Methodist Bishop

Jeremiah 23.1-6, 2 Corinthians 12.2-10, Mark 6.30-34 The Christian approach to happiness finds it through engagement not detachment, through loving God and others as much as we love ourselves. Like a Greek philosopher, Jeremiah sees the ideal leader as someone who should, above all, be wise and just, although he uses a very Biblical term to sum up what he’s looking for - righteousness. A righteous leader will not only be at peace within themselves, but they’ll make other people happy too. The opposite of being like this - being unwise, unjust and self obsessed - is evil. It doesn’t lead to happiness, it brings woe upon the leader. Woe is the very opposite of happiness, it’s unhappiness, and that’s what the bad leader is going to reap. Of course, Jeremiah is thinking about kings, but his prophecy can be applied to any sort of relationship where people are called upon to to guide and inspire one another - marriage, parenthood, relationships between workers and their supervisors and man...

Ezekiel 2.1-7, 2 Corinthians 2.1-12, Mark 6.7-9 Here are some lyrics from a song that got several young people put in prison just for dancing along to it. See if you recognise what all the fuss was about. It might seem crazy what I'm about to say; Sunshine she's here, you can take a break, I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space With the air, like I don't care baby, by the way. Bring me down, I can't nothing, Bring me down, my level's too high, Bring me down, I said. Here come bad news, talking this and that, yeah, Well, give me all you got, and don't hold it back, yeah, Well, I should probably warn you I'll be just fine, yeah, No offence to you, don't waste your time. Here's why… Can anyone tell me how that sentence is supposed to end? Why is the singer feeling lighter than air, so that even bad news can’t bring him down to earth? Let’s play the song and see if that helps to joy your memories. And, while we’re...

John 20.19-25, John 20.19-25 A number of years ago someone made an official complaint about me because, on the Sunday before the general election, I preached about the election. Now admittedly, if she had a postal vote, it was a bit late to bring up the subject, but that wasn't her complaint.  She said was sick of hearing about the general election and she had come to church to get away from it. She had to withdraw the complaint, because that's not actually a good reason for coming to church. Church shouldn't be the place where we go expecting to get away from things, it should be the place where we go to engage with things, to think and pray about what’s happening in the world, and that includes the general election. You see, church isn't a quiet space, a sort of holy grotto to which we can retreat when everything gets too much for us. Instead it's a sacred space, a special opportunity in the week for us to share our concerns, our fears, our anxieties and -...

Jeremiah 31.31-34 John  12.20-36 These passages tell us about two important moments in salvation history which have helped people to decide which way they ought to go. The first is the promise God made to Jeremiah, that God's People will no longer need to ask for directions but will be given their own internal satellite navigation system. In some ways it's a bit like the colleague who told me that she has an internal sense of direction which means she never gets lost. To which I replied, 'So that' why, when we got to the fork on our way to the synod in Harrogate - this way to Spoforth, that way to Knaresborough - you instinctively knew which way to go - not! What's different about the promise made to Jeremiah is that the navigation system actually works, and also that there's nothing instinctive about it. Jeremiah's assessment is that the People of Israel had taken a series of wrong turns in the past. They had eaten sour grapes, as Jeremiah puts it. ...

Numbers 21.4-9 John  3.14-21 The passages we read today tell us about two important moments in salvation history when people have had to decide which way they ought to go. The first happens when the People of Israel are wandering in the Wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land. As they have been rescued from slavery and ethnic cleansing we might expect the People to be grateful. But their memories are short. There aren’t yet enough of them in the loose federation of rootless and landless tribes which gathered under Moses’ protection to be able to challenge the ancient civilizations of Edom and Canaan with their walled cities, settled governments and citizen armies. Indeed, the Bible tells us that Edom had its own kings long before Israel, and the Edomites weren’t about to have their authority challenged by this bunch of ne’er-do-wells and Johnny-come-latelies. So the People of Israel couldn’t go through Edom, they had to go round it - wandering many miles out of their ...

The passages we read today tell us about two of the most important moments in salvation history, moments of decision when God’s people had to decide which way to go. The first is the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. We tend to think of it as a key point in the life of Moses, but he is only the Cheshire Cat in the story, if you like, the person who can tell the people which direction they should take. And Moses is unequivocal about it. He doesn’t sit on the fence like the Cheshire Cat did, at least metaphorically anyway. he gives the people a clear set of instructions because he relays to them what he considers to be the direct word of God. They are to have only one guiding principle in their lives, not a pantheon of different options and creeds. They are not to pretend - to themselves or to others - that they are going in one direction while taking another that leads somewhere else. They are to show an example of just stewardship of all their resources, including the people ...

Genesis 17.1-7,15-16 and Mark 8.31-38 The passages we read today tell us about important moments of decision for Abraham, Sarah and the disciples of Jesus. God invites Abraham ‘to walk before him’ and it certainly does matter which way he decides to go at this point. If Abraham and Sarah listen to God’s call their direction of travel will take them from being a minor clan chieftain and his childless wife to becoming the ancestors of a great nation. It’s a choice between lifelong obscurity and - as the Bible says - ‘everlasting’ renown. Could that be the choice for our churches in the Aire and Calder Circuit? A choice between a daring decision to walk before God and become a new type of church for the Twenty-first Century and beyond or a safer, but less glorious decision perhaps, to fade into obscurity, before becoming - if we’re lucky - a blue plaque on the wall that says, ‘ Such-and-such  Methodist Church once met here,’ and - if we’re not so lucky - a carpet warehouse! Je...

Gospel Reading  Mark 1.21 -39 I'd like to read a short passage from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: Alice was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought… ‘Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name..., `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. `I don't much care where--' said Alice. ‘Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. `--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation. `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.' I've been on sabbatical recently so I've had chance to attend a good many services conducted by other people. At one of those the preacher read this passage from A...