Simon Says ...

A Sermon for Evensong   Genesis 41.1-16,25-37 ; 1 Cor. 4.8-13 Only I could see it.   There was a Zubat in the kitchen.   Quickly I lined up my Pokeball and threw it at the creature.   I caught it, and gathered it into my Pokedex.   For the uninitiated, I am talking about the game Pokemon Go .   It is an app for phones and tablets that allows you to see the mystical Pokemon creatures in the real world.   Samuel and I went for a walk yesterday and caught about ten different Pokemon.   The Cathedral, I am sure you are aware, is a PokeGym, and has been welcoming a range of new, younger visitors over the past couple of days.   The Church of Englandhas issued guidelines about this.   More worryingly, so has the NSPCC .   Pokemon Go works with the idea that there are things beyond the reality that we can see and touch and smell.   All it takes is the right software and technology and a new and exciting ...

Review of Stephen Cherry, Healing Agony: Re-imagining Forgiveness (Continuum, 2012). The second of the shortlist for the Michael Ramsey Prize is Stephen Cherry’s Healing Agony .   This is a profound and hard won meditation on forgiveness.   The origins of the book are in his accompanying of a mother whose child had been murdered.   From this starting point, Cherry approaches a wide range of material on forgiveness.   Some is theological, some political, some psychological.   There are many stories of those who have faced the challenge of forgiveness.   Quite deliberately, Cherry sets out to bridge the experiential and the theoretical.   There are no simple and easy solutions on offer, as Cherry says ‘the truth about forgiveness is darker, more difficult and infinitely more agonizing than the myths about forgiveness which people, not least Christian people, prefer to promulgate’ (p. 179). Through the hard stories of ...

A sermon for the eve of St Philip and St James Isaiah 40.27-end ; John 12.20-26 “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”.   Perhaps that is the reason that we are here tonight.   We want to see Jesus.   There is no better reason for coming to church than wanting to encounter Jesus.   And here in the readings from Scripture, in the silence, in the music, in the prayers, in the architecture, in one another, perhaps even in the sermon, there are opportunities and pointers to help us to see Jesus.   “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”. This is why we gather for worship. But it is not just here that we see Jesus.   It is not just in church or during acts of worship that we can encounter our risen Lord.   We encounter Jesus throughout our lives, in the people, places and moments that make up our days.   The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, ‘I greet him the days I meet him , and bless when I understand’.   “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” ...

Review of Sarah Coakley, The New Asceticism: Sexuality, Gender and the Quest for God (Bloomsbury, 2015). This is the best and most challenging book I read in the whole of 2015 (at the time of writing there are 16 days left in which I might read something better!).   It is not always easy to read, but that is not a reflection on the excellent writing.   Rather it is because the subject matter is important, and because it makes the reader engage with things within their own lives.   It tackles issues that are dividing the church with a spiritual seriousness and depth that is all too often lacking.   Whilst it will, inevitably, be read as a contribution to the debates that afflict the church, it should be read as a significant work of spiritual theology in its own right.   In her Introduction, Coakley tells us that she wants to retrieve asceticism as a vital part of Christian life and theology.   This has implications for the...

I want to speak about that most Advent of subjects – sunbathing.   Just the weather for it, don’t you think?   Let me be perfectly honest, I’m not a natural sunbather.   I seek out the shade and the only thing that can keep me sitting on a beach for any length of time is a good book (and even then I’d rather be inside with a beer).   But as we reflect on light this Advent, the thing that came to mind was the best Thought for the Day that I had heard in a very long time.   Giles Frazer, back in August when sunbathing ought at least to have been topical, spoke about prayer as sunbathing.   It was an image he took from Rowan Williams, and it emphasises the way in which in prayer God acts on us far more than we act on God.   C. S. Lewis put it this way: “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God – it changes me”. Going to the...

--> Exodus 17.8-12 ; Luke 11.1-13 It is a great pleasure to be with you this morning.   I’m very grateful to Matt for the invitation to be here, and I bring you greetings from your Cathedral Church where we pray for you regularly. We pray for you, and I’ve been invited to talk this morning on the theme of prayer.   At the Cathedral, I’ve been involved in running a “School of Prayer”. In part, that is for those who are Christians but could use some focussed input on prayer.   It is also aimed at those who are not Christians, but who want to learn to pray.   Learning to pray, of course, brings people close to God.   The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that communities of prayer are one of his key priorities, and launched a communitybased at Lambeth Palace this week.   So it is really great that you are marking National Prayer Weekend .   This is important stuff you are doing. But let me make a confession.   I find prayer r...

A sermon for Trinity 13 Mark 7.1-8,14-15,21-23. ‘Gospel’ means simply good news, and the Gospel reading this morning is just that – good news.   But whilst it is good news for anyone; it transpires that it is not good news for everyone. The lectionary gets a little squeamish this morning – it wants to spare you particular Jewish customs and Jesus talking about bodily functions. I however think you can cope, and so have read the whole of the passage from Mark! In those missing verses we hear this: “Thus he declared all foods clean”. If only it were so simple. In fact, what Mark summarises as a very straightforward piece of teaching took much of the first generation of the church to work out. The letters of Paul show a good deal of evidence that the church fought bitter battles over the question of whether Gentiles had to become Jews first before they could become Christians.   Frankly, it took the Roman destruction of Jerusalem to really settl...

Psalm 23 ; Jeremiah 23.1-6 ;   Mark 6.30-34, 53-56 If familiarity breeds contempt, then Psalm 23 must be the most despised Psalm that we have been given.   It is still a favourite reading at weddings and funerals.   It has been adapted into several hymns and modern worship songs.   It was even the theme tune for the Vicar of Dibley. But its popularity is, in fact, a measure of its importance.   It is also a measure of how much it has to offer us as Christians and followers of Jesus.   So for a few moments this morning, I want to explore this most famous of Psalms and offer you the chance to reconnect with the Psalm in a way that speaks of the lives lived in the service of God. The image of a shepherd is one that is very powerful in the Bible.   Moses, who led God’s people out of slavery into freedom, was a shepherd when God called him into his service.   King David, the greatest of all Israel’s kings, was a shepherd...