Methodist Bishop

1 Samuel 8.1-18, Romans 13.1-7, John 18.33-37 A politician arrived with ten minutes to go before a big public meeting in a local church. Unfortunately the car park was full and there was nowhere obvious to park within walking distance of the venue. (I‘ve been there!) He looked up at the sky in despair and said, ‘Look, God, I know we’re not exactly well acquainted, but if you can find me a parking space I promise to lead a totally blameless life, committed to doing good, for as long as I remain in office.’ He looked down again and there, right in front of his  car, was a parking space. He parked up triumphantly and jumped out. ‘Thanks, God, but the deal’s off,’ he said. ‘I managed to find a space myself.’ I tell the joke because it’s about sovereignty, who controls what happens, and because the question of sovereignty is one of the big issues of our time. The debate before and after the European Referendum has been partly about sovereignty, taking back control from Europe and...

(Luke 10.1-11) Did anyone watch the programme on Channel 4 where people agreed to have literally all their possessions taken away? Life Stripped Bare started out as an excuse to see young people running about naked, because even their clothes were taken away. But each day during the making of the film they could take back one of their possessions and one person said that, although at first it was really exciting every time she got something back, the excitement grew less every day until she found she didn’t really need anything else. At the end of the programme some of the people gave away half their possessions to charity. They also found they had a lot more time to concentrate on what really mattered most in their lives. Who has taken the sort of holiday where the only thing you know is where you’re going, but not where you’re going to stay? Or who has been on the sort of holiday or business trip where you arrived but your luggage got lost? How did you cope? I’m usually the s...

JOHN 8.31-36, ROMANS 6.16-19 Jesus said, ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” What does it mean to be free? I guess there are two ways of responding to that question. The first answer is that it’s obvious what freedom means; it’s the opposite of being shut up in a cage; it’s about being ‘ as free as the wind blows, as free as the grass grows .’ The second answer, however, is that it all depends what we mean by freedom. And once we start thinking along those lines it becomes more of an academic question, something that philosophy dons or political theorists might want to debate. Assumptions about freedom and being free are all around us. They shape a great deal of what goes on in our society. Just think for a moment about the fracking debate. Should frackers be free to drill deep into the ground under our feet, or should Yorkshiremen and women be free to say, ‘Not in our backyard!’ Different ideas about freedom underlie a great deal of the controversy...

Genesis 11.1-9 Acts 2.1-8 and 13-21 Antes de que todo comenzara ❘ ya existía ❘ aquel que es la Palabra (Spanish) In principio erat Verbum (Latin) Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος (NT Greek) Au commencement était la Parole (French) Da time everyting had start, had one Guy. “Godʼs Talk,” dass who him (Pidgin) Na początku było Słowo (Polish) I te timatanga ❘ te Kupu (Maori) Im Anfang war das Wort (German) All of these phrases, whether taken from the original Greek written by St John, or from translations of his words, are about communication. First, they’re about communicating the message to one another in the different languages spoken all around the world, but then second - because they are all versions of John’s Gospel chapter 1, verse 1, they’re about communication with God through Jesus, his living Word. It’s particularly poignant for me at the moment because my own father is in Pinderfields Hospital following a stroke which has progressively robbed him of the power of commu...

John 20.1-18 Mary Magdalene was one of a group of women who were followers of Jesus  and who'd dedicated themselves to serving him. As someone said on Radio 4’s In Our Time programme recently, that doesn't mean they made his packed lunch or washed his socks. Jesus himself is the servant of those who serve, and his followers are called to be like him, to serve not only him but their neighbours, all who need our help. Being his servants means, then, that the women helped him with his mission. So Jesus had a core group of male disciples in leadership roles but also a group of determined women on his team as well, who were ready to go to his Cross and his tomb. And this prominent role for women was replicated in the early church, where women are often identified by Paul as leaders and team members. Mary seems to have been particularly close to Jesus. She's the only person he ever speaks to in the Gospels just by saying her name. It happens in the garden on the firs...

Isaiah 53.3 - 12 John 18.28 - John 19.42 In a great many ways we resemble other living things. As we've seen before, we've got an awful lot in common with a banana plant, and that's because all living things on earth are descended from the same single celled organisms that first emerged from primordial chaos billions of years ago.  Like other animals, we also feel hunger, thirst, pain and satisfaction, we wake and sleep, we reproduce, we have to breathe to live, and eventually we die. But we're also unique, at least among life on earth. Unlike most animals, we’re capable of thinking not just about the past and the present but also about the future, and imagining what that might be. Some animals can do the same thing up to a point. They can think about what might happen next if they do something, or something were to happen, today or tomorrow. But human beings can imagine a whole different way of living in the future. A chimpanzee can only ever imagine living in...

John 12.1-8, 27-28 One of the things that scientists have discovered about our universe is that it isn't as predictable as it once seemed. There was a time when scientists believed it runs like clockwork, and at some levels it does. The planets orbit the sun like clockwork, our bodies work in fairly predictable ways and even the weather can be predicted a few days ahead with reasonable accuracy. But probe beneath the surface and the world starts to look disturbingly random. Let’s think for a moment about my journey to work from Hemsworth to Sheffield. There are basically three ways I could go. Two of them are roughly the same length, the route which takes the backways around Rotherham and the route along the Dearne Valley Parkway and the M1 motorway. Both go to Meadowhall. The third way is longer and involves travelling along three different motorways and a dual carriageway, but it avoids Meadowhall. I listen to the traffic bulletins on the radio, so each day I have to decid...