Talks, Sermons and Reflections

A talk on the occasion of the wedding of Philip Taylor and Maaike Schoute Based on Psalm 84 Many congratulations Today is a day of great joy. We delight in your love for each other and in your delight in each other. Psalm 84 speaks of a journey Today marks the beginning of another journey. I say ‘beginning’, even though you have been together and been committed to each other for some time, and God has blessed you with Noa. But it is a new beginning. A new beginning with a new identity: Maaike literally has a new name; but it is a shared name. People will see you in a different way; literally as part of each other. A new beginning with a new role in society: up to now your love has been about a personal commitment that you made to each other. Now you’ve gone public. It is something that is bigger than either of you or both of you – and it will make you bigger people. Today God crowns your relationship. People often speak of marriage as being ‘proper’....

Acts 2:37-47 Peter, in Acts 2:40, urges the people who listen to him: ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation’ How could he say that? How can you call any generation corrupt? It is very simple. Peter is speaking to a generation which has crucified the Son of God. Some people here may be landlords. I don’t know whether you ever have any problems getting rent. If you do, God knows what it is like! Jesus tells a story about a vineyard. The owner gave it to some people. He said to them, ‘Look after it for me. Care for it, enjoy it. All I ask is that you remember that it belongs to me, that it is my gift to you, and give me what is mine when I send my messengers to you for the rent. The owner goes away. Some time later he sends a messenger. The tenants beat up the messenger and send him away with nothing. The owner sends another messenger. The tenants do the same thing to him. Finally the owner says, ‘I will send my own son. He will come with my full authority. They will respect ...

Luke 4:18-19 I long for us to be a community of people who preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and who are committed to social justice. There does not need to be any separation The logic of the gospel demands social justice We were lost. We were cut off from God. We were created by God to live in a relationship of love and trust with him. We were created by God to love others as we love ourselves. But we do not. We chose and we choose to reject his love. We choose to rebel against him, and to live for ourselves by ourselves. In the beginning it was not our human nature which made us turn against God and to live for ourselves. It was our own wilful decision. Genesis tells us of Eve, as she looked at the fruit which God had expressly commanded her not to eat: ‘When she saw that it was good for food, and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom .. she took and ate it’. And that event is repeated moment by moment in each of our own lives...

John 17:1-5 We are people who crave glory. It is very hard to define glory. But if it is hard to define, we have an intuitive understanding of what it is. We can glimpse it and we want it. It is about having your name in lights. It is about receiving honour and recognition and praise and worship and adulation – all rolled into one. We love it when others recognise us – when they recognise our value, our uniqueness, our achievement, our success, our victory. We love it when we are lifted up and honoured. It is why people dedicate hours of their life to training. So, for instance, swimmers will spend 6 or more hours each day in the pool. Why? For the possibility of the glory of winning. It is why we put ourselves forward for competitions or auditions: so that we might get the chance to shine and to be recognised. It is also why 22 million of us will watch something like the final of the X factor: the glory for the winner at the end. And the thing that makes us really sad, is that we...

Jeremiah 2:1-13 Over the next few weeks we will be looking at the book of Jeremiah in the Bible Jeremiah lived about 600 years before Jesus. If you remember, ancient Israel at the time had been divided into two. In the North was Israel and in the South was Judah. The North, Israel, had been crushed. The Assyrians had come, conquered them   and taken many of their people into exile. So all that was left was the small community in the South, Judah, with its capital Jerusalem. Jeremiah was the son of a priest, but more importantly, he was a prophet. That is, he spoke the word of God. He speaks God’s word for about 40 years, during one of the most dramatic times in Judah’s history. Jeremiah sees a religious revival. They’re looking through the temple and they discover, in one of the old chests, the first five books of the Bible. They read them to King Josiah. He realises that the people have forgotten God and are doing things that they should not do. So he brings in big reforms. ...

In June, our Diocesan synod will be discussing the issue of whether we should have women bishops. At some point in the near future General Synod (the national body of the Church of England) will be making a decision.  For today’s society, the debate seems archaic. Women hold positions of the highest authority in all areas of our society. So why is it still an issue for the church? As Christians we are called not to simply follow society, but to be people under authority. We do not do something simply because everybody else is doing it, or even because it seems the right thing to do. Of course those are really important factors, but when we call Jesus ‘Lord’ we place ourselves under his authority, and under the authority of his Word. We need to work out what the teaching of the Bible is on the issue of women exercising, in human terms, the highest authority in the church. There are many who argue that the Bible teaches clearly that headship should be male. Adam was created before...