Sharing some thoughts

A burglar broke into a house one night. He shined his torch around, looking for valuables; and when he picked up a CD player to place in his bag, a strange voice echoed from the dark saying, 'Jesus is watching you.' He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his torch off, and froze. When he heard nothing more after a bit, he shook his head, promised himself a holiday after his next big job, then clicked the light onand began searching for more valuables. Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, Clear as a bell he heard, 'Jesus is watching you.' Surprised and frightened, he shined his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his torch beam came to rest on a parrot. Did you say that?' he hissed at the parrot. 'Yep,' the parrot confessed, then squawked, 'I'm just trying to warn you.' The burglar relaxed. 'Warn me, huh? Who in the world are you?' 

There was a young boy who came to Sunday school late one day. Normally he was very punctual so the teacher asked him why he was late. He replied that he had been planning to go fishing with his dad, but his dad told him that he needed to go to Church. The teacher was very impressed and asked the boy if his dad had explained why it was more important to go to Church than to go fishing. To which the boy replied, ‘Yes, he did, dad said he didn’t have enough bait for both of us ! Today we celebrate the Feast Day of St James the Great. It’s the second week running in the Parish we have celebrated a Patronal Festival, a Feast of celebration dedicated to those Saints our Churches are named after. This evening at evensong (in Pyle) we will think a bit more about St James himself, but this morning I want to think about Patronal Festivals, and what they really mean. In simplified terms it is a birthday of the Church, and it is a time for examination of ourselves, our Church, our faith and ou

There have been many great speakers in history and many great speeches. We can all think of ‘I have a dream’ by Martin Luther King, or Winston Churchill’s ‘We will fight them on beaches’ or perhaps, ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few’, but there can be few more powerful speeches in the whole of history than the very short one we heard from Peter this evening (Acts 4:1-22) as he spoke to the assembled court in Jerusalem. To put this passage into context we need to look back to the previous chapter. Peter and John were going up to the Temple to worship. As they were passing through the Gate, they met a crippled man who had been there begging from the people who were heading to the Temple to worship. Instead of giving this man a few coins and passing by, Peter took him by the hand and healed him in the name of Jesus. When the people, who knew this was the lame man, saw this man leaping and jumping and praising God, they gathered and enquir

Tuesday is the Feast Day of St Mary Magdalene. This is obviously a special day in this Parish as we have a Church dedicated to her. It is a time for giving thanks for the worship that has taken place in Mawdlam over the past 750 years, and to pray for the future. But this morning I want to think about Mary Magdalene’s example and lesson for the wider Church today, and for the wider Church of tomorrow. Mary Magdalene it seems never fitted in with the idea that many people had of what a disciple of Jesus should be like or even look like. We start with the obvious fact that she was a woman, and in the time of Jesus the fact that he treated her so well, and on an equal par with men, was enough to cause scandal – through the years since, that rumour of scandalous behaviour has been developed without even the slightest shred of evidence. And then there was of course this suggestion that Mary Magdalene had had some kind of a shady past. Again, this has caused some sort of debate as it did

The story of Zacchaeus that we have heard this evening (Luke 19:1-10) is a tremendous story. It’s one of the best known accounts in the whole of the Bible, and one that’s very often used in Sunday Schools, so it’s pretty well ingrained in our minds. The basics of the story are of course that Jesus came into Jericho one day, and Zacchaeus, a short man, climbed up into a tree to get a good view of him. Jesus saw him there, and called him down out of the tree and told him he was coming to his house for tea… From a very simple story we can actually learn so much though about the character of Jesus. The first is that he knew Zacchaeus was not the nicest man in the town, many people there would have been far more honest, but Jesus didn’t care. In Zacchaeus he saw someone who was interested, interested enough to climb a tree to see him ! Jesus took that interest and saw a person ready to be changed. One of the most incredible things about some of God’s most faithful servants is their ab

Today’s gospel reading (Matt 11:16-19,25-30) often reminds me of the problems the Church today faces in making ourselves both relevant and heard. Jesus is speaking to people after he has been questioned by followers of John the Baptist about whether he is the promised Messiah or not, and you can almost sense his exasperation as he talks of people’s dissatisfaction. And he says, ‘John (the Baptist) came neither eating or drinking, and they say, “he has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners !”’ Over the last week or so the Anglican Communion has once more been divided with some Bishops holding their own meeting in Jerusalem, and refusing to attend the Lambeth Conference coming up. Without commenting either way on the rights and wrongs of the various arguments, I think you have to feel sorry for Archbishop Rowan Williams who must somehow try to hold together 2 groups that are absolutely