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Showing posts from August, 2014

What would or should I do

Have you ever felt incredibly  important ?  Have you ever felt as if you were the most important person in the  room ?  Well, it is a little like the old jokes of ‘don’t you know who I  am ?’ There was a man called Christian Herter who was governor of Massachusetts.  One day, after a busy morning  campaigning  (and no lunch) he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished. As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line. "Excuse me," Governor Herter said, "do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?"  "Sorry," the woman told him. "I'm supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person."  "But I'm starved," the governor said.  "Sorry," the woman said again. "Only one to a customer."  Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this ti

Bartholomew

Feeling suitably inspired to preach for today I had a look at the readings – St. Bartholomew’s Day. Now I think it’s generally a good thing to celebrate Saints Days as they can give a nice bit of human interest in the examination of their lives… However, there are some about whom we know so little that preaching about them is not very easy !! St Bartholomew falls into that category. Although he’s mentioned in the gospels as one of the 12 disciples, we know very little else about him at all. Suddenly my inspiration seemed to be disappearing a little !! That was until I realised that St Bartholomew is actually a perfect representation of most of us. We’re there as part of a Church, part of a family, chosen by God to represent him, supported and sustained by the Holy Spirit, but leading sometimes unremarkable lives, and that’s not a bad way to be. Many of you will know the story about St Maximillian Kolbe a Roman Catholic Priest imprisoned in Auschwitz by the Nazis who gave his l

A bad morning....

From Helen  Have you ever had one of those type of  mornings ?   I certainly have, the kind of morning where you really don’t feel like getting up and ready for the day. The kind of morning when you just have this strange sensation which suggests that you just should stay in bed. Well, when I was in University I had  one such morning that was so ba d it sticks out in my memory.  I woke up early, it was a Monday morning and I had an early lecture, by early I mean that I had to leave the house at 7:00 am please I deserve an  aahh  for that. Then I rushed to my train, which was late, when the train finally arrived it was packed full, so I a 19 year old student had to stand up for a 30 min journey.  Please can I have another  aahh  !  Well if that wasn’t enough some  very handsome young men, this  obviously  should have been  a happier moment,   tried to convert me to  another religion.  When my train finally reached Cardiff I realised I was going to be very late for my lecture, n

Help ! I'm going to fall...

Last week I was with some friends and we were walking through some fields. All was going well until… a sty le  came up and I had to clamber over whilst battling with the feeling of ‘Help, I am going to fall’. I am a very clumsy person and although I didn’t fall on this occasion it would not have been that big a surprise if I had. In fact when I was a child my Mum used to say that I could fall over  air !  Bizarrely, I have never broken a bone .  I have however been covered in bruises from bumping into things and it is such a way of life for me that I  often can’t even remember what I’ve walked into . Our readings this morning have reminded me of that ‘Help, I am going to fall’ moment. In the reading from 1 Kings we heard of Elijah being scared as he was being hunted down. His faith remained strong but He needed reassurance from God that all would be well. For the disciples they must have thought that they were going to fall into the water as they went through a storm but no they wer

Come, trust, just as you are

When I was quite young I was playing football in the garden – it was quite a nice garden with lots of nice flowers – even now I’m not too good at names of flowers so I don’t know what they were but they were  colourful   anyway !  But whilst I was playing football and kicking it against a wall of the house it went astray a little and beautifully took off the heads of lots of the flowers. I was young but I was old enough to know that my mother would not be  pleased ! And so I had a marvelous idea – I would  sellotape  the heads back on and make the flowers look nice and  colourful  again – and so I did, and this worked really well right up until the following day when my mum noticed something strange about the flowers and decided to ask me about  it ! I’m sure she admired my initiative but she didn’t tell me and I was not too popular. Very often when we do wrong in our lives we can’t just  sellotape  things back together again – we can’t just put it right as simply as that,

Making the impossible possible...

From Helen There is a story of a young man called Tom who was in love with a woman called Jane. Now Jane wasn’t sure about Tom, she didn’t think he was up to much and so she finished with him. Tom knew that it would be impossible for them to ever get back together. He coped with what she had said and with a very sad heart carried on his life. Six months later the impossible happened. A letter arrived for him from Jane, is said,  ‘ Tom , I have been so wrong. You truly are amazing, my times with you were the best in my life. I love you so very much. I am really sorry for hurting you. Please Tom could we try again. Your ever loving and adoring Jane. P.S. well done on winning the lottery.’ That relationship I expect remained an impossibility. I wonder though more seriously if you have ever had a moment when the seemingly impossible became not just a possibility but reality. This is what we have heard about in our readings today. In the reading from Isaiah we heard of God calling peopl

Feeding with abundant grace...

There’s a story about a rather absent-minded professor. One day he explained to his biology class that they were going to cut up and inspect the inner workings of a frog. He told them he had the frog in his pocket. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper bag – he shook out the contents and out came a ham sandwich. He looked a bit perplexed and said, ‘this is awkward. I distinctly remember eating my lunch.’ A couple of today’s readings are a little bit about eating. The reading from Isaiah uses the analogy of water and food to describe things we need – and just as we need water and food, we also need God… And the gospel reading (Matt.14:13-21) recounts the story known as the feeding of the 5000. And so these readings are a little bit about eating, but actually they are a lot about the extravagant grace of God…   In the reading from Isaiah (55:1-5) we are invited to come and experience God’s grace – we are to come, it says, all who are thirsty and who have no money – c