October 30, 2022
What is a Saint?
The Hebrew word for saint is קדש, in Greek, ἁγιος, and in Latin sanctus. When these words appear in the Bible we usually translate them “holy”, so a saint is really just a holy person.
July 3, 2022
St. Thomas the Emo
I was very pleased when Charlie picked the second service of Thomas the Apostle, not least because the gospel reading features my name, but because it’s a story that I know very well and one that’s important to me. Indeed, this is the story that my mother named me after, so I’m really pleased to get to share with you some of the content of this wonderful story.
May 29, 2022
Ascension
Last night, I was speaking to my friend about this sermon and about the ascension, and she told me that it made her think of fireworks. A crowd gathers to watch as Christ ascends until he is hidden from view, and they all remain staring at the sky, waiting for that spectacular moment where sound and light pierce the darkness.
April 16, 2022
Holy Saturday
How busy was the tomb?
This vast space falls silent sometimes; I’ve seen it.
Silent with the hum of the hearts and prayers of a thousand warm, living bodies, and silent as the grave, all quiet and dark when only I make my pilgrimage through this great nothingness, this naked vacuum clad in a sandstone veil.
January 30, 2022
Wonderfully Weird
If I have learned one thing since coming to St. Margaret’s, it is how gloriously wonderful and holy it is to be weird.
January 9, 2022
Totally Different
God is totally different to us. God’s thoughts are not ours, and God’s ways are not ours.
December 12, 2021
Gaudete
As the name of this website might suggest, I’m having a bit of a hard year.
If I had been given these readings and this day to preach on a few years ago, I would have said something quite different, something nicer perhaps, but something a little superficial. I speak today, fully aware that I might, in a year, look back on this, having grown further, and cringe at some other undeveloped part of my sermon, but I offer this to the church as some reflections on w
November 7, 2021
Original Darkness
Last week, I went to my cousin’s child’s baptism. Our family descended en masse to their local Methodist church, to watch as our first family member of a new generation was welcomed into a much larger family.
October 3, 2021
Gift
It seems that the golden thread linking today’s readings is God’s grace in creation. From the Hebrew Bible, we hear of Adam and Eve’s creation as a gift for the human, from the Epistle, we hear of humanity’s creation as little lower than angels, from the gospel we hear again of the creation in Genesis and of the grace of Kingdom that is received only through our created nature as children.
September 19, 2021
When God Acts
What happens when God acts?
I remember saying Grace in nursery school and having to close our eyes.