Why is the Church of Scotland in Israel/Palestine?
October 25 2016 What follows is, more or less, what I said to the Presbytery of Edinburgh on October 4 and later repurposed, with appropriate tweaking, for the International Presbytery in Lausanne on October 8. My thanks to both presbyteries for their warm hospitality. Moderator, let me bring greetings from the Presbytery of Jerusalem. Not …
Read more “Why is the Church of Scotland in Israel/Palestine?”
Two kinds of people
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, October 23 2016 Joel 2.23-32; 2 Timothy 4.6-8, 16-18; Luke 18.9-14 Páraic Réamonn, St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew in the days of the second temple, calling his people to repentance and renewal. Luke the evangelist was a gentile Christian two generations later, writing his …
The arc of history
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, October 16 2016 Jeremiah 31.27-34; Psalm 119.33-40; 2 Timothy 3.14-4.5; Luke 18.1-8 Páraic Réamonn, St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem On Thursday in New Hampshire, Michelle Obama lifted the US election campaign out of the gutter in which it had lain captive far too long and set it free to fly. …
My heart is in Jerusalem
Yom Kippur, October 12 2016 – The solar-powered hot-water tank on the roof of my apartment yesterday died of terminal rust. Somewhat to my astonishment, and with a little help from my neighbours and my landlord’s parents, we got it replaced by lunchtime, just before West Jerusalem began to go quiet in the run-up to …
Rekindle the gift of God that is within you
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 2 2016 Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1.1-14; Luke 17.5-10 Murrayfield Parish Church, Edinburgh Psalm 137 is a hymn. But it’s a peculiar kind of hymn. Six centuries before Jesus was born, the empire of Babylon captured the city of Jerusalem, destroyed the first temple, and led the leading families of …
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 …