Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ. These are the ancient words of Ash Wednesday, uttered today by Priests around the world on this, the first day of Lent. Today we face our mortality. The second chapter of Genesis tells an ancient…Continue reading Sermon for Ash Wednesday
Category: Sermons
Sermon for the Sunday Next Before Lent
Above the clouds, the sun always shines When I was a child we holidayed mostly in the United Kingdom, with occasional camping trips to Germany via the ferry from Harwich. There’s a layby, just west of Settle, where we once stopped to fix a puncture: my dad was a very patient man, but he really…Continue reading Sermon for the Sunday Next Before Lent
A Sermon for Candlemas
Candlemas is a lovely feast: outside of Easter and Christmas, it is definitely on the top of my list of favourites. Beautiful it is, but it is a bittersweet feast – there is sorrow there as well as joy. The bitter: Well, at the end of the service today we turn (physically) from Christmas to…Continue reading A Sermon for Candlemas
Sermond for the Third Sunday of Epiphany
Driving north up the M6, there is a place, just south of Lancaster, where hedges begin to give way to dry-stone walls. Most are tumble-down and badly kept, the grey stones often lying in heaps, the walls supplemented by fences to keep the livestock in the correct field. But these tumble-down walls make my heart…Continue reading Sermond for the Third Sunday of Epiphany
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany.
The Epiphany Theme of Glory The account in John’s gospel of Jesus’ first miracle at the Wedding at Cana, speaks of glory – a golden thread running through the season of Epiphany; the bright star which lead the Magi; the riches they offered and their unexpected encounter with the glory of the infant king; the…Continue reading Sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany.
A Sermon for St Stephen’s Day
Today is the feast day of St Stephen. We don’t get to celebrate this very often, and even this year the feast has been transferred to tomorrow so we don’t have to think about Stephen. But we’ve taken the opportunity to sing Good King Wenceslas: the carol tells the story of a Bohemian KIng going…Continue reading A Sermon for St Stephen’s Day
A Sermon for Harvest
Hope has wavered over the past two years. Sometimes it felt as if we were never going to come out of the other side of covid. Even now things feel unstable and insecure – once again there are empty shelves at the supermarket and those of us with cars have faced queues at petrol stations…Continue reading A Sermon for Harvest
Sermon about the Parable of the Rich Young Man
‘You lack one thing’, Jesus tells the young man who has come to ask how he might inherit eternal life. For the young man it was his wealth, his possessions. We might breathe a sigh of relief and think, ‘well I’m OK then’ – I’m not wealthy’. But this young man’s wealth wasn’t stocks and…Continue reading Sermon about the Parable of the Rich Young Man