Sharing some thoughts

Today in the Church Calendar we celebrate the Feast of St Luke. Luke is of course well known as the Gentile, or non Jewish, Doctor, who wrote the gospel of Luke and also the Acts of the Apostles. If these two books are taken together then Luke actually wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else, even Paul. It seems likely that he was brought up in Antioch, in an environment strongly influenced by Greeks and Romans – the fact that he was a doctor suggests he would have mixed very much in the upper circles of society – yet his writing points us to a God of compassion for all people and a God offering salvation and hope to all. Of the 4 gospels, Luke is my favourite, and today I want to share some of the messages of that gospel, because perhaps more than in any other gospel we find there some of the guidelines of how our Churches should look today. The first point to note is that Luke takes care in his writing. He is concerned about details, and about making sure he has...

There was once a little boy who had got his hand stuck in a jar. He started to call his Mum for help. When she came to help him, the little boy asked, ‘ Mum -w ould it be easier if I unclenched my first and let go of the money that I am holding on  to ?’ I think that it must have felt a bit like that for the man in our gospel reading this morning. The man we know as the rich young ruler. This is quite strange as he is never actually called the rich young ruler. In the gospel of Matthew we are told that the man was young, in Luke we are told that he was a ruler but we are never told all at once that he was a rich young ruler. Anyway, that is not the most important bit of the reading we have heard. This man went to Jesus and in many ways he might have seemed like the perfect candidate to follow Jesus. Firstly, he came to Jesus recognising who He was. Secondly, when Jesus challenged the man on the commandments he showed that he had stuck to the commandments and been faithful to G...

This morning’s gospel reading (Mark 10:17-31) is one of those uncomfortable ones where Christians for probably 2000 years have tried to explain it or reason it away. In it Jesus is asked by the rich young ruler what he must do to inherit eternal life. Actually, although most of us will know this story as the story of the rich young ruler, Mark is the only gospel writer who suggests he is rich, Matthew is the only one who says he is young, and Luke is the only one who calls him a ruler. But these three things are all tremendously relevant to the point Jesus is making , so we’ll think this morning of that full description . First of  all  we are told that the man is rich. More often than not at those times riches came from taking advantage of the poor. For someone to have money generally meant someone else did not. Today material wealth is gained in many ways, and often I am pleased to say, not at the direct expense of others, but, and this is where even today things ge...

From Helen May I speak in the name of God: Father, Son and Holy  Spirit. AMEN I love stories, I love the excitement of characters and working out what might happen to different people. I can’t understand people who read the end of a novel first to see whether it is worth reading the rest of the book.  This  morning  I want to  tell  you a story that is not a novel but is actually true and this is the story of Esther from whose book we heard this morning. Esther was a queen she did lots of great things, she protected her people and their faith and she did it all through prayer and faithfulness.  The story is good but what it means for us is even better. So please sit back and enjoy the tale of Esther … The story of Esther began around 479BC.  She was a Jewish girl living in exile in Persia.  The King whose name was Xerxes had a disagreement with his wife Vashti and so decided that he needed to find a new wife. See – Henry VIII was not ...