Talks, Sermons and Reflections

JOHN 20:1-18 Our bible reading today focuses on two people: The disciple who Jesus loved (who is identified with John, but could in fact be anyone) and Mary Magdalene. It is the story of how they came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. 1. There is the disciple who Jesus loved. He believes because of the facts. He gets to the tomb first, stands outside while Peter goes in, and then he himself goes in. And he is convinced. He is convinced by the empty tomb the grave clothes The empty tomb in itself is no evidence. The body of Jesus could easily have been removed. That is what Mary thought. But in fact the tomb was not empty: There were the grave clothes. The head cloth is lying in the place it should have been – just as if Jesus had materialised through it; and the strips of linen were lying elsewhere – as if they had been thrown off. For John it was a combination of the absence of the body of Jesus and of the presence of the grave clothes. It is hard ...

Matthew 21:1-11 It is often noted that Jesus could have come into Jerusalem as a conquering warrior. It was what people desired: the hero, the Messiah: the one who would evict the Romans, who would solve their problems and give them what they wanted. But Jesus chooses instead to come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. And in doing so, Jesus declares three things 1. That he is Messiah , God's King who is coming to God's city in order to reign. He fulfils the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 - which says that the Messiah will come riding on a donkey And he receives the people's praise: if there is anything ambiguous about the riding on a donkey, there is nothing ambiguous about the people's praise. They are acclaiming him descendant of David, the greatest King in Israel's history; David was the prototype for the Messiah who is to come. And so the people declare Jesus to be King and Messiah: "Hosanna to the Son of David" 2. The nature of his kingship...

Mark 15:1-20 1. The cross shows us what human beings can do to other human beings We like to think of ourselves as civilized At the LIFE exhibition, talking with the children and asking them what some of the differences are between the time when Jesus lived then and now. And one of the children said, ‘We don’t do the sort of things that they did then. We don’t crucify people’. I wish that were true. Certainly it is not normal in our society – but then our society has had 1000 years of Christian teaching. The values of tolerance and mercy have grown because there are men and women – people like Wilberforce, and Elizabeth Fry and Shaftesbury – who have taken the teaching of the bible seriously, and because – up to now – a great deal of Jesus’ teaching is enshrined in our law. It will be interesting to see, for instance, how society develops as you begin to demand tolerance from people, but give them no reason for tolerance. The problem is that we only need to look at other soci...

MATTHEW 4:1-11 Useful to use the Churches times and seasons. It tells our story The year begins with Advent : We remember the prophecies given to the Patriarchs, to the prophets, to John the Baptist – and the announcing of Jesus birth to Mary Christmas : The coming of the Son of God. God is with us Epiphany : The revelation of Christ, the Son of God, to the world – through the star that appears to the wise men, and the baptism. At Lent we focus on Jesus ministry and in particular the way that the course of his life led him to his death on a cross. It culminates in Holy Week, when we focus again on Jesus’ last week. On Maundy Thursday we remember how Jesus gave us the Lord’s supper. On Good Friday we remember his death on the cross for us. And of course on Easter Sunday, and throughout the season of Easter, we focus on the risen Jesus, and that as Christians we are called to live as resurrection people. On Ascension we remember that Jesus was taken up into heaven, that he is there...

Matthew 17:1-9 Who do we listen to? Last week several of us went on silent retreat. One of the things that happen when you go on silent retreat is that you become aware of just how many voices there are round about you. Some of the more obvious voices were silenced: There was no television, radio, newspapers; and we didn't have the daily chatter or the voices of other people (apart from the voice of the vicar!) We are surrounded by so many voices. The outer voices: the voices of others, present and past, spoken and unspoken. The voices of parents, teachers, friends, work colleagues, books, advertisements; there are the magazines we read, the programmes we watch, the films we see, the websites we visit. Even the back of my cereal packet tells me what I must eat. There are also the inner voices: the jumble of memories and thoughts: CS Lewis describes them as 'a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds'. There is the voice of morality...

THE LORD'S PRAYER ( MATTHEW 6:6-15 ) A series of talks given on retreat, January 2008 LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL In many ways this could have been one of the first talks. One of the things that happens when we shut the door and take time out is that the demons come. We are in a spiritual battle, and the enemy, the evil one, does not like it when we mean business with God. I remember as a parish assistant in London keeping Wednesday as a day of fasting. I used to expect that I would feel very spiritual. In fact what happened was that I would find myself becoming very very angry. It was almost as if, because I was letting down the physical defences, some of the other stuff that I was very good at pushing down came to the surface. And when we close the door, and shut off other voices, sometimes those voices that we are very good at suppressing grow louder. You may have seen the programme, Extreme Pilgrim, in which an Anglican vicar goes off to spend 3 weeks...

THE LORD'S PRAYER ( MATTHEW 6:6-15) A series of talks given on retreat, January 2008 FORGIVE US OUR SINS AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO SIN AGAINST US Having spoken of physical bread, our relationship with the physical world, the Lord's prayer moves us on to consider our relationship with others. At the heart of that relationship is forgiveness. Forgiveness received from God, and forgiveness shown towards those who have taken from, offended or hurt us. 'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us' This is all wrong! It should be 'Forgive us our sins, so that we forgive those who sin against us'. God’s forgiveness comes first, and our forgiveness of others comes next. That certainly is the logic of Matthew 18. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells the story of a ruler who has a servant who owes him about £10000. In those time it was Northern Rock kind of figures. The servant cannot pay, begs the master to have mercy on him and the debt is forgiven. The servant go...