Sharing some thoughts

The first letter of John begins, ‘we declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life…’ I’d like to begin with a little story… One day Bill went out hunting in the woods. It had been a slow day and he hadn’t found one single bear to shoot. Suddenly, he heard a noise behind him. He whirled around and saw two ferocious looking bears coming towards him. He quickly raised his rifle to his shoulder, took aim and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing - the rifle misfired. He reloaded and fired again Click… click… click. Again, nothing - the gun just wasn’t working. By this time, the bears were almost on top of him. In desperation, he threw down his rifle and ran. But the faster he ran, the closer the bears got. Finally Bill came to the edge of a cliff. As there was nowhere to go, he dropped to his knees and began to pray. “O Lord, I pray that you make these bears Chri...

When asked what was the most difficult instrument to play Leonard Bernstein replied ‘the second violin’. He explained that there were plenty of people wanting to play first violin, but to get them to play second violin was much more difficult – yet without them there is no harmony in the music. In today’s gospel (Mark 9:30-37) Jesus talks to his disciples again about the need for him to be betrayed and to die but the disciples didn’t understand, and we’re told that they were even too afraid to ask him to explain more – the one thing that seems certain is that they didn’t really believe him. They had their own picture of what was going to happen – it involved the overthrow of the religious authorities, and probably the Romans as well – a new order would begin. And it was this new order into which they were keen to strive for position – it’s quite an easy picture to relate to today as we look at the politics of our own country, and people vying for the leadership of the Labour pa...

Very often in Church life, we get bogged down with worries about buildings and about money, perhaps with all too public squabbling about internal problems – very often we lose sight of what is really important – and that is Jesus. In our service this evening we have a chance to remember loved ones we no longer see, and also to reflect on the hope that Jesus can and does bring… When I was about 14 (not so very long ago) I was away on a Christian camp. While I was there one of my friends, whose parents were actually running the camp, learned that his grandmother had died. I knew he was very close to her, and was very surprised to find he was not really upset – instead he talked about eternal life and the fact that he knew she was now safe with Jesus. I was very impressed with what he said, and impressed by the faith displayed. It is wonderful to think of a person returning home to a place with no tears, no mourning, no crying, no pain, war or suffering. However the reality is...

The letter of James from which we heard once again this morning (3:1-12) offers us, as we’ve thought in the past couple of weeks, some valuable insights into how we should live as Christians, and this morning it continues this theme as we are warned of the dangers of using our tongues unwisely. I’m sure that most of us will recognise the truth of the warnings contained in the letter – ‘How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire !’ we read, and then it goes on ‘And the tongue is a fire’. Later it says, ‘With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing.’ We will probably all have been victims of a tongue lashing from someone, and we may well have offered a few ourselves at times. On many occasions those tongue lashings will have been unwise and unhelpful, and maybe totally unjust. James is warning us to follow the example of Jesus, treating everybody with respect and care – a...

Today of course we commemorate the 5 th anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York . It’s a day that is inevitably tinged with huge sadness – not just for the events that took place on that horrible day, but for the events that have continued to happen over much of the past 5 years, and sadly continue to happen even today. Many people in the world are filled with a hatred that has nothing to do with any religion. Somewhere out of all the hatred though there is a light shining in the darkness – that light is Jesus. In our lives we make constant choices – choices between right and wrong, good and bad, choices over what we wear, how we brush our hair ! All kinds of choices but none are as important as choosing to follow Jesus – and seek to share his light in a world where there is so much darkness. This evening instead of a sermon I’m going to read a short piece written by the Rev. Gareth Hill, a Methodist minister in Wadebridge in Cornwall . In between each of th...

Many of you will have seen or heard about the film Chariots of Fire from which we’ve just heard the theme tune. It’s the film of a very small part of the life of Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner, and a bit that’s often forgotten, international rugby player, when he won 7 caps for Scotland . On April 6, 1923 , in a small town hall in Armadale , Scotland , Eric Liddell spoke for the first time of his faith in Christ. Eighty people came to hear Scotland ’s famous runner give his testimony. Catherine Swift in her biography of Liddell wrote of the first time she saw him speak, ‘Shyly, he stepped forward and for a few seconds surveyed his waiting audience, then he began. There was no lecturing, no fist thumping on the table, no wagging or pointing a finger to stress a point, no raised voice to impress on them what he thought they should be doing. In fact, it wasn’t a speech at all. It was more of a quiet chat, and in his slow clear words, Eric for the first time in his life told the...

Today’s gospel reading (Mark 7:24 -37) gives us the account of a persistent woman begging Jesus to heal her daughter. We are told that the daughter had an unclean spirit, perhaps today we may recognise it as something like epilepsy, but whatever it was it was damaging her life. And so the mother approached Jesus who initially rejected her. But she persisted and eventually her daughter was healed. And so in a way this just goes down as another miracle of Jesus, but actually there is a little more to this account as well. The first thing to look at was the attitude of the mother. This was a very pushy woman - perhaps the sort of ardent feminist found on a bus one day. When she was getting on a man just in front of her got up from his seat. She thought to herself, "Here's another man trying to keep up the customs of a patriarchial society by offering a poor, defenceless woman his seat," and so she pushed him back onto the seat. A few minutes later, the man tried to...

This evening I was going to think about Paul’s instructions to Timothy regarding the qualifications for Bishops and Deacons (1 Tim 3) that we heard in the New Testament reading. However I always worry about the place being bugged so don’t ever think that it’s a good idea to comment on qualifications for Bishops. However one brief point I would make is that you’ll notice that Paul only comments on Bishops and Deacons, and for those of you who are against women Priests there is some bad news, because actually nowhere in the N.T. are Priests specifically mentioned at all, whether they be male or female ! So, ignoring controversy I decided to think about the Psalm - last week we thought about some verses from Psalm 27, and this time it’s Psalm 63… There was a man who bought a new hunting dog. Eager to see how he would perform, he took him out to track a bear. No sooner had they got into the woods than the dog picked up the trail. Suddenly he stopped, sniffed the ground, and heade...

The epistle of James, part of which we have heard this morning (James 1:17 -27) is quite an unusual book in the New Testament. Rather than a book of history or a letter to a particular community it is written almost as a series of sayings or proverbs – a kind of advice for life manual, and it is written to the Church in general. Many people quote proverbs as being excellent advice, however many proverbs can actually be contradictory. Amongst the most famous are : ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’ which is contradicted by ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ Or ‘many hands make light work’ but there is also the saying that ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ Or just one more, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool’ seemingly contradicted by ‘With age comes wisdom’. All of these sayings in their right context may have some merit, but they can never really be used as definitive guides to life. But in the epistle of James he is writing down sayings which are important for life, and ...