Purple magnolia

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 8 June 2008 , Trinity 3, Year A, Proper 5 The Lord said to Abram, 'Go'.... So Abram went. Jesus said to Matthew "Follow me" and he did. It all seems so simple! How often are we able to respond to a request – a demand – so easily, so automatically? No "he thought about it a while", "he consulted with a few people", "he worked it into his life plan". No, he just got up and followed Jesus, in response to an invitation of love. For Abram, and possibly for Matthew, following God meant leaving home. What is home? We naturally think of wherever it is we live, the buildings where we live. But I wonder if we get misled by the fact that our homes are so solid, so physical – places surrounded by walls where we live for a year or 10 years or 50 years or a lifetime. This is what having a 'home' means in this country. Having a p

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 6.30pm Evensong, Sunday 25 May 2008 (Year A, Trinity 1, Proper 3 ) Amos 8.5-end, Ephesians 6.1-20 This passage from Ephesians invites us to consider the question: How can one who is a slave, be in any sense free? He suggests that slaves are indeed free: they are not free to do what they like, but they are free to think what they like. They are free to alter their will, they are free to consider their reasons for doing what they do, they are free to do what they do for people or for God – they are free to, if you like, consecrate their mundane, everyday lives to God, to make it holy. The slave is no less free to obey God in his heart than the freeman. The difference is in the motivation. The phrase of the authorized version: do it "not with eyeservice, as menpleasers". Ephesians 6.6-7 "Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the