Talks, Sermons and Reflections

John 4


This week, like I guess many of us, I’ve felt empty. It is that sinking feeling which comes when you hear bad news. Like they probably had on the Titanic. Disaster is coming and there is not much we can do about it.
For many of us coronavirus has already led to a major disruption of plans. Some of our people are having to self-isolate: although my son has taken to the idea of self-isolation a bit too keenly, leaving university a week early to go to our cottage with 3 of his friends. Some have gone out to the dacha. And for those who are older or vulnerable, it is much more scary. 


In John 4, Jesus meets with the Samaritan woman. And Jesus offers this woman living water. "Whoever drinks of this water will never be thirsty again ... it will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life".
Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit but he is using poetic language.
We know what it is like to be dry and thirsty physically - and we also know what it is like to be dr…

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Our gospel reading is about secret things  It is about what is going on deep in here, in our heart. It is about what we treasure, what we long for and what we desire
What is it that we really want – more than anything else?
Do we want love, honour, vindication, security, possessions, power, peace, revenge, the gratification of our human desires – whether through sex or food or drink or something more.  Or do we desire intimacy with God in the secret place?
Problem here is that the people who Jesus is speaking said that intimacy with God was their greatest desire, but in reality their desires were set on very human things.   God had become a means to an end. Religion, spirituality had become a means to an end. 
They gave in order to gain recognition  They prayed in order to be honoured  They fasted in order to impress others - the others who matter to them. 
But, says Jesus, if your desire is for God, for intimacy with your Father in heaven, then we need to go about…

Genesis 1:26-2:3

I’d like to speak this morning about you!


1. You were created as an act of love
‘God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31)
Forgive me for being a bit philosophical. We are created beings. We can only love as a response. I see you and I love you I taste chocolate and I love chocolate Our love is always a response to something that has been created, to something that is there. But God’s love is different. God creates what he loves God does not see you and love you. God loves you and so created you. That is why, when God looks at everything that he has created, it was good. You are loved and therefore you exist.
2. You were created in the image of God
Genesis 1.26, ‘Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image’ Genesis 1.27, ‘So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them’
That does not mean that the invisible eternal God, who is bigger than all our conceptions and ideas, stan…

Matthew 5:13-20

Jesus said to his followers, “You are the salt of the earth”


It is a strange illustration. But salt is important - especially in a world where there were no fridges and no antiseptic cream
It was considered to be one of the essentials of life: it preserves, heals, flavours. It was added to the Old Testament sacrifices And it is also used as a metaphor, a picture, for wisdom: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone”. (Colossian 4:6)  
So when Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth”, he is saying that without God this world is flat, broken and everything will rot and die. But his followers are the salt of the earth. And you are to be the people who bring the flavours of the earth to life, who bring healing, who point to that which is eternal.
There are two things that I would like to note.
1.  Jesus does not tell his disciples to add salt. He tells us that we are salt
In the previous verses, Jesus…

Luke 2:22-38

We're thinking today about Anna.
She was 84. She had been married for 7 years, then widowed, and since then she had lived in the temple
I suspect people thought she was mad.
She has lived in the temple many years. Let’s assume that she got married at 15 and her husband died 7 years later. She probably did not have children. Since then, for 62 years, she has lived in the temple courts. It was a big area, and no doubt she found a quiet corner where she could sleep. And she would have been dependent on the gifts of others.
She worships there; she prays and fasts. She waits for God to come and set his people free.
Most people would say, “what a wasted life”.
Some of you may have heard of a Samuel Beckett play called Waiting for Godot, in which Vladimir and Estragon sit around waiting for someone called Godot, who never appears. And here is Anna, waiting for ‘the redemption of Israel’, waiting for God. Is she a Vladimir and Estragon? A bummer wasting her life. Or is she som…

A talk on the 135th anniversary of the consecration of St Andrew's on 13 January 1885 by the Rt Rev Dr JH Titcomb, English Bishop for Northern and Central Europe
We are, this month, officially 135 years old.
And you’re not looking too bad!
It has been an interesting few years.
St Andrew’s was built to be a place for life: where God meets with people and we discover new life. The consecration prayer speaks of a building set aside so that people could hear the Word of God, receive the sacraments and offer prayer and praise to God. It was to be a place, the prayer continues, ‘for blessing thy people in thy name’: for baptism, confirmation, communion, marriage, for confession and healing and worship, where people can draw near to God, and receive mercy from God, and his life transforming Holy Spirit.
And then in 1917, after the revolution, everything changed. Russia went on its religious roller coaster. God was rejected. And the heart of a nation was ripped out.
And suddenly there was n…