• Sermon preached for Lent 1, 2013

    Here’s the video.


    And here is the text:

    One of my favourite stories about St Mary’s is one that I’ve heard several versions of. It concerns one of my predecessors as Provost here.

    He had been here for a couple of months and thought that things were going OK. And then suddenly a letter appeared from a member of the congregation. (It may be that person is still here and just about to write to me in similar terms, so I’m taking a risk in telling this story).

    The gist of the letter was that its author listed the many ways in which the worship of the congregation had changed in those three months.

    See here, the letter writer wrote – see all the changes that you’ve made.

    And in the letter there was a list. In the version of the story I like the best there were 90 points listed but I don’t know whether we should allow a little bit of exaggeration in the telling.

    And the Provost in question had to confess (more…)

One response to “You’ll have had your apocalypse”

  1. AndyB Avatar
    AndyB

    I always think that the point about Jesus’ return is that we may well live to see it, but on the other hand, we might be killed in a road accident this afternoon. That is the urgency of following Jesus.

    I think that a Rapture is possible, but firstly very unlikely (the Biblical interpretation that leads to such a conclusion seems rather far-fetched), and secondly, escapist. It is already a blindingly obvious statement that in 2013, people are already under serious threat of arrest, torture and death for their faith in some parts of the world. There is no guarantee for any Christian in the comfortable West that they will not face such persecution or worse, whether Jesus returns in their lifetimes or not.

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