Methodist Bishop

The passage which we read from the Acts of the Apostles is one of the earliest Christian sermons on record. That remains true whether it's an account of what Peter actually said, or whether it's Luke's attempt at reconstructing what Peter might have said. No doubt it's a reflection of the kind of sermon which Luke had heard the first Christian leaders preaching when he was travelling with Paul around the Mediterranean. He had been one of Paul's companions on his last fateful journey to Jerusalem, and had met James the brother of Jesus, though Peter doesn't seem to have been present on that occasion. He knew, however, that Peter was absolutely in agreement with Paul that 'God shows no partiality.' Everyone, no matter what their cultural or religious background, is acceptable to God if they fear him, or show respect for him, and do what is right. He also knew that the first Christians were different from their Jewish compatriots because they believed and p...

Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29 John 12.12-16 Psalm 118 is what scholars sometimes call a processional psalm. It may also have been a royal psalm, where the king was led in procession to the Temple. It was certainly one of the psalms which pilgrims chanted or sang as they approached the Temple Mount at festival time. It's also one of the most often quoted passages in the Bible. The psalm begins with a note of celebration. The pilgrims are nearing the end of their journey and they're in the mood for rejoicing as they get ready to enter the Temple precincts. The cantor chants, "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good." And the people reply, "His steadfast love endures forever!" We're surrounded by so much fear and uncertainty because of global warming, the financial crisis, the world's rising population and scarce resources. No one knows what the future holds, but it often looks pretty bleak. Popular films like Cloverfield and I Am Legend show us v...

Genesis 17:1-16 I heard someone say on the radio the other day that maybe one good thing about the recession is that it's giving all of us a once in a lifetime opportunity to reassess the way we live and to start over again. She was certainly an optimist, a glass half-full person! But she went on to explain that because we can no long afford holidays, houses, possessions and nights out on the town maybe we now have the chance instead to re-evaluate what really matters in our lives. This is a chance to prioritise things like our health, our relationships and what we're achieving. Of course, it's easy to push this kind of argument too far. If someone's home is being repossessed, if they've lost their job and have no prospect of getting another one soon, if they're desperately in need of a holiday or badly need some new possessions, health, happiness and relationships can be damaged, not strengthened, by a crisis and we can end up achieving absolutely nothing a...

Isaiah 40.21-31, 1 Corinthians 9.16-23, Mark 1.29-38 Have you ever been outside on a clear, cloudless night, somewhere in the countryside, far away from the glare of streetlights, and looked up at the stars and been filled with awe and wonder? In the town or the city we see only a fraction of the night sky, but far from the bright lights of the town we can suddenly see countless stars stretching deep into the mists of time, the faintest of them billions of light years away from the Earth. And when we see the stars in all their true glory we are carried back to the exhortation of the Prophet, who said: 'Lift up your eyes on high and see!' The Prophet is breaking new ground in this passage. At the time of his prophecy, most people regarded Israel's God as just the greatest among a multitude of different and competing gods and spirits, but the Prophet considers Israel's God to be the only god, existing outside the boundaries of time and space, sitting, 'above the circ...

Genesis 1.1-5, Psalm 29, Acts 19.1-7 & Mark 1.4-11 The Bible story is about the triumph of light over darkness, of pattern and meaning over chaos, of good over evil, of the Creator over the destructive forces that constantly threaten to overwhelm creation. What more fitting time to be reminded of this than the middle of winter? Christmas coincides with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, because Christians could see the symmetry between the Bible message and the turning of the seasons - the triumph of day over night, of life over death. It's a message that we need to hear again and again, isn't it? In the chaos of recession we need to know that the forces of disorder and despair will not have the final word. When we hear about yet another onslaught by Israel against the Palestinians, or by Islamic terrorists against innocent bystanders in a hotel or railway station, we need to know that redemption is more powerful than devastation - that the seemingly endles...

Isaiah 40.1-11 Mark 1.1-8 Several things strike me immediately about the prophecy of Isaiah when I think about it in the light of recent events. First there is the trial of Karen Matthews, described by the policeman who led the investigation as 'pure evil'. She has become a hate figure not only for West Yorkshire Police, but for the people of Dewsbury and for the nation as a whole. And, certainly, her plot to kidnap her own daughter and collect a reward from the newspapers for Shannon's safe return was monstrously wicked, as well as monumentally stupid. In the prophecy, Israel is compared to a prisoner who has also committed monstrous and monumentally stupid crimes. She has betrayed her God, acted unjustly towards the poor and oppressed, and shown arrogant complacency in imagining that, when her enemies invaded the land and besieged her capital city, nonetheless, God would save her from the consequences of her folly. God - and his Prophet - have every right therefore to po...

Exodus 20:1-11 Matthew 21:33-46 Today's lectionary reading from the Old Testament is one of the foundation texts of the Jewish faith - the Exodus version of the Ten Commandments, which sit at the heart of the Jewish Law. It's a fitting reading for a harvest festival because it reminds us, first, that - however wonderful the natural world might be - it is not in itself a fit enough object for contemplation or worship. A beautiful view or a glorious sunset might take our breath away. The image of the earth seen from outer space might be awe inspiring. The wonderful intricacies of sub-atomic physics might boggle our minds. Knowing what happened in the first split second after the Big Bang might give us a theory of everything. The birth of a baby might reduce us to tears of joy. But in the end the sum of all these things does not comprise everything that exists, so our contemplation cannot stop with what we can sense and measure.. It must reach beyond these things to something grea...

Exodus 1.8 - 2.10 Romans 12.1-8 Matthew 16.13-20 Today's Old Testament reading from Exodus seems to be a mixture of history and legend. On the one hand it says that the Israelite people were more numerous, or in danger of becoming more numerous, than their Egyptian hosts. On the other hand it says that there were only two Israelite midwives. Even if we take them to be the chief midwives of a nationwide team these two statements simply cannot be reconciled! Two people could not possibly have headed up the vast army of midwives which such a large population would have required, especially in the days before a modern health service. Against this slightly muddled background, the charming story of Moses being rescued from the bulrushes helps to explain both his name and his origins, as an Egyptian prince of Hebrew descent. The story also explains how God is able to work through human history because human beings work alongside him to ensure that the right thing can happen. If Moses'...

Genesis 45.1-15 Romans 11.1-2a & 29-32 Matthew 15.21-28 The writers of this passage wanted it to be clearly understood that God works in human lives and human history, and that events which seem tragic and troubling to us in the present moment are sometimes part of - or can be woven into - the longterm out-working of God's purposes for us. There is a danger here, of course. People of faith will always try their hardest to look back on what has happened and impose a pattern on random events so that they seem to make sense and prove that God was with us all of the time, shaping the way things turned out. But I think that is to misunderstand how God works through history. We cannot absolve ourselves of all responsibility when things go wrong simply by imagining that they are part of some grand scheme of which we are totally unaware - although they may be, and how else are we to make sense of the Cross? However, the truth is more complicated than that. God is like a master weaver, ...

1 Kings 19.9-13 Romans 10.5-11 Matthew 14.22-33 A few weeks ago the administration of a town somewhere in England changed from Labour to Liberal Democrat, and with the change of administration came a change for the voluntary and community sector, too. The new Council decided that, while community work is valuable it isn't an immediate priority. It was suggested that there was almost a surplus of community work going on in the town, made possible by the good times when the City benefited from a lot of grant funding. Now that the grants are being targeted elsewhere, it was suggested that the time might have come to let things return to normal and allow some of that community work to wither on the vine. Coupled with endless delays and complications in releasing what little grant funding remains, and continued debate about what it can - or cannot - be spent on, this suggested that lean times might lie ahead. The only way that most community work can continue in these circumstances is i...

1 Kings 3.5-12 Romans 8.26-39 Matthew 13.31-3, 44-52 The wisdom of Solomon is proverbial. But he did not ask God for wisdom. He asked only for "an understanding mind able to discern between good and evil." God was so impressed by Solomon's selflessness and maturity that he gave him the gift of wisdom too. It would be nice to be guided by wise leaders, wouldn't it? One of Gordon Brown's difficulties is that on television he appears less wise than he apparently is in person. Someone commented that, at an award ceremony this week for former members of the Women's Land Army, he was dignified, relaxed and good humoured. He gave a short speech, without any notes, in which he said just the right things to impress everyone there and he captured precisely the mood of the occasion. But, unlike Tony Blair, he cannot do this in front of the cameras. Tony Blair always looked assured and at ease on television. Love him or hate him, he often found just the right thing to say...