During Lent, members of the clergy at St Mary’s are giving addresses at Choral Evensong on the theme “If I had just one more sermon to preach…”
Here’s mine:
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
If I had just one more sermon to preach, I’d tell people that God loved them.
The truth is, (more…)
As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.
One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).
In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.
Oofft.
This time next week, the “Cascade Conversations” will be taking place in Pitlochry. This is an attempt to allow discussion in the Scottish Episcopal Church about issues relating to homosexuality. I won’t be there because I’ve not been invited and I’m sorry about that as I would have liked to listen to what others were…
What a joy to be in this place today celebrating the resurrection. We began on a high last Sunday and have made our way though this Holy Week. People sometimes call that a journey, a waymarked path, a pilgrimage. But for me, that doesn’t begin to describe it. For me it is more like being…
In the middle of the busy days of Holy Week comes the news that Jim Cotter has died. Jim was a poet-priest – someone for whom words were as important as breathing. He wrote prayers in which unicorns danced. He was also I think the first out gay priest I ever met, coming to preach in…
Many thanks to all those who made Palm Sunday so special at St Mary’s. (I’ve been ill for a fortnight, so it wasn’t down to me!) Thanks to Stewart Macfarlane for capturing this pic. A reminder that Holy Week starts with joy.
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