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 […]

Two dancers. Different stories.

We are invited to consider this morning David dancing the ark of the covenant from one place to another. And Salome shimmying around Herod’s party and catching his eye with such disastrous consequences for John the Baptizer.

Two dancers. Two very different stories.

If you read a newspaper printed in England, or listen to the news from the BBC, you cannot be unaware that there is a huge row going on in the worldwide Anglican Church over the appointment of Bishop Gene Robinson in the USA and the events at the recent General Convention of the American Episcopal Church. If is good to welcome friends from that church here this morning. We’ve been praying for you over the last couple of weeks.

Issues of human sexuality have been simmering just below the surface for quite some time. This week they seem to have come to the boil – open warfare seems to have broken out. Bishops are fulminating and ex-communicating one another left, right and centre. The papers and the news broadcasts are full of it -  everyone loves a row, don’t they?

If Christ were not risen, none of us would be gathered here. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Once upon a time a young priest was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man who had died while travelling through the area.

The service was to be held at a new cemetery out of town.

This man would be the first person laid to rest there.

As he was not familiar with the area and like most men was not willing to ask directions, he soon became quite lost and finally arrived over an hour late.

Sometimes it can be fun looking at someone else’s favourite books. You tend to be able to see what the most interesting (or juicy) bits are by the way the pages are marked.

The gospels though did not have pages. How do you know where in a gospel the most significant (or the most juicy) bits are to be found.

It is inevitable that I am beginning to reflect on what my time here in St Saviour’s has been all about.

Indeed, I am pondering what it is that that I have been trying to communicate as I have stood here in this pulpit in this beautiful church on Sunday mornings, for almost three years.

It seems to me:

·        We are made in the image and likeness of God

·        God loves us

·        Everybody is welcome

It almost seems as though the Old Testament reading was written for someone turning a corner or making a transition. It starts like this:

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.   I am about to do a new thing; "

I thought, when I read that, that I had found the answer of how to preach today.  "I am  about to do a new thing."  How appropriate.  Eagerly, I read on, and found,

"I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with incense."

Oh dear, that sort of sentiment will not do at all.

However, there are sentiments that are worth their weight in gold, buried in this reading.

When I was at school across in the west of Scotland, I remember doing a project on Glasgow, the nearest big city. We were told that the city had become prosperous through trading. Goods were imported and sold on at great profit. Cotton. Sugar. Particularly tobacco.

I remember hearing all about the plantations and the ships and the merchants and the traders and the rising prosperity.

Never once did I hear the word slavery.

How do we pray and whom do we pray for?

For the prophet Isaiah whom we have heard from this morning, his prayer was flying up there with the eagles. He does not seem to have been concerned about praying for anyone. He was lost in prayer.

But Simon asked Jesus to come and pray. And for whom? Well, for his mother-in-law.

And in learning that, we have one of those odd conundrums. If Simon had a mother-in-law, he had a wife. And if he had a wife, why do we hear nothing of her.

How many other people were around the apostles of the gospels who have been silenced by convention and by circumstance. Who will tell their stories?

Is something missing from our understanding of the gospels if we have heard nothing of their experience and nothing of their stories?

Epiphany – the season that we are in at the moment, is our reminder that God does not remain in the glittery wrappings of Christmas for very long. It is our reminder that we are dealing, in Jesus Christ with someone who encountered people. Someone who looked people in the eye and said – “Come follow me.”

Last week we were considering the call of Samuel. This week we have the call of Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the sea. Jesus looks at them. Sees what they are doing and says, “Come, and I will make you fish for people”.

But before that, we heard just a bit of Jonah’s fishy tale. The bit where he too is called.