Who´s that knocking on my window?
Christmas Day, December 25 2014 Isaiah 52.7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1.1-12; John 1.1-14 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem How are we to understand ourselves and our world? What story can we tell to make sense of it all? Well, there is, to begin with, the secular story we tell ourselves, using the sciences and …
Put peace into each other’s hands
2nd Sunday of Advent, December 7 2014 Isaiah 40.1-11, Psalm 85.1-2, 8-13, 2 Peter 3.8-15a, Mark 1.1-8 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem In 1943 Denis Fahey, an Irish priest, published The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism. This neatly divided the world into two antagonistic camps. On the one side were God and his angels, …
Remembering the war dead
Remembrance Sunday, November 9 2014 Joshua 24.1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78.1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18; Matthew 25.1-13 St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem On November 11 1918, the guns of August fell silent; and we are here this morning to remember that silence, and all that went before it, and all that came after. Every Sunday we …
Whose image?
19th after Pentecost, October 19 2014 Exodus 33.12-23, Psalm 99, 1 Thessalonians 1.1-10, Mathew 22. 15-22St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth argues for a certain simplicity of speech. Do not swear at all, he tells his hearers. Do not swear by heaven, for it is the …
Wrestling with God
8th Sunday after Pentecost, August 3 2014 Genesis 32.22-31, Romans 9.1-5, Matthew 14.13-21 Auditoire de Calvin, Geneva, Switzerland Let me tell you a story. In fact, since I’m feeling generous, let me tell you three. * In May 1963, Mary Lusk (as she then was) stood at the bar of the general assembly of the …
Getting our attention
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, 9 February 2014Isaiah 58.1-12, 1 Corinthians 2.1-16, Matthew 5.13-20Rev Páraic Réamonn, Auditoire de Calvin, Geneva, Switzerland Buttercup was raised on a small farm in the country of Florin. Her favourite pastimes were riding her horse and tormenting the farm boy that worked there. Nothing gave Buttercup as much pleasure as ordering …