Sermons

Amos 6:1-7 6Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria,    4Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; 5who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, […]

Luke 16.1-13 This parable of the unrighteous steward is notoriously difficult to make sense of, and so I’m going to start somewhere else and come back to it. I want to think of a painter. The painter makes a few strokes with the brush on the canvas. Then she stands back and looks at it. […]

Smorgasbord! One of the mild pleasures of my life comes to me here in the monastery on Wednesdays and Sundays when we eat up our leftovers. Brethren and guests often put the strangest combinations of food on their plates, combinations they would never normally have: a piece of fish and a piece of meat; soup […]

“Lord, open our hearts to the riches of your grace.” ************************ “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” So the Lord asks those who hear him, all those farmers and fishermen who know just how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky. “Hypocrites”, he says. Their hypocrisy seems to […]

Without you O God my table is empty :   Make haste O Lord, and do not delay.  Amen                            Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also Last Sunday  we had a great sermon from Steven on the parable of the self-satisfied rich man who built bigger barns to store his grain, laying […]

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 46 years ago, the world’s richest woman died in her penthouse apartment in Beverly Hills. Once known as the “Poor Little Rich girl”, Barbara Woolworth Hutton was only 66 at the time of her death and had barely $3500 […]

“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” In the name… Our brothers Nicolas and Charlie have recently been teaching retreat groups how to practise contemplative prayer. They looked to the masters to see how they might go about it, from Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross to Martin Laird and […]

The parable of the good Samaritan is full of twists, full of poignancies. First of all, we read in many places in the Old Testament that the foreigner, the stranger, is to be treated well. Deuteronomy says: God … executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and … loves the stranger, providing them with food […]

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. In the name of the Father… Today we celebrate the dedication of this Church of the Resurrection, this place for which we have so many reasons to be grateful, to be thankful, to celebrate; this place […]

Yesterday I had the privilege of being in the gathering at Wakefield Cathedral for the ordination of new deacons for this Diocese of Leeds – a scene repeated around the nation, and in other dioceses again today. It was joyful, and hot, and a stirring of reminiscences, and a remarkable tying together of lives led […]