Sharing some thoughts

  Parish of Central Swansea Advent day by day 2020 Advent is a wonderful but often overlooked season in the church calendar. For many it is associated simply with getting ready for Christmas, but Advent is much more than that. It is a season when we take time out to prepare for the coming again of Jesus, something we celebrate as we mark his birth at Christmas, but something we also await as he has promised to return one day. We wait, not looking up to the skies for something to happen, but we wait celebrating the gift of life and new life through Jesus. We wait, seeking to be more like Jesus as we look to follow his command to love God and to love our neighbour as ourself. Perhaps this year more than ever we can rediscover something about waiting, about longing. It’s been such a difficult year for so many people, but we wait in hope, we wait in expectation and we wait knowing that God has never failed to deliver on any of the promises he makes. Whatever we usually make of the Advent s

  We’re in what is now called the kingdom season in the church calendar – I don’t think it’s a season that is particularly useful as I think our focus must every day of every week be on Christ as the king – the king of our lives, the king of our hopes and aspirations, the king of possibilities for the world and indeed the king of the whole world, so that’s a little hobby horse of mine out of the way.   Having said that, the readings do offer us a focus upon which to reflect on these things in a bit more depth so that’s what I’ll try and do this morning.    Our gospel reading (Matt 25:14-30) is the pretty well known parable of the talents – it’s often been portrayed as a parable about how well we use our gifts, in other words it’s about us, but whilst that may be part of it, I don’t think that’s the biggest part.    The biggest part comes in the first paragraph of what we heard. The master is going on a journey and he distributes his property to his servants to look after. To one he giv