A Sermon on Families on the Day of the Annual General Meeting

I am not able to be all of the things that my sons want me to be.  It is a good job that I know that, and that I am honest and realistic about that with myself and with them.

A Sermon on Living Life to the Full

What kinds of images were conjured up in your mind by the word ‘hell’ when you heard it in the Gospel reading a few moments ago?

A Sermon on Being the Light of the World

I do not know if any of you have heard of the Amish.  A few years ago I was fortunate enough, during a visit to New York, to visit an Amish community for the first time on their farms in Pennsylvania. The Amish arrived in America after migrating from Europe in the Eighteenth Century, and the lives which they live now are virtually unchanged from the lives of their ancestors. They are caught in a self-imposed and self-regulated time lock.

A Sermon on Following

‘Come,’ is an important word in our family, we have been using it now for a number of years.  When we hear the fridge door opening, and we deduce that Nahum (who is 3), quickly followed by his older brothers Joshua, Malachi and Isaac, are on the next stage of their never-ending search for chocolate they hear that word from the next room, “come.”  When I am still sitting in my study five minutes after dinner has been put on the table, I hear it (or sometimes a less polite version of it) echoing from the kitchen above me.  Most of all in our household, it is used when we are talking to Emily and Gregory.  And we have been using that word with very little effect for a long time now.

A Sermon on Eucharistic Adoration and to Farewell Fr Julian Kent

We have come here this afternoon to do a number of things together.  Firstly, and what is most important to Father Julian, we have come here with him, in his last act of public worship in the Diocese, to worship the God who created us, and loves us and preserves us.

A Sermon for Christmas Morning

My dogs and I have a basic communication problem.  I say that the fault is with them, but I know deep down that it is really with me.  When I talk about their lack of obedience I am really talking about my inability to train them.

A Sermon on the Decision to Become a Ministering Community in Mission on the Feast of Christ the King

What we believe, and how we express what we believe is a complicated business for members of all religious groups, and Christians are not excluded.  We only have to look at the number of different commentaries that have been published on the Gospels of Jesus, or the range of different ways that Christians talk about him, and worship him, and live out their lives in his name, to illustrate the complexities of believing.

A Sermon on God’s Love for the People of Wangi

Who do you most associate with in the story that Jesus told, and that we have just heard?

Those of us who have heard this story before have probably come to understand it to be about the prodigal son, the one who wanders off and then later returns, but we could equally describe this as the story of the loving father, or the story of the older brother, or even the story of the absent mother.  When you heard the story which of the characters most captivated your imagination?

A Sermon on the Christian Year in Preparation for the Ordination of Priests

My young sons – who are 8, 6, 5 and 2, are transfixed by the idea that it is nearly Christmas.  In fact, if truth be told, they have been focused on Christmas since the last of them had their birthdays in August. When I tell them that Christmas is not until next year that seems a very long time for them to have to wait.  But of course it is true.  Our Christian year does not begin on the first of January like the secular year around us, our year begins at the end of November on the first Sunday of Advent.

A Sermon on the Discernment of Leaders During the Synod Weekend

Luisa and I, and our four sons, have just returned from a family holiday in Fiji.  Once again my boys have had to come to terms with the fact that their father is not able to do all of the things that they would like him to do.  Whilst I received some marks for effort, my skills in the swimming pool playing water volleyball left them all rather disappointed and embarrassed.  As our holiday week flowed they were less and less eager to have me representing them in the father’s game in the pool.  I suspect that next time we go on holiday the idea of me taking part won’t even be mentioned by them.

A Sermon about a Conversation Across the Chasm

Sometimes it works out best for me to be in my office very early in the morning, before most of the rest of the City of Newcastle has begun the day.  If I look out of my window on those early mornings there is normally a man that I can see asleep not very far away from me.  I am not looking through his bedroom window to see him, I have to look down a few floors beneath me, because he is not in a building like I am, he sleeps in the door way to a shop on the other side of the road from the Diocesan Office.  He is there pretty much every morning when I am in my office early, it does not matter if it is raining or dry, that is where he sleeps.