Talks, Sermons and Reflections

The last few weeks has been like watching, in slow motion, a horrendous car crash about to happen The audio of this talk can be found here I was aware of the western press and the general pessimism among the embassy staff that war was going to happen, and yet like most of us, we read in the Russian media that war was 'unthinkable', let alone war with Ukraine. And yet four days ago war began It does seem that a deep darkness – politically, economically and spiritually - is descending on Ukraine and Russia Many have spoken of their shock and disbelief at what has happened Many have spoken of a sense of shame that this is being done in their name And there is fear – among those in the foreign community, those who have made this their home, and those for whom this has always been home What will happen? How will we survive sanctions and global exclusion? Will it all go out of control? Will a new impenetrable iron curtain descend? How are those from overseas to travel home? And there

2 Corinthians 8.8-15 We are thinking over these three weeks before Lent about giving, and we are looking at verses from Paul’s letter to the Christians in the city of Corinth. Today we are looking at the reason for giving. A link to the audio of the sermon And it is very simple. It can be summed up in one word: LOVE We give to what we love, we give because we love. And it works the other way round If you want to know what you love, then look at what you spend your surplus money on – the money that is over and above our essential needs, the essential needs of those for whom we are responsible, and the things that we required to pay, like taxes. (By the way, paying taxes is not only a legal duty, but a spiritual duty. Jesus tells us to pay our taxes). But after that, how do we spend our money? Is it a bigger or more modern flat, clothes, technology, restaurants, gaming, savings, investment, entertainment, travel, holidays? We spend our surplus money on what we love That is what Jesus sa

2 Corinthians 8:1-7 Today we start a series of three talks on giving The heart of giving The reason for giving The blessing of giving They are based on 2 chapters in 2 Corinthians, a letter sent by Paul to the Christians in the city of Corinth in which he talks about a collection that the church in Corinth planned to make to support the Christians in Jerusalem and Judaea, because they were facing a famine. And in our reading today, Paul urges the Corinthian Christians to complete what they said they would do. That is important. It is easy to make a promise, especially if it is about money, and then – if not deliberately break our promise – forget our promise. I wonder how many of us have done that! Well, Paul encourages them not forget their promise and to do what they said that they would do. And in these verses, he tells them about the Macedonian Churches (Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea). He says that, although they were extremely poor, and even though they had suffered d