Purple magnolia

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward at the Church of Unity, Orpington Sunday 27 September 2009, 16 after Trinity, Proper 21, year B Readings: Numbers 11.4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 5.13-20; Mark 9.38-50 Does one person’s success mean another person’s failure? Does one person’s prosperity mean another’s poverty? If one person is rich, does that necessarily mean that someone else is poor? For every winner there is a loser, for every first there is a last, so it seems in our world. Resources are limited. Sometimes one person having plenty does mean that others do without – look at Zimbabwe and the ostentatious wealth of those in power will the people descend into more and more extreme poverty – here is a case where no doubt the wealth of the rich is literally made up of what the poor should be receiving. Or on a more parochial level think of a buffet supper – what happens if the first person to fill up his or her plate takes all the cheese? There is nothing left for the rest

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward at the Church of All Saints, Orpington Sunday 20 September, 15 after Trinity; Proper 20; Year B Readings: Jeremiah 11.18-20, James 3.13-4.3, 7-8a; Mark 9.30-37 Someone said to me recently that having children was the first time in his life he had done something that wasn’t selfish. In his view of himself, having children was the first thing he did which put someone else first. I am impressed by his humility in saying this, and by his enthusiasm for his new way of life. It also must be a sad realisation for him that in his first 30-something years before he had children, in his own view, he had never done anything that wasn’t selfish - although I'm sure that wasn't really true, it was what he said he thought of himself. It took the true turning upside-down-topsy-turvyiness of life with a new little baby for him to put someone else first. The other side of this is that this man was also very successful in all that he did – in t