Purple magnolia

Preached at St Paulinus, at the 10.30am Eucharist on Ash Wednesday. "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." These are the words that will be said later in this service, as the sign of the cross is made in ash on our foreheads. I wonder what those words make you think of. "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Some might think they're depressing words, expressing futility. But I think that is to see them out of context – in the context of faith, of this service, this mass, which is all about the reality of God who came and lived among us. In this context, here and now, I think these words can be truly inspirational words of comfort. They express the reality of our utter dependence on God – these words would be depressing indeed if there were no God: but with God they are utterly transformed. Those words will said as we receive the sign of the cross in ash. The ash we use to make the sign of the cross this day isn't ju

A sermon preached at St Paulinus, Crayford Sunday 18 February 2007 Sunday next before Lent, Year C Our faces say a lot about us. In our faces we can sometimes see the family history – even in little babies we can often see the father's nose, or whatever, and for some those family resemblances can be very strong. As we grow up our faces change. We grow, but experiences leave their mark: injuries leave their scars, and smiles and frowns leave their lines. Some evidence of who we are – of where we've come from and the experiences we've had – is left on our faces. If you can't see someone's face, if they are wearing a mask, you can't tell who they are, their identity is concealed, it's impossible to communicate properly. It's because faces are such an important part of how we communicate; who we seem to be to others that it is so upsetting when someone experiences disfigurement or injury – it is almost as though some of one's identity is lost. Our

A sermon given on 5 July 2006 at Longlevens, Gloucester, for The Rev’d Tom Clammer’s fist Mass. Tom has chosen an unusual but beautiful theme for tonight's Eucharist. But perhaps, like me, at some stage you have felt a little uneasy with it, wondering "what are we supposed to believe about angels." Angels are not – normally – mentioned in confirmation classes, or alpha courses, or the pulpit. You might be forgiven for thinking we don't really have angels in the church of England, And yet, references to them permeate our worship and scripture, and it is reasonable to ask, what is it all about? There is very little really that we must say about angels. Theologians down the ages have had different views, depending on their other views about the world and God. It seems to me the most important thing that one can say is that an angel has a deep and essential relationship with God, deeper than anything we can achieve in this life: you might say that while we, if our op

A sermon given on Sunday 4 February 2007 (Year C, 3 before Lent) 8am Eucharist Readings: Isaiah 6.1-8, Psalm 138, 1 Cor 15.1-11, Luke 5.1-11 This morning we've heard my favourite passage from the whole Bible. (It might be interesting to hear how many different passages I say that about over the next three years, but for now this is definitely my favourite!) It's the Old Testament reading from Isaiah, a passage known as the "call of Isaiah". Within the story of that book, this is the moment when the prophet Isaiah realised that God was calling him to be a prophet, and the moment that he accepted that call. Now the book of Isaiah, as we have it in our bibles, was almost certainly written by several groups of people many centuries apart, so we can't really know who it was who had this vision, but that does not affect the power of this story, this vision, which in visual form contains as much theology as any passage of scripture. So Isaiah – whoever it was who wro