Andrew's Sermons

  Sunday, 18 August 2024. The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity A sermon on being spiritual, the word, wisdom and bread of life. Among many folks who don’t go to church, surveys will often say that many of them will profess to be spiritual but not religious or a Christian. Quite frankly, not being religious can seem quite appealing. The established church seems to shoot itself in the foot quite a lot. When the national church is in the news, it’s not usually good news, to say the least. Often another safeguarding scandal, or divisions over topics which make us seem more and more irrelevant or out of step with society. Then are those news stories making claims on behalf of all Christians, which make me wonder if we even believe in the same God! Having said that, I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of each issue in a sermon which is going onto YouTube. I do have some answers to the whole ‘being spiritual’ bit though. Many people would say John’s Gospel is more spiritual

  Sunday, 11 August 2024 The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity St Cyr, Stinchcombe. Holy Communion Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. The ways we communicate are many and varied, sometimes spoken, sometimes written down, through letters, e-mails, and more often these days through social media, video’s, facetime and zoom. Then when we see symbols, pictures and stories, they also have meaning. Jesus used many of these, although perhaps not zoom, not that we are aware of anyway. Then sometimes, communication is simply silent. When hearing good news, we smile, when sad, we show this too. How we behave to others also says a lot about our kindness, friendliness and welcome, which encourages others to respond in turn and becomes a pattern passed on and on. Some have a true gift for communication, or are just good with people, some are great writers, some have charisma which enables an even greater level of enga