Latest Thought for the Week

I began my first Palm Sunday sermon from the back of the church and not, as expected, in the pulpit. That was intended as an illustration of the reality that Jesus, through his life and teaching, turned our understanding of life upside down.

From our Vicar, Sam, I learned the phrase ‘going to the bottom of the pond’. It means that kind of deep conversation with a good friend that helps you delve deeply and safely into all the murky bits that are troubling your life.

This year we have been studying the Confessions of Saint Augustine as the basis of our Lent Course. We decided it would be interesting to look at a text which has been one of the most influential and translated books in the Christian Church.

At Epiphany I began my new job as Chief Operating Officer for the Church of England Diocese in Europe. By Easter I will be just over 100 days in.

I have just finished reading The Crossway by Guy Stagg. It is a deeply personal account of a 5550-kilometre pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem via Rome, which took Stagg 10 months to complete.

Our main headline from the Connection is that we are very busy indeed. I expect you’ve noticed the number of people in a desperate situation around the Church, around central London and beyond.

History is tricky. I don’t mean the memorizing dates and remembering ‘important’ people kind of history that many of us learned in school.

In the whole of February I will only have spent two nights in the UK. I am neither proud, nor entirely happy about that, but it is what it is.

The Gospel reading (Luke 6: 17-26) for this Sunday’s Eucharist is sometimes referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. It may be compared with the longer Sermon on the Mount described in Matthew’s Gospel.