Simon Says ...

Isaiah 2.1-5 ; Matthew 24.36-44 “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Take it or leave it.   I suspect we’ve all had offers like that. But the Gospel reading this morning asks us a harder question – taken or left, which will we be?   “Two will be in the field, one will be taken and one will be left.   Two will be grinding meal together, one will be taken and one will be left.”    If we look a little harder at the passage, it’s not even abundantly clear which I want to be, taken or left.   When the secret police come knocking, it is clear that you want to be left.   There are Christians and others in the world today who fear the knock at the door.   They desperately want to be left.   But when you live in the midst of war and poverty, you want to be taken to another, better place.   There are many in the world today, not least the many refugees, who long to be taken more than anythin...

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.” ...

Isaiah 52.7-10 ; Hebrews 1.1-4 ; John 1.1-14 Some words from that very familiar Gospel reading: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth”.   If you want a thread to help you understand St John’s Gospel, then you could do worse than to look at the way that truth appears in the Gospel from the beginning to the end.   The Gospel begins with the passage that we have just heard.   Here we learn of the true light which was coming into the world, and the grace and truth of the Word made flesh.   Truth remains a theme throughout the Gospel.   Near the end, Pontius Pilate asks Jesus ‘What is truth?’ as part of his trial.   Truth is important to John’s Gospel, and so tonight I want to say three things about truth.   First about the truth shown in Jesus; second about truth as a life; and third about being witnesses to the truth.   First then, the truth shown in Jesus.   The whole thrust of the Gos...

A sermon for evensong. Isaiah 40.1-11; Luke 1.1-25 Today is St Nicholas’ Day, and I have good news and bad news.   The good news is that St Nicholas is the origin of Christmas stockings.   The bad news is that if you wanted St Nicholas, or Santa Claus, to fill your stocking you should have put it by the chimney last night!   The tradition of St Nicholas filling a stocking began when Nicholas put gold into the shoe of a girl (and later of her two sisters) who was to be sold in order to pay her father’s debts.   Not for nothing is St Nicholas the patron saint of prostitutes.   Yesterday, before going to the choirs concert focussed around St Nicholas, I spent the day at the Chesterfield Modern Slavery Conference.   Bishop Alastair had called the conference to highlight an issue that he has spent a lot of his time working on recently, culminating with the passing of the Modern Slavery Act earlier this year.   We heard from...

Isaiah 50.4-9a ; Mark 8.27-38 So there I was, in a cafe on a Saturday afternoon nursing a beer.   I was there with two old friends, to who m I was very close.   One had written a reference for me for whatever they called BAPs in those days, but neither were Christians.   And then the husband of one of my wife's colleagues came across.   He was, shall we say, less than sober and a bit aggressive with it.   'So why do you waste your time working for the church?' was his opening gambit.   A perfect opportunity for witness, you might have thought.   So, of course, I blew it.   I was absolutely speechless, I could think of nothing to say that would answer him, and that would say something to my friends.   And then Andrew, who I'd lived with for two years as a student, piped up with a most eloquent account of how my faith and my values were intertwined; and how my compassion and my care for others were deeply rooted in m...