Category: Sermons

We did an exercise at 728 this week. We listed the names of the people we knew in the different age bands who come to St Chad’s. How many people do you know by name who are under 5 ? How many can you name in the 5 to 15 age range. What about the…

Genesis 14:17-20. Revelation 19:6-10. John 2:1-11. Signs lead us to Jesus, to believe in him as lord and saviour. I don’t expect many people set out on journeys without knowing where they are going. In these days of car navigation systems, a map is no longer absolutely necessary, although it might be a good idea…

1 Samuel 3:1-10 Amid the hustle and bustle of daily life, we often find it hard to hear God’s voice. Many ‘voices’ shout for our attention – deadlines to meet, bills to pay, meetings to attend, phone calls to make, children to care for. We try to read our bibles, but struggle to be still…

Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11. 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24. John 1:6-8, 19-28. Poverty, hunger, lack of education, harmony, peace. Now the hard part, what can we, as Christians, do to bring about that change? Or do we prefer to keep things as they are? The reading from John highlights change that faced the Jewish people. The…

May I be helped to speak in the name of the Living God.  Amen. Today is Advent Sunday, and in church we begin our preparations for Christmas.  The pulpit fall and my stole become purple, as if by magic. The Advent wreath makes its annual appearance.  As Advent progresses, on Sunday mornings we will light…

If I asked you to give me a quote from the book of Revelation you would most likely come up with, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more”. Or maybe it would be, “See the home…

According to the song ‘Sorry’ is the hardest word. According to most of the children I work with it seems this rings true.  Saying sorry certainly doesn’t come naturally; either that or it is a word banded about with no real meaning.  A child having hit another, when prompted by staff, will begrudgingly offer a…

In just over two hours time a couple will stand here at the chancel steps and make their wedding vows.  Just like Mike and Brenda, who are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, did 50 years ago. The chancel steps are a place of promise.   They will promise to love one another, comfort one another, honour…

The list of ethical imperatives can be summed up by verse 21 of Romans. ‘Overcome evil with Good’. This is precisely what God has done in Christ and for Christians to embody this approach is a genuine indicator of their transformation by inward renewal. The Christians in Rome were bitterly divided when Paul wrote to…

Have you ever met anybody who says they have no faith? Or what about talks with someone who says they lost what little faith they had when they were a child ? Did it sound like a good idea for spending an extra hour in bed on a Sunday instead of going to church? If…

May I be helped to speak in the name of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen. Imagine your garden.  I don’t know how many of you have mustard there, but I guess almost all of you have some plants – vegetables, flowers – that you’ve grown.  Maybe they started out as a…

But Thomas (who was called ‘twin’), one of the twelve was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them.  ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the marks of the nails and…

‘Jesus lifted up his hands and while he blessed his disciples he parted from them.  Allelulia’.  (Luke 24, verse 50. Also ASB Alternative Service Book, introductory service). As we celebrate the mysterious event we call the Ascension we emphasize the fact that our Christianity, our faith, is so much more than purely a philosophy or…

Text taken from the Alternative Service book for evening prayer and comes from psalm 18; “I will love thee, Oh Lord my strength, the Lord is my strong rock and my defence”. On May 8th the church would have remembered Lady Julian of Norwich, or as is printed in the new calendar where she is…

May I be helped to speak in the name of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus encounters a woman from Samaria.  He is sitting by a well when the woman comes – as she does every day – to draw water.  He speaks to her, and the…

Today is the end of Christmas. The time of festivities is over and in the cycle that is the Christian year we turn our minds to Lent. Candlemas is the official end of Christmas. For schools, Christmas was packed away before Christmas Day. The day after the children left for their holidays, the tinsel and…

Hands up those of you who made  New Year’s resolutions this year; hands up those of you who have already broken them?   So much for good intentions; I suspect actually that most people who make resolutions break them, if  not sooner,  then later. There are of course the usual ones, to lose weight, to do…

May I be helped to speak in the name of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen When the first Christians heard the story of the widow and the judge, when they repeated it to each other, I imagine they normally focused on the widow.  They would have paid particular attention to the…

Many of you are probably familiar with a programme called Grand Designs; here the participants take on a large renovation project or a new build, pouring thousands upon thousands of pounds into the project; sometimes living onsite in quite primitive conditions maybe camping or having to fork out rent whilst continuing to build.  Most of…

If I was in Sunday School today and we were following the normal lectionary readings as we are, I would be telling the children this story: about a man called Cuthbert who was a monk a member of a religious community who spent a great deal of his time in prayer with God. History says…

I’ve recently been on holiday with my sister and brother-in –law and the dog! Before we set off, it took a good two hours to pack the car. The boot was full of bags of one sort and another, things for us, things for the dog, food, bottles of water, medical supplies, shoes for all…

Can you imagine, you’ve just crossed the Lake of Galilee for the umpteenth time – and that was strange enough, a choppy crossing to say the least and Jesus had commanded the wind and waves to abate as the boat had been taking on water and He had wanted to sleep.  Well they were all…

May I be helped to speak in the name of the Living God …  Amen. My brother-in-law, Bob, has some experience of sheep.  He spent the early years of his life on a farm in Hertfordshire; and later he went to agricultural college.  Sheep, he says, wake up each morning, then go into a huddle…

In a play by George Bernard Shaw, Don Juan says, “Heaven is alright, of course, but for meeting old friends and acquaintances you can’t beat hell.” There is a powerful truth in that facetious remark. People concerned only about themselves would find the ceaseless praise of God and the Lamb intolerable. Worship on earth, a…

Jesus bids us shine, as a pure clear light, like a little candle burning in the night. In this world of darkness so let us shine, You in our small corner and I in mine. The words of a chorus learnt in Sunday school, complete I believe with actions.  This morning we are celebrating Candlemas…

As I have been reflecting upon the season of Epiphany, which we are currently celebrating, I have had inside me a question that I have pondered over quite a lot.  What did Mary, Joseph and Jesus actually do with the gifts the wise men brought? Did they keep them, give them away or use them?…

I’d like to begin this morning by re-introducing ourselves to you all.  Firstly we have our vicar, Edwina. Her name means rich or valuable friend, as I’m sure she is to many. Then we have Brian, one of our Readers, whose name means strong one, or high and noble. Then there’s Pauline, another of our…

At a school assembly some time ago where we were thinking about All Saints Day as we are today, I interrogated a group of children at the front of church over how they did at keeping God’s commandments.  Were they a sinner or a saint?  Did they deserve a halo or horns?  Were they going…

I’ve stolen that text from next week.  Why?  Not to spike the next preacher’s guns but because it’s the right reaction to today’s Gospel – last week’s too. Reading Mark, we have to forget ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’.  We see instead someone who at first seems paradoxical.  Contradictory: Hard to understand. He seems with…

I don’t know about you but I am not a fan of adverts on the TV.  One or two of them are ok but mostly they get on my nerves and their real value for me is that they provide an opportunity to go and make a cup of tea without missing anything.  However, I…

Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim this word and say, “Hear the word of the lord, all you people of Judah you that enter these gates to worship the Lord, thus says the lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings and let me dwell with…

Put a member of a rugger team in the Sin Bin and the team deems itself lucky if the opposition only manage to score three points during the 10 minutes forced to play with a below strength side. If a team plays with a member short, it affects the overall performance. Ask my son. He…

I don’t know if you have any phobias but I do not like spiders!  I never have done although I think the huge one that ran over my shoulder as a ten year old, whilst I was in the car with my Dad driving down the motorway at 70 mph did rather finish me off. …

Money was no easy matter in Jesus’s day.  Different kinds of currency were in circulation at this time.  The Roman currency was the denarius with the head of Tiberius the then Roman Emperor; it seems that Jerusalem had its own commercial Shekel – a currency different from the rest of Palestine; and then there was…

How do you feel when the ”new kid on the block” steals your thunder, steals your limelight? Or when something you’ve worked long and hard for is taken away and given to someone else? Or perhaps the client-base that you’ve spent so long building up starts to go elsewhere, and your customers find an alternative…

If we’d used the psalm appointed for today, we would have heard these famous words: The Lord is my shepherd: therefore I shall lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures; and leads me beside still waters. He refreshes my soul; and guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.…

25th March 1807 was a truly momentous day in human history, for on it Parliament received the Royal Assent to the bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. It had been a long and difficult struggle for the bill’s supporters, and it would be another 26 years before those who were already slaves would…

The parable of the weeds amongst the wheat.  After Jesus has told us the parable, ten verses on we see his disciples asking him to explain the parable to them.  Which he does. His explanation is quite straight forward really, and one that speaks of the harvesting of souls at the end of time.  I…