Exodus 33:12- 23;  Rev 21:1-7 and Mk 6:45-51.​

The typical miracle in Mark is to do with healing, often combined with casting out unclean spirits, making the blind see, the deaf hear, and so on. Very good things to do.  Nowadays we understand far more about illness and medicine---so these miracles aren’t quite as supernatural for our consciousness.  In the gospel, faith (your own or someone else’s) is a condition to be healed, or there is some other theological overlay.  Nevertheless it’s all in line with a universal human want and something we’ve got quite good at ourselves.   

In the non-biblical reading from his book ‘A Serious Call to a devout and Holy Life’, William refers to ‘the Common Good’. This is a phrase we more readily associate with Catholic Social Teaching rather than with Protestant England in the 18th century.

But I think it is represented in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions because the Common Good is central to what it means to commit ourselves to one another – the theme of this sermon and next Wednesday’s Lent Group. 

Overview: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” (Ps 24:1) How to Save the World - in 12 minutes… 

Is our Commitment to the World simply a matter of recycling bottles, saving the rain forests and bathing with a friend? Of international agitation with Amnesty, Oxfam or Save the Children? Is it nearer to home with Barnardos, Food Banks or Payday Lending? All are laudable. 

From Genesis’s “Fill the earth and subdue it” to Revelation’s consumption of the earth in a ball of fire, Christians are called into a specific stewardship of God’s creation. 

First Reading  |  Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7        The Holy Gospel  |  St Matthew 4. 1-11

Look at our Bible readings today: the story of the fall and Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. How do we know about either? There were no observers of either event; can you imagine Adam and Eve telling Cain and Abel the story of their downfall? Or Jesus confiding in the disciples what happened to him out there in the wilderness? So what do we have? A just so story which explains why we live in a less that perfect world, and a story which, while it may very well contain an element of truth presents us with the unedifying spectacle of Jesus and Satan quoting scripture at each other. 

Presented with such unpromising material can we do other than question our commitment to scripture?

Fourth Sunday in Lent and Mothering Sunday

1 Samuel 1:  20-28           Colossians 3:  12-17            Luke 2: 33-35

If you have recently tried to make a train journey on a Sunday, you will know that the British Rail timetable can be rather complicated.

Isaiah 42. 1-9; Romans 10. 8b-13;  Luke 4 1-13

"Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not involve endless self-preoccupation. You should also dwell on the glad remembrance of the loving kindness of God".  Bernard of Clairvaux

Lent is the time when we think of Jesus in the Wilderness and that story is the Gospel reading we have just heard. But the wilderness also belongs to us. It is always lurking somewhere, as part of our experience, and there are times when it can seem pretty near the whole of it. Most people's wilderness is inside them, not outside. Our wilderness is an inner isolation. It's an absence of contact. It's a sense of being alone, sometimes boringly alone, or saddeningly alone, or terrifyingly alone.