist rather than how it happens.
Added: 20th August 2015
The parable of the vineyard tells us about the difference between justice and fairness; and asks us to consider whether in our society we are hired labourers or masters.
Year A, The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st September 2011
Although Mary was taking a terrible risk when she responded to God, she responded, as we should, not in fear but in love. We can only understand her radicalism when we recognise the radicalism of The Word.
Year B, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 23rd December 2008
Mary is the icon of the potential of Christ her son’s redeeming grace; the Spirit is always with her.
Mary and the Holy Spirit; Added: 27th March 2007
Protestant dualism and 'election' rule out saints but this confronts the conclusion of the Nicene Creed and presents Mary as an anomaly.
The Blessed Virgin Mary (The Assumption of Our Blessed Lady into Heaven); Added: 8th September 2009
Much of what we believe is a mystery but much of what we should do is ignored.
Added: 27th October 2018
Although it is my favourite prayer, I sometimes wish we stopped saying the Magnificat to spare us the hypocrisy.
Added: 27th October 2018
Whether Jesus was born of a virgin is a marginal issue compared with Mary's example of humility and commitment to social justice.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 7th January 2014
We should compose our lives such that we can say the Magnificat with a clear conscience.
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 24th October 2022
Mary's prayer for socio economic justice is not aspirational but intrinsic to her obedience.
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 31st December 2015
The Pauline view of 'the fall' and the Augustinian view of 'original sin' can be balanced by a view of humanity as created imperfect in order to choose to love.
Year A, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 16th March 2011
In the context of the European Union Referendum, what message was Paul bringing to Lydia and her ladies?
Year C, The Sixth Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th May 2016
There are no half measures in the writings of Saint Luke.
Luke the Evangelist; Added: 20th October 2015
It is not easy to remain constant in the love of God and we should not look for "signs" to support us but always keep the Resurrection in view.
Year B, The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 24th October 2007
Lovely Luke and Murderous Matthew
In our era of political violence and mass migration, we need a little more of murderous Matthew and a little less of Lovely Luke.
Year A, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 7th January 2014
Propitiation and philosophy are not enough; in our contemporary crisis of trust we need to recognise that love is our spiritual DNA.
Year B, The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 23rd March 2009
The commonest Christian heresy is that the spiritual is higher than the physical: creation is The Father's sacrament; The Church is The Son's Sacrament; and love between humans is The Sacrament of The Spirit.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Even though we have unprecedented control over our lives, we are prone to victimhood. We have devalued the word "love"; Jesus died because of who he was and what we are; he was a victim of his own love. We are still chopping down the tree and forging the nails.
Added: 24th October 2007
True love requires more than care, it requires openness to the beloved.
Year C, The First Sunday after Trinity; Added: 6th June 2013
The real opposite of love is not hate but power which is often exercised in the name of the good. We must imperfectly imitate the unconditional kenosis of Jesus as the epitome of human love.
Year B, The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 5th May 2012
Ancient learning involved dissecting text rather than comparing texts. The 'Enlightenment' down-plays the reality of mystery and the primacy of love.
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 13th November 2006
How would we feel if the Government enacted tough new laws on asylum seekers? It is the people we despise most that Jesus loved most. Justice is not good enough; we must love and serve.
Year B, The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th October 2006
The way we should love each other, according to Jesus, is radically different from our society's understanding of love.
Added: 24th October 2022
Community building is not a choice, it is a Christian obligation
Added: 21st October 2020
Self satisfaction with a God we have tamed requires radical measures.
Added: 25th September 2017
If we cannot learn to live among the tares we will perish.
The Second Sunday before Advent; Added: 23rd November 2018
The Parable of the Banquet calls for us to be much more engaged by living for the moment.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th October 2011
The events on the road to Emmaus and the makeshift meal there is living evidence of our life in Christ.
The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 12th May 2017
Literal and Literary Biblical Interpretation
There is a long tradition in the English Speaking world of viewing The AV Bible as great literature which contrasts with a requirement that it be understood literally. The accounts of Solomon and a baby and one of Peter's trials can be read at many levels. We should compare a theory of theological stasis with Newman's organic model.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th July 2008
There is a time to speak but more frequently a time to stay silent
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th June 2023
Our commitment to Christ has to be lived through Self-control and generosity, and through self-control and openness to the Holy Spirit.
Year C, The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 24th October 2022
Simeon knew that bringing light into the world would mean suffering and death for Jesus; it is because of this light that we are here now.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday); Added: 6th March 2008
The Apostolic concept of heaven is closer to the truth than our neo-gnostic suspicions of the body.
Year B, The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 12th November 2012
It is easier for us to impose our standards on Jesus than it is for him to impose his on us.
Added: 25th September 2017
The financial crisis is no cause for Christian triumphalism; we have all subscribed to a liberalism expected to achieve social justice without sacrifice; and if we doubt our obligation to achieve it we are worse than Thomas.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 22nd April 2009
The craving for power is the chief enemy of our relationship with God.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 22nd May 2014
We know more about the pragmatic Martha and fanciful Mary than their brother who died, was raised and then threatened by the religious authorities.
Monday of Holy Week; Added: 27th March 2007
The Law was not made by men but given on Mount Sinai; as Fragments of Jesus, in observing it we should not care what other people think, particularly in acting kindly.
Year C, The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
The Lamb of God did not take away the sins of the world but put sin back into its proper divine perspective.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 21st January 2008
We must be careful not to reverse Kohima so that we sacrifice the tomorrow of our grandchildren for our today.
Added: 13th November 2018
It is dangerous to confuse what we know about our own wishes with what we do not know about 'God's wishes'; that mistake has led to the Church's undue exercise of power, particularly in sexual matters.
Year A, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 19th February 2009
Knowing Where Your Off-Stump Is
There are extreme dangers in the entanglement of Christianity with political power; and, as we cannot avoid this, we must take care.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 24th January 2011
I prefer kings to wise men but our generation likes celebrity; but it both blunts are concern for the victims of arbitrary power; and distances us from wisdom. We are not suffering from compassion fatigue as passion fatigue and we confuse cleverness with wisdom. We need to stay in touch with the mystery of the God made child.
Year B, The Epiphany; Added: 6th March 2007
Luke's characters, like us, often do the right things for the wrong reasons but they are thankful, as we must be.
Year C, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 26th November 2010
There are more than two keys to the Kingdom.
Year A, The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
The pragmatic approach to moral behaviour is, at the very least, less helpful than basing behaviour on the concept of love.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 24th November 2014
Unlike the high profile leadership of Samuel, most of us are called to the quiet ministry of Philip and Nathaniel. If we think that the current economic crisis has nothing to do with us and the Church, we are denying the incarnation.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 26th January 2009
As Christians we must be careful to distinguish our religious from our civil duties in the face of fierce controversy about recent disturbances; and we must start with ourselves.
Added: 15th September 2011
Judas and Victorian Triumphalism
Judas had earthly ambitions for Jesus; do not we also hanker after the apparent Church glory of the Victorian era; perhaps we are now in need of going back to a 1st Century mind-set.
Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 27th March 2007
Judas & Peter: Fraud and Self Delusion
The denial of Judas is more stark than that of Peter but often self delusion is as dangerous as outright wrong.
Tuesday of Easter Week; Added: 27th March 2007
The lengthening of the eschatological horizon lowers the intensity of religion but we should live in joyful hope.
Year B, The Third Sunday of Advent; Added: 6th March 2007
The post pandemic situation poses some massive problems which we must face with courage and joy.
Year A, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
Journeys by Night: Nicodemus and Judas
Nicodemus came in from the dark to Jesus; Judas went the other way. They respectively held views on law and power which Jesus rejected in favour of love.
Year A, The Second Sunday of Lent; Added: 30th March 2011
In order to be the leaven in a post Christian society we need to understand the meaning of our journey's end.
The First Sunday after Trinity; Added: 14th July 2014
The journey from calling to fulfilment should be based round worship.
Year C, The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day); Added: 6th June 2013
Proper 12 to Proper 16: The 'bread talk' of John Chapter 6 raises fundamental questions about the interface of the human and the divine in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Year B, The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th July 2012
Proper 14: Medieval theologians struggled heroically with the mechanics of the Eucharist but we might do better to focus on the mystery.
Year B, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th July 2012
Proper 16: It is difficult to see how believers in the Incarnation cannot accept the mystery of Christ given to the world in bread and wine.
Year B, The Twelth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th July 2012
Proper 12: If the mass feeding by Jesus is construed in Eucharistic typology, it presents Catholics and Protestants with difficult questions
Year B, The Eighth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 23rd July 2012
Proper 15: We are not the triumphalist elect of the Eucharist but its ambassadors to the whole world.
Year B, The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th July 2012
Proper 13: The interface between the human and the divine in the gift of manna and the Eucharist inevitably causes turbulence.
Year B, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th July 2012
In order to understand Jesus the Priest and King we must first understand him as our Prophet.
Year C, The Second Sunday of Lent; Added: 5th March 2010
Christianity is the religion of the first person, not in boasting but in affirmation. Our great prayers are written this way. Matthew's Sermon the Mount is "they" whereas Luke's on The Plain is "you".
Year C, Sixth Sunday of the Year; Added: 12th February 2007
Although we are too sophisticated to put our wealth on a pedestal and tuck Jesus away where he can't be seen, we are very good at finding reasons to hang on to what we have got.
Year C, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 8th August 2013
We have marginalised Jesus such that we determine who will be saved and we ignore his mission; we are in danger of imprisoning him in the Church.
Added: 1st August 2019
If we concentrate too much on "in the beginning" and "ever shall be" we lose the dynamic presence of the Trinity in our lives.
Year B, Trinity Sunday; Added: 9th February 2007
If Christ is our Temple we must individually and collectively invest our lives in Christ.
The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 12th May 2017
Integrity is not the same as consistency. Judas saw Jesus as the Grand Old Duke of York whereas he wanted a ruthless and consistent line.
Tuesday of Holy Week; Added: 6th March 2007
Deuteronomy asks questions about our harsh criminal and social justice stance.
The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 14th July 2014
When you go into the voting booth give the Holy Spirit some time and space before you make your cross.
Pentecost (Whit Sunday); Added: 23rd June 2017
Bolstered by our private joys near the end of the lock-down, we need to be brave in the public sphere in the name of Jesus.
Year A, The Second Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th June 2020
We should make all our moral decisions, particularly those which are public and collective, in the Light of God.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 23rd January 2015
There is a point at which it is dishonest not to mix religion and politics; and we have reached it over the inequality issue.
Year C, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 5th February 2013
We can only survive in our pride as complex images of ourselves but in Jesus we can be simple.
Year C, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 8th August 2013
We tend to be sentimental about the family, confining our care to what is ours; but the Holy Family offers a more radical template.
Year C, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 5th January 2010
There were very good reasons why people changed their minds between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.
Year A, Palm Sunday; Added: 25th March 2008
It is almost always best to leave well, and not so well, alone; we are here to plant not harvest.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th August 2014
The point of Christian Aid Week is not only to give but to give unconditionally so that, in renouncing our power and aspiring to humility, we achieve greater happiness.
Added: 18th May 2010
Humility means putting ourselves in a right relationship with God, recognising we can do nothing of ourselves; Judas got his relationship with Jesus out of proportion.
Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 6th March 2007
It's more important to break bread than to count loaves, there are many specific things we can do for Chile but recognising it as part of our world is the most important.
Added: 8th March 2011
How long must the poor of the world wait for us to settle our internal differences?
Year C, The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 24th October 2022
Getting ready for Christmas we tend to indulge in a degree of homely muddle but that's all right as long as we remember the essential message of the Incarnation.
Added: 15th January 2011
We might better describe ourselves not as a sinful but as a suffering people
Year A, Palm Sunday; Added: 28th June 2023
The purpose of the kingly metaphor is that it points us beyond ourselves to the limitless mystery of God; The Kingdom is not an escape from earth but a lifelong embracing of it.
Year B, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 9th February 2007
We have to face social and economic injustice head-on.
Added: 1st August 2019
This sermon was presented in an informal format to children, not as written here.
Added: 15th October 2009
When we judge others, as we must not, it not only harms them but also us.
Year A, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 20th July 2011
Our paradigm of the inward looking family blunts our capacity for mission.
The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 11th January 2019
In spite of our individual and collective sins, happiness is a natural state because we have been saved from Sin.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 13th February 2017
We never know how matters will turn out when God calls us; but if we remain faithful it will end happily ever after.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 19th January 2012
After centuries of theological grandstanding and cynical neglect, Mary is again with us in our Century of need.
The Blessed Virgin Mary (The Assumption of Our Blessed Lady into Heaven); Added: 2nd September 2010
Our consciousness that we fall short should be tempered by the certain hope of the Resurrection which shines out like a rising sun behind the blackened wood of the cross.
Year B, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 8th March 2018
Food storage and the accumulation of income and wealth place new obligations on Christian stewardship.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 9th February 2007
The assent to the conception of Jesus is more important than the mechanics; what is important for us is that Mary and Joseph took an immense risk for what they believed.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 19th January 2008
Although there is no harm in thinking about the 'after-life', we are better off concentrating on loving God and each other in his Kingdom on Earth.
Year B, The Second Sunday before Advent; Added: 18th November 2009
Coronation Sunday
Added: 28th June 2023
We do not have to wait for God, for God is with us now.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday); Added: 22nd March 2024
The poor and the disadvantaged lack the strength to claim their God given rights from the rich and powerful. Which are we?
The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 8th March 2018
We need to give beyond what is comfortable but there is no giving without taking; we must be brave for Christ but vulnerable to him.
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
Three rules; retain goods if this enables our better lives; learn some economics of cause and effect; take the issue personally.
Year C, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 3rd September 2007
We need to develop a culture of thankfulness.
Year C, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th June 2023
We need simplicity, restraint and courage to spread the good news.
Year C, The Epiphany; Added: 9th January 2017
Fruits of the Spirit: Love (2)
Undergoing hardship is not only part of our human condition it is our way of imperfectly imitating Jesus.
Added: 1st August 2019
Fruits of the Spirit: Love (1)
For the Christian, love of God and love of neighbour are necessarily inseparable.
Added: 1st August 2019
Love is frightening without the solid foundation of faith and the beckoning of hope.
All Saints' Day; Added: 29th February 2024
Christianity is concerned with human as well as 'spiritual' freedom.
Added: 19th August 2021
Forgiving is a necessary precondition for forgetting.
Year A, The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th September 2014
We must resist the temptation of speaking on behalf of God and be fools for Christ.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 24th November 2014
At least if we are not called upon, like Saint Barnabas, to die for Christ, at least we should be prepared to be fools for him.
Barnabas the Apostle (Saint Barnabas the Apostle); Added: 20th November 2018
The Church lacks radical leadership and a sense of unworldliness.
Year C, The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st June 2013
Loving and following Jesus are inseparable.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 6th July 2016
The precariousness and warmth of the candle in contrast to the light bulb causes us to think about our creatureliness.
Year C, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas); Added: 5th February 2010
The solid bourgeoisie are always gong to be at the back of the queue for heaven behind the poor and needy and the only way to improve our place it to serve them.
Year B, The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th October 2006
It's what we do, not what we talk about, that counts.
Year B, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 2nd October 2015
We need to be careful what claims we make for doctrine.
The Forth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday); Added: 17th March 2016
What sets us apart as Christians is that God in Jesus has told us to pursue his mission of social and economic justice.
Added: 13th October 2017
We should fear God but not be frightened, for with our hardship comes is mercy.
Added: 20th May 2021
We should not sentimentalise the Holy Family but should think of it as a unit bent on obeying the will of God for a better world.
The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 11th January 2019
The nearest thing to the Resurrection experience is falling in love.
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 24th October 2022
Thought must be the servant of faith, not vice versa.
Added: 27th October 2018
The Transfiguration is an account of continuity, transcendence and the human/divine relationship.
Year B, The Sunday next before Lent; Added: 27th February 2012
Ezra and the concept of the Messiah
The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 15th January 2020
Mary's role in the Incarnation should be seen through her own eyes.
Year B, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 20th December 2011
Let this be the year when we try something new.
Year A, The Epiphany; Added: 28th June 2023
Our culture values heroic persistence but how far do we take this in our relationship with God?
Year C, The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2010
Added: 24th October 2022
Reformation theology and social conservatism have down-graded the Eucharist
Year B, Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 20th May 2021
The central issue about the Eucharist is not what it is but what it does.
Year B, Maundy Thursday; Added: 20th May 2021
We have our Bible and Creeds, but we are defined by our Sacraments.
Added: 19th August 2021
While reaching the truth may be complex being true to ourselves is difficult but simple.
Year C, The First Sunday of Christmas; Added: 24th October 2022
It is important to concentrate on the centrality of Christianity, on love and salvation.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th May 2016
Solomon chose the essential of wisdom; the merchant gave up all for a pearl; in the search for our 'pearl' of the kingdom we have sacrifices to make but we are not alone; we have God and each other.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
Our experience of Word and Sacrament will be enriched if we remember they were performed on the day of the Resurrection.
The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th May 2016
The plight of contemporary Egypt raises theoretical and practical questions for Western Christians.
Added: 10th March 2014
Earthly Goodness and the Kingdom
We must make a radical separation between our earthly conduct and our ultimate relationship with God as the first has no effect on the second.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Lent; Added: 30th March 2011
We do not know the nature of the heavenly life but working to establish Goo's Kingdom on earth is a necessary precondition.
Year C, The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day); Added: 18th May 2010
One way of understanding the dynamic of the Trinity is to try and imagine it with one 'person' missing.
Year B, Trinity Sunday; Added: 9th February 2007
We need to think much more carefully of our Church rather than thinking of it as a cultural entity.
Added: 1st August 2019
God the Creator and Jesus God in History always keep their promises
Year C, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 1st August 2019
We seem reluctant to take the Resurrection at its face value and see it only as a promise of our own ethereal life.
Year A, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 22nd May 2014
The contemporary discussion about free access to the NHS by "medical tourists" throws the story of the Good Samaritan into sharp relief.
Year C, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 8th August 2013
As Disciples we should be forgiving, tolerant and supportive of each other.
Added: 1st August 2019
As the Chosen People the Jews necessarily had a problem with difference; but we are equal before God in the power of the Good News.
Year B, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 9th February 2007
As individuals and a church we must strain every fibre not to judge others
Year A, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 20th July 2011
Remember God, remember yourselves before you made your straight ways crooked, remember love.
Year C, The Second Sunday of Advent; Added: 9th February 2007
Behaving well is not only prudent; it is also an intrinsic part of being a Christian.
Added: 20th August 2015
If our cardinal virtue of solidarity fails to be robust we must take Christian action to be less daunted by the lilies of the field.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 19th May 2011
As created in God's image we may not dance in the aisles but we should dance in our hearts.
The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 1st March 2017
Belief is not set in stone, it takes account of growth and experience but in the 'combat' with science we have adopted some scientific method; belief is provisional, subject to doubt and must be discussed in charity.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th March 2007
As we were not walking to Emmaus when Jesus taught nor sitting at the table when he broke bread we must be humble about the meaning of Scripture and the Eucharist.
Added: 24th June 2020
Creationtide 3: On Civil Disobedience
The Christian may be forced into civil disobedience as a last resort.
Added: 21st October 2020
Creationtide 2: Where We Are Now - Fire and Ice.
Even if we do not believe that human activity affects the climate, things are so bad that we should apply the precautionary principle.
Added: 21st October 2020
Creationtide 1: How We Got Here
It is difficult to reconcile competitive liberal capitalism with following Jesus.
Added: 21st October 2020
The arc of Scripture spans salvation history from an innocent to a knowing relationship with God.
Year A, The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 10th March 2014
Our peculiar burden is to be unflinchingly open hearted and open minded in the face of human failure and intolerance. Goodness can be the most seductive sin of all.
Year B, The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 13th November 2006
The Ascension is one of the great instances of 'cosmic traffic' between heaven and earth.
Year C, Ascension Day; Added: 24th May 2016
The duty of commendation brings the departed closer to us.
Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day); Added: 13th November 2013
Homecomings are not always as joyful as our anticipations, except in coming home to God.
Year C, The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 5th February 2013
Christianity is not a religion of childish supplication but is relational
Year C, The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 11th August 2016
The Kingdom is not built with personal piety but with collective will.
The Second Sunday of Easter; Added: 14th May 2018
Our sense of our self-worth is a bar to humility.
Year C, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 26th February 2013
At the Ascension the torch passed on from the Creator to the Redeemer is passed on from the Redeemer to the Sanctifier and us in the co-production of the building of the God's Kingdom on earth.
Year B, Ascension Day; Added: 21st May 2012
What counted to Elisha and Paul still counts for us more than anything else; and that is our personal relationship with God.
Year A, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 15th September 2011
Although achieving social justice may be complex, it will not be achieved unless we start from a principled position in which we truly believe.
Year A, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 28th November 2011
Church and Mission in a Postmodern World
Mission is not primarily concerned with outsiders but with the people we know and it needs to be based on Word and Sacrament not doctrinal tidiness; and this means taking seriously Peter's concept of the "Royal Priesthood". People do not want to know what we believe but how God has changed our lives. To succeed we will need to understand better The Holy Spirit within us.
The Forth Sunday before Advent; Added: 19th December 2008
A distinction needs to be drawn between Christian art and the Christian view of art. Attitudes to art largely reflect attitudes towards the relationship between the divine and human: one model portrays humanity as 'inferior' to God whereas the other considers this to be a category error bordering on idolatry and looks at incarnational humanity as fundamentally creative. Although much art is necessarily concerned with love and death, a large corpus deals with suffering; and for this reason we should occasionally rejoice.
Added: 24th October 2008
Richard Harries reminds us that a Christian ethic is one which responds to God's self disclosure in Jesus; this is a much more developed response that that required in Isaiah III. How did we respond to Jesus when economic times are good and have we changed our position now they are bad? The response, in turning back to Jesus, must be personal; we are not detached from the society which has acclaimed greed as a public virtue but now wants regulators not personal responsibility to sort out the problems.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2008
Knowing what we know, being able to put all the post Resurrection pieces together, seen through fiery Pentecostal prism, how can we fail to respond?
Year B, Easter Eve; Added: 17th April 2009
Paul persisted in collecting even though he knew he would be more resented than thanked by the Jerusalem establishment.
Added: 15th January 2020
Our commonality is that we were made in the image of God but each of us is different.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 22nd May 2014
We have three reasons for celebrating Christ The King: His unconditional love for us; our thankful re-dedication of all that we have done in the last year; and our anticipation of The Kingdom.
Year B, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 24th October 2007
We are not innocently caught between the greedy bankers and the undeserving poor; we have a role to play in the debate about Government cuts which involves personal sacrifice.
Year C, The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 9th October 2010
Peter represents our bravery and our fear; and we, like him, will be carried into the boat by Jesus.
Year A, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity; Added: 15th August 2011
Tradition should inform but not dictate
Year A, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas); Added: 28th June 2023
The saints not only tell us about God but also about ourselves.
All Saints' Day; Added: 8th March 2018
One of Christianity's major flaws is the tendency to think of earthly life as an ante room to heaven; but we must build the God's Kingdom now.
Year B, The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 19th January 2012
The twin purposes of our creation are to worship God and build the Kingdom.
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 15th January 2020
If we are to rebuild the church, it will require persistence, not brilliance.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 28th June 2023
As imperfect vessels in the potter's hand, we should not be dazzled by 'priceless' vases.
Year A, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 10th March 2014
We cannot radiate hope to others that is not within us.
Thomas the Apostle; Added: 6th July 2016
The Good News, which is not too good to be true, is that God keeps 'His' promises.
The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th May 2016
Bonhoeffer & Costly Discipleship
We do not witness to God monastically but in a difficult and corrupted world; but how can we spread the good news if we give up thinking about it when we reach puberty? As Bonhoeffer says, there is no such thing as cheap grace. Managing the Church's decline is not enough.
Year B, The Forth Sunday before Lent; Added: 6th March 2007
Our Reformation heritage means that we are somewhat confused about the twin Feasts of All Saints and All Souls.
All Saints' Day; Added: 11th November 2014
The mystery of the heavenly life encompasses body and should, thereby doing credit to the body; just as The Word stretches towards the divine, so the Sacrament of the Eucharist brings the divine to us.
Year C, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 24th October 2007
We should not be distracted by the mechanics of our bodily existence when we consider everlasting life.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 14th April 2010
Beneath the calm surface of the waters of our emotional life, there is much for which we should repent.
Year B, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 11th March 2015
The difference between human and divine love is that humans talk about beloveds but don't share them; but the quintessential desire of the spiritual lover is to share.
Year C, The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day); Added: 28th May 2007
We are required to balance worship with action to achieve God's justice.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday before Lent; Added: 28th June 2023
Kingdom building was never supposed to be easy; so let us get on with it, cheerfully.
Year C, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 11th August 2016
The Word Was Made Flesh prompts us to focus on three ideas: agape is not superior to Eros; the gender of the child is not significant; and the divine and human are precisely replicated in the Eucharist.
Year B, The Second Sunday before Lent; Added: 6th March 2007
Autumn Sermons & Prayers: Lord of The Saints
The saints help us to make reality out of the very unreal promise of eternal life, giving a glimpse of how a life of hope can be lived in an imperfect world.
Added: 18th November 2007
Autumn Sermons & Prayers: Lord of The Feast
In our age of plenty we find it difficult to understand the contrast between the feast and the routine. The celebration in Nehemiah is a liberation party of the theological imagination. To restore feasting we must do a little fasting.
Added: 18th November 2007
Autumn Sermons & Prayers: Lord of Contentment
We do not cast our bread upon the waters as if we were a fisherman baiting his hook but because we were made to love for God's sake. Our contentment should lie in our possession of bread and our God given capacity to commit it to the waters.
Added: 18th November 2007
In the Autumn of our years we should pass on our fruit.
Added: 13th November 2013
We must always rank obeying our Christian conscience over obeying the state.
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th October 2018
As we approach Lent we should do the basics well by reading the Bible, taking Communion and giving time to our relationship with God.
Year B, The Sunday next before Lent; Added: 27th February 2012
Most of us are kind without calculation and calculation in human affairs is the source of our trouble; we should be channels for giving as transmission.
Year A, The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Jesus asked Peter if he loved him not because he did not know the answer but because he wanted Peter to continue to ask himself that question. Love is not deal making it goes and it goes and it goes. The more space you make in love the more we can make and the more there is for us.
Year C, The Third Sunday of Easter; Added: 23rd April 2007
We must be careful that the metaphor of the sheep and the shepherd is not falsely read.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Easter; Added: 19th May 2011
Imagining heaven is impossible but it is the kingdom - thinking of Luke - of the lost sheep and the Good Samaritan.
Year B, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 9th February 2007
Characters in the Bible demonstrate the complexity of human nature and should not be turned into moral caricatures.
The Third Sunday after Trinity; Added: 14th July 2014
We need to make a conscious, radical separation between faith and human misfortune
Year A, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
As a suffering people we should be merciful to others as part of loving them
Year A, Palm Sunday; Added: 28th June 2023
Christianity has largely assumed that humanity is fundamentally wicked but this is now in question.
Added: 24th June 2020
The Resurrection is God's irreversible promise to humanity that with Grace we will attain everlasting life (Rahner). We have problems with eschatological perspective; we think it will never happen; but it will!
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Lent; Added: 27th March 2007
We must break from our ecclesiological tradition and return to the golden age of the Early Church.
Added: 19th August 2021
A New Commandment and A New Heaven
If we keep our nerve to love one another, God will keep His Word.
Year C, The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Added: 6th May 2016
Harvest Festival must not be a time for nostalgia but for a renewed commitment to save our plant.
Year A, Harvest Festival; Added: 29th February 2024
The Book of Ecclesiastes is sadly right about the human condition but 1 Peter is right about our heavenly prospects.
Year A, The Third Sunday of Epiphany; Added: 13th February 2017
The Ascension is not a 'mysterious' adjunct but is a necessary completing of the Incarnational purpose which shows how our spiritual life will be completed.
Year B, Ascension Day; Added: 5th June 2009
We can only approach God's altar with a joyful step if we have done the right thing for his children.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 29th February 2024
Although logic is important, the Holy Spirit is a higher resort.
The Twelth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 17th September 2014
A Harsh Message for Shepherds and Sheep
There may be complex problems in achieving social justice but these should not negate a clear starting point.
Year A, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 28th November 2011
We are both sinners and Pharisees: sin makes us equal under God and we exercise power as Pharisees; we have to be conscious of the first in fulfilling the second which is an honourable profession.
Year C, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 24th October 2007
We should neither worship God as a duty nor a pleasure but with the intensity we usually reserve for our most urgent activities.
Year A, Trinity Sunday; Added: 24th June 2020
Although we think of saints as different in degree, they are exemplars with a degree of difference from us.
All Saints' Day; Added: 11th November 2009
We should not judge private behaviour but be content to await the harvest.
Year A, The Sixth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 21st October 2020
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 20th December 2016