For current sermons please go to Virtual ChurchWorshipping in spirit and in truthIt was to a Samaritan woman, who'd had multiple husbands, and who was a bit of an outcast, that Jesus was to offer ‘living water’ which will become “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”
in those who accept it. And when she talked of the Messiah, he said to her "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." In Revd Caroline Clarke's sermon, we were reminded that it is not where we worship, nor when, that matters but that God is spirit “....and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." Read her sermon here. Money - whose is it?In Mother Ruth's sermon on 8 September, she struggles with Jesus's words about money and possessions. He is speaking to the crowds following him around and has been talking about generosity and our reaction to it. Then Jesus ups the ante: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." What? Read her sermon here. Power, and who has it?From his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, through the Last Supper, and during his betrayal and persecution, Christ repeatedly refuses the power that people seek to give him. The theme of Mother Ruth's sermon on Maundy Thursday centred around power - its nature - and what the true meaning was of Christ's insistence on washing the feet of his disciples that fateful evening in Jerusalem. How, in fact, he was no longer going to Lord it over them....they were going to have to do it all by themselves - and so do we. "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me"Christ's words from Mark's Gospel are the basis for Revd Richard Lloyd-Morgan's sermon on what it means to welcome people into the church, and how this welcome has been abused.Today's Gospel reading from Mark presents us with some of the most troubling and disturbing material that we’ll find anywhere in the Scriptures, and as much of it is Jesus talking, it comes, as it were, directly from the horse’s mouth. To start with, I’m going to offer you a couple of verses that occur just before the passage we heard. ‘Then he took a little child and put it among them: and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ Read on You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love youWith these words of God spoken to Jacob (Isaiah 43.4) Revd Dr Sam Wells, vicar of St Martin-in-the-Field, sets out the essentials of a blessing is, in all contexts, but at the Service of Hope for LGBTI equality in the Church of England held here on Thursday 7th June, for all relationships, including same sex relationships. Read his full sermon here.Bring it here, bring it now In her sermon for Pentecost, Mtr Helen explained that Jesus left us the Holy Spirit - a 'whisper of love'.2018 has, thus far, been a year of people leaving.Now, the length of time those people have left for has varied enormously. Some of them have died which, for us humans, feels like a fairly total departure however we may make sense of that departure in the light of our faith. Some of them have left for a little while, but the length of time they have left for has not been determined. Some of them have left for a set amount of time and we know we know, at least roughly, when we might see them again. And some of them have changed, which feels also like a sort of leaving.But the type of ‘leaving’ is not what we are called to think about today. Read on.
Fr Richard points out that we are all occasionally subject to the same lonely journey as Jesus underwent in his forty days in the wilderness.Here we are five days into Lent, and I wonder how the journey is progressing. There are times when the prospect of Easter seems so far away. But like any journey, there are stages along the length of it that will offer us variations in all sorts of ways, not all of them easy to assimilate. Read on Ash Wednesday - beginning of LentIn her sermon on Ash Wednesday, Mtr Louise argues that outward observance of Lent is less important than the inner journey, and asks: what we have taken up for Lent?Matthew 6:1-16, 20-21: In our reading from Matthew, Jesus is less concerned with our devotion, almsgiving, prayer and fasting than with our motivation for those things. Do we seek the respect, even perhaps the admiration of others? Is there a temptation to value these things as rewards more than we value the rewards of God – maybe without even fully realising it we seek something instant, a quick fix, over things that are deeper, and harder to find, and more rewarding. Read on It's just a bagSo spill the beans – what was under the tree this morning? Who got what good stuff? Was it what you wanted? Apparently the most wished for gifts this year were a fire tablet (I don’t really know what that is), a Samsung HD 32 inch telly and a Lego frozen ice castle. Mary in our video definitely got what she wanted. Hope and PrayerDoes praying make any difference? I’ve often been asked that question. And if I couldn’t give an answer which made at least some sense, then I would have wasted years of my life studying theology, the Holy Scriptures and the teaching of the Church. But you know there are times when I find myself asking the question, Does praying make any difference? Read onMiracles and FaithDid Jesus actually perform miracles? Did he ever do any miracles at all? Or are the miracle stories all made up in order to reinforce the Early Church’s belief that Jesus was the Messiah? It was widely believed at that time that miracles would be a feature of the Messianic age. Are miracles even possible? Read more...... Whingeing from JobIf we’re honest we all enjoy a good moan from time to time but Job is a bit of an expert. A man who has it all and then loses it all, he proceeds to spend the whole of the rest of the book named after him moaning that God’s not fair, life’s not fair, it’s not fair. It is true that he does go on and on but then he does have a point: he is after all a good man, a man who believes in family, in God, in nation, a man who upholds the law, does good, believes in public service and charity. And where has it got him? Read on Learning to Walk in the DarkNot a sermon exactly, but if you missed Barbara Brown Taylor at St Paul's Cathedral on 9 July you can follow her as she asks, on the dark times in our lives, 'Could these be a good thing? Is darkness essential to our growth and flourishing as light?'. Barbara Brown Taylor is a priest, professor, author and theologian and is one of the United States' best known preachers. Elijah and foreign womenForeign women were the cause of all Israel’s problems, exile, war, famine, drought, poverty – apparently it's all the fault of foreign women.Read on“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while”If the word gets around that you can heal the sick, you’re likely to be in demand. That’s clearly what happened to Jesus in the incident related in today’s gospel reading.Learning to receive
Today the families of Cecilia and Freddie have gathered for their big day. Yesterday my own family gathered for a big day too. So I speak from experience when I say that families can bring out both the best and worse in us. 9 hours and 21 minutes and 52 seconds of experience to be precise. In today’s gospel Jesus is back in the bosom of his family, he has just come home. He has done a fair bit since they saw him last and they had quite a lot to be proud of....... Jesus had just healed a woman who had been haemorrhaging non-stop for 12 years and then raised a child from the dead and but no one, it seems was proud of him. Read on Rock or not?
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