Latest Sermons

I wonder how you have arrived at this Christmas Day, grateful for peace because all your visitors have come and everything is ready and you can enjoy one another.

There are two kinds of things: those that abide forever; and those that last for a limited period. The things that abide forever we call essence; the things that last for a limited period we call existence.

My grandson Joshua is two today. It is fascinating being part of the growth and development of a young child, particularly as a grandparent when you can remember what happened with your own children and also see the way in which, in this case, my daughter and son-in-law approach their role as parents.

This week at our neighbours St James Piccadilly, a new installation has been created in the church, to highlight the continuing refugee crisis in Europe and across our world. It’s called Suspended and consists of 700 individual items of clothing of adults and infants, male and female, suspended above the nave of the church.

‘I know you’re in a hurry.’ I wonder if you’ve ever said that, asking for a person’s attention, when it’s clear they’re rushing to something else. And you could simply say, ‘Don’t worry, we can talk about it later, I’ll send you an email, it’s not urgent,’ and permanently or temporarily fade into the background of their life.

If you’re a geologist, you have an extensive vocabulary for circumscribing what the rest of us generally call ‘a very long time.’ For geologists there’s an age, and bigger than that there’s an epoch, and beyond that there’s a period; but that’s not all.

In the flower shops you can already buy yellow spring daffodils. But I never buy them in winter. Not because I don’t like them but because I believe deep down you have to go through the winter waiting before you can reach those yellow and golds of spring and appreciate them for what they are.

In the service for the ordination of priests we hear these words. “Priests are called to be shepherds and servants among the people to whom they are sent, they are to proclaim the word of the Lord and watch for the signs of God’s new creation”.

There’s two common assumptions about Christianity. One is that’s it’s a theory about how things are – how things began and how the world goes round. The other is that it’s basically a moral code.