Sharing some thoughts

  As people I think we are regularly tempted to put our lives into different sections, different compartments. Perhaps we have a work life and a social life. Perhaps a church life and private family time. These are just some options of how we might compartmentalise our lives at times and in reality, we may split it down a lot further than this, breaking down each of those sections more…     But our readings today remind us that three very key things in our lives are actually inseparable both from each other and from the lives of Christians in general. Those things are faith, generosity and thankfulness and as we commemorate a different harvest to usual those things are no less important…    In our gospel reading (Luke 17:11-19) we have this amazing account of Jesus being approached by 10 lepers who asked him for healing – perhaps this year more than ever before we recognise the words in the gospel as they approached Jesus ‘keeping their distance.’ Safe physical ...

  This week we have entered another period of not quite full lockdown, but a time of additional restrictions. News reports tell us of rising numbers of cases of coronavirus once again and it’s a difficult time for many people who, apart from the worries they may have, may be lonely or feel isolated from family or friends, or may be concerned about family or friends. Again there all kinds of worries about money and about jobs…   It isn’t an easy time and it isn’t a time for glib answers such as ‘Trust in God and it will all be ok’, but actually there is something to say for that response ! ‘Trust in God and it will all be ok !’ ‘Ok’ doesn’t mean everything will be absolutely fine immediately, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we won’t have any problems or worries in our lives at any point. Life may still sometimes be a bit tough but with God everything will be ok because ultimately ‘ok’ means that God is still holding us in his care. God’s love is unchanging and absolute....

from Helen    Well, what a week last week was. It was a week when we saw people’s true feelings and concerns on the news. We heard political arguments, we heard about more local lockdowns including Caerphilly and we heard the reaction of people to this. Lockdown was not fun and it is still difficult to get used to the new normal, which former Prime Minister Tony Blair described as everything that was not normal before.  Understandably people in Caerphilly are upset. I heard the voices on the news of people feeling unfairly treated because they had done all the right things but others hadn’t which had led to a local lockdown. They were angry and disappointed. I would love to say that I didn’t get fed up of other people’s behaviour in lockdown, it wouldn’t be true. When we find things hard we can all judge others a bit for not living in the way that we have been living. In our readings from the epistle to the Romans (14:1-12) and the gospel of Matthew (18:21-35) we hea...

  A long time ago I saw a thing on  the  internet about job descriptions for jobs that are really bad and I looked it up again this week but couldn’t find it – the closest I came was a list of the top 10 worst jobs as voted for by the readers of the Grimsby Telegraph ! At the very top was a sewage worker…    To be fair it’s not the most immediately attractive job on paper at least, and the reason I was thinking about this related to today’s gospel reading from Matthew (16:21-28). Jesus is talking about his followers and what it means to be one of those followers.    First of  all  he’s described how he has to go to Jerusalem to be killed. Peter argues with him and is bluntly told, ‘Get behind me  Satan ! ’  It seems harsh but Peter was judging things by earthly standards and Jesus had very different ideas and he went on to tell the disciples that whoever wanted to follow him must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow…...

  For my text this morning I’m  not immediately going to use one of the Bible readings but rather words from  the Liverpool Echo from October 9 th 2015 , and the words of Jurgen Klopp who had just been appointed the Liverpool F ootball  C lub  Manager.  He said,  “We have to change from doubters to believers. Now . At this moment  we ( all the LFC family is ) are  a little bit too nervous, a little bit too pessimistic, a little bit too much in doubt,” he said.  “They all celebrate the game and there is a fantastic atmosphere in the stadium,  But  they don’t believe at the moment. They only see five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. History is great. But only to remember. Now we have the possibility to write a new story if we want. ” At a time when we’re really being challenged to consider our faith and our churches, I don’t think there could be more appropriate words  than these  and today’s gospel (Matthew 14:22...

I wonder how many people in recent times have thought that evil seems to be winning or that God has no control in the world… Perhaps some have gone further by asking how can a loving God have allowed such chaos to dominate not just a small part of the world but the whole world…  Lots of people will be asking those sort of questions and now it would be easy to say let’s put the past behind us and move on. We’re back in church, even though it’s different !!  But actually, we need to recognise that things are different and we need to challenge ourselves to consider what in us needs to be different as we move forward and today I want to think of one line from the gospel reading that we just heard (Matthew 13:24-30,36-43) and actually I want to take it in some ways out of context…  It’s the very last line from the gospel we heard, ‘Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father…’  I’m going to use this out of context because it ...

The great American evangelist Billy Graham is quoted as saying, “I've read the last page of the Bible, it's all going to turn out all right.” I think there are some days and some times when we need to hear that a little more than at others… Perhaps for some of you, that time may be now !  And the readings from today point us, not to the last page of the bible, but certainly to some words of hope and inspiration.  In the gospel according to John (14:1-14) we’re told by Jesus, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me’. These are powerful words, and words which can be trusted because they come from Jesus, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds is it ?  Sometimes, although we want to trust,  and we want to be sure,  and we want to know that everything will be ok in the end,  it just doesn’t feel like it !  But Jesus didn’t leave it there. He had more to say, ‘In my Father’s house, there are many dwel...