Sermons on Spiritual Life (Page 27)
Losing in Christ
Genesis 21:8-21 Romans 6:1b-11 Matthew 10:24-39 I am very grateful to have colleagues with whom to share the sometimes daunting privilege of preaching. When I looked at this morning’s readings, I wished that one of them had offered to preach today! These are tough readings. Our Old Testament readings this summer follow the saga of Abraham and Sarah, the great ancestors of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Today we heard the disturbing story of Hagar and Ishmael. Although God had promised…
Work and Sabbath (Slow Church)
Today we come to the next sermon in our series based on Slow Church – cultivating community in the patient way of Jesus. A slow church is not one which is very slow to do anything or where the services are extremely long because they are so slow paced. No, slow church is a way of doing church that is locally sustained, sustainable and sustaining. It is a church which develops its own unique way of doing things and its…
Wobbling but not Falling
Almost every week I talk with my dear friend Rebecca in Scotland. Sometimes when I ask how she’s doing she says “I had a major wobble this week.” A major wobble. A major wobble is when things seem to get out of control and temporarily beyond our emotional capacity to handle. In some ways, I think we at St Ben’s have been having a major wobble. Two of our beloved members have died in the last few months – Elizabeth…
Living as if Easter is Real
When I was a growing up we didn’t have Easter egg hunts. People in Britain give each other large hollow foil-covered chocolate eggs, often filled with candy. I think I was eight the Easter I had chicken-pox and I got a bumper crop of Easter eggs. I never had so many before or since. Yesterday I happened to be briefly at an Easter Egg Hunt. There was a separate section for the little ones, where eggs lay totally unconcealed and…
The Light and Its Shadow
John 9:1-41 In the last hundred years a myth has arisen. That myth tells us that there is only one way to read the Bible. Yet as far back as the 2nd century, the Greek scholar and Christian theologian Origen claimed that scriptures should be read in three different allegorical ways. I mention that this morning, because today’s lengthy gospel passage can be read on several different levels and I am considering two – the surface or literal level and…
EXPLORER, CONNECTOR OR PROBLEM SOLVER
1 CORINTHIANS 3: 1-9 Holy One, let my words be clear to those who listen to them as they come from my heart. In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Hey, check out the palace on the top of hill—what a view! We are fortunate to have a roof over our heads when there are so many sleeping in the streets. And look what’s out in front of that palace. …
The Music of the Heart
The New Year is here. We’re facing a year of great struggles, in our nation and in the world, in our communities and even within our own families. Most of us are already weary, and it’s only Day One. Can we trust that God is speaking to us in the midst of this chaos, inviting us to be co-creators of a better future? And how can we hear God speaking in the midst of the chaos, so we can…
Wellsprings
Sometimes we think that the Gay Rights movement started with the riot at Stonewall Inn or that the Civil Rights movement began the day Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, but of course they didn’t. They started long, long before those iconic moments. They are the moments around which something that had been building coalesced. Something that had been building in people’s hearts and minds for years. When a new social movement breaks out and…
Is He Quite Safe?
There’s a passage in the first book in the Narnia series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when the children are startled to discover that Aslan is a lion. It goes like this: “Is he — quite safe?” Susan asks. “I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” replies Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else silly.”…