Christine. Just over 10 year’s ago, I sat where you are sitting, waiting to make my own response to the same questions which in a few moment’s time will be put to you.
As I think back to that time, I remember an incident which happened to me in my training before I was ordained. It […]

Here is the sermon that I croaked this morning. Not having much voice, I’ve no idea whether people could hear it or not. The snuffling of the mancold which I’ve been afflicted with prompted me to dip into the file of “old sermons about the rich man and lazarus” and pull this one out. Last […]

Not long ago, I took a walk with a friend along the riverside path from close to where we’re worshipping now, down the river Kelvin. We walked, we talked and suddenly, he said, “Look, what’s that?” It was a flash of blue darting over the water. We stared intently for a few moments. The river […]

When I was first in full time ministry, as a lay person, some fifteen years ago, I worked as a member of the chaplaincy team, in the University of London. The team that I worked in was a team of five people, four ordained, and me, a lay person. Four were men, and one a woman. We worked from a rather extraordinary modern chapel which was entirely circular. It was the inside of a dome which was decorated with some rather frightening scenes from the book of revelation. As your eyes drifted up at morning prayer, you would find yourself gazing at the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

No doubt as a consequence of these rather scary murals, various people had tried to put others thing into that space which would attract the eye and keep one’s gaze away from the walls. One such object was a statue, about a foot and a half high. It was a woman, kneeling, her hair still braided carefully in place, holding a box of ointment.

When the women set off for the tomb on that sad Sunday morning so very long ago, they were a devoted, if disappointed and disillusioned little group.
They set off in the first light of day to anoint the body of their friend. The one who had been taken. Taken. Tortured. Mocked. Crucified. Buried.
The one who […]

Let us take a break for a moment or two from the events in Jerusalem.
Let us consider a couple of images of the crucified one from closer to home.
A few weeks ago, I took a funeral. After the service here in the Cathedral, we went to Clydebank Crematorium. I got there just before the time […]

One of the most interesting characters that I have met in my ministry was a Jewish professor in one of the universities that I have worked in. He was often in the chapel and used to proclaim that he was fascinated with Jesus, but could never be a Christian because of what we had made […]

It is just about a year since I came here to meet the vestry for us to discern together whether I should offered the call to be the Provost here.
A day had been arranged for a number of candidates to meet the vestry, to chat to the other clergy, to meet the office staff and […]

Where are the boundaries of God’s community?
Who draws the lines which decide who is part of God’s realm of justice and joy?
Our Gospel reading this morning takes up from the gospel readings that we have had over the last couple of Sundays. The disciples are squabbling. They don’t seem to have been a very nice […]

In the name of God, Creator, Saviour and Spirit.
The context for the conversation between Jesus and this Gentile woman whose name goes unrecorded, was a place quite different to our own. The two of them met in a place called Tyre – the same city in southern Lebanon which has featured so often in newspaper […]