To be radical is to go to the root
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 4 2016 Jeremiah 18.1-11; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14.25-33 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem To be human is to change, said John Henry Newman, and to be perfect is to have changed often. He forgot to add that change is hard, and radical change excruciatingly painful. To change my deepest …
God wants everyone to be saved
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 18 2016 Jeremiah 8.18-9.2; 1 Timothy 2.1-7; Luke 16.1-13 Hopeman Church, Moray, Scotland God wants everyone to be saved. There is so much going on in scripture and so much happening in our world today that often we can miss the wood for the trees. But First Timothy comes straight …
Listen to Moses, be ready to share
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 25 2016 Jeremiah 32.1-3a, 6-15; 1 Timothy 6.6-19; Luke 16.19-31 St Helen’s Church, Cockburnspath, Berwickshire When I was young, I liked to go to the cinema. I still do. As a boy, I liked to identify with the heroes in the films I watched and to hiss and boo the …
Lord God of guests
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 28 2016 Jeremiah 2.4-13; Hebrews 13.1-8, 15-16; Luke 14.1, 7-14 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem My sermon today is a tale of two hymns, one that we shall sing before communion, the other composed as a poem in 1897 by the British writer Rudyard Kipling. In that year, Queen …
Who is my neighbour?
8th Sunday after Pentecost, July 10 2016 Amos 7.7-17; Psalm 130 (CH4 87); Colossians 1.1-14; Luke 10.25-37 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem Who is my neighbour? When Amy-Jill Levine was a child, she wanted to be pope. “You can’t,” her mother told her. “You’re not Italian.” These days, that is no longer an insuperable …
If necessary, use words
7th Sunday after Pentecost, July 3 2016 2 Kings 5.1-14; Psalm 30.1-12; Galatians 6.1-16; Luke 10.1-11, 16-20 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem Great things sometimes happen when a congregation irritates its minister. Thirty years ago, in a small town in Maryland, twenty miles from the city of Baltimore, a mostly middle-class congregation did just …
Follow me
6th Sunday after Pentecost, June 26 2016 2 Kings 2.1-14; Psalm 77; Galatians 5.1, 13-25; Luke 9.51-62 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem “To share an island with the English is the lot the Almighty has assigned to the Scots and the Welsh.” This is how the late Ian Henderson begins his little book Scotland: Kirk …
Repent and forgive
4th Sunday after Pentecost, June 12 2016 1 Kings 21.1-21a; Psalm 1 (CH4 1); Galatians 2.15-21; Luke 7.36-8.3 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem At Tabeetha School in Jaffa, the pupils are busy preparing for exams next week. Or perhaps, as some of their teachers fear, they are just eating ice-cream on the beach. In …
The one who longs to make us whole
Third Sunday after Pentecost, June 5 2016 1 Kings 17.8-24; Psalm 146.1-10; Galatians 1.11-24; Luke 7.11-17 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen wie des Grases Blumen. Das Gras ist verdorret und die Blume abgefallen. This is not how I usually begin a sermon. But …
Proud towers which shall not reach to heaven
Pentecost, May 15 2016 Genesis 11.1-9; Acts 2.1-21; John 14.8-17, 25-27 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial, Jerusalem “Did you hear the gunfire?” Vivien asked me on Wednesday evening. It wasn’t gunfire, although it easily could have been. It was fireworks in the night, to celebrate Israel’s Day of Independence; but not everyone in the land or …