Sermons for Ordinary Times
Luke 20:27-38 At the end of his debate with the Sadducees, Jesus makes a very clear declaration about God and God’s relationship with his children:Now he is God not of the dead but of the living for to him all of them are alive The Sadducees have a question for Jesus about living arrangements in …
Luke 19:1-10 A little while ago, as he was approaching Jericho on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus had said:“…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” [Luke 18:25]When they heard this the crowd were horrified, and had …
A Sermon for the Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time (30/10/22): Zacchaeus Read More »
Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells a story, as he often does. It is a story about two individuals who are members of two groups that are quite prominent in the Gospels. One is a Pharisee. The other is a tax collector. The Pharisees are prominent in the story of Jesus’ ministry, because they become increasingly critical …
Luke 18:1-8 Someone once said: “Until you have stood for years knocking at a locked door, your knuckles bleeding, you do not know what prayer is.” That is a powerful way of putting something that perhaps lies outside the experience of most of us. Few of have experienced such enduring need that we have been …
A Sermon for the Twinty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time (16/10/22): Persistence in Prayer Read More »
2 Corinthians 9:6-15 G.K.Chesterton is supposed to have said: “The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.” Now, I’m not absolutely convinced that that is the worst possible moment for an atheist, but it is an interesting thought. The thought here is, …
A Sermon for a Harvest Festival (09/10/22): Seeds and Harvests and Generosity Read More »
Luke 17:5-10 I once had a ministerial colleague (from a different denomination) who when confronted with one of those places in the gospels where Jesus is being especially demanding of his followers responded: “Oh, you don’t want to take Jesus too seriously when he says things like that, after all he was a bit of …
Luke 16:19-31 There was a rich man . . . . And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus Jesus starts his story in the real world, the world as it actually is. His picture may be a caricature, a mild exaggeration for dramatic effect. But it is certainly something that his listeners …
Luke 16:1-13 Parables always need some extra information to make sense of them. Parables are stories, but it isn’t the surface meaning of the story that is necessarily important. Parables are stories that point to something else, they are metaphors or analogies. What is important is the relationship between the parable and the real world …
Luke 15:1-10 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”One of the things that strikes me is that our culture and our politics are designed to make us miserable, to actually …
Luke 14:25-33 Jesus never does what we often try to do! He never tries to soft-sell Christianity. He does not offer discipleship on easy terms. He doesn’t even try to persuade. He never runs after someone after they have turned away saying, “Wait, perhaps if I explain it to you better, in a different way. …