Derby Cathedral, Evensong, 4 January 2015, on these readings I spent most of yesterday on the train from Edinburgh to Derby with the weekend papers. So I am very well up on what I should be doing in the New Year. I should give up solid food and live instead on bright green juice made out of kale. […]
Derby Cathedral, Evensong, 7 December 2014, on these readings The hymn following the sermon this evening begins Wake, o wake. This, then, is the bedtime story. Once upon a time there were two kings, the king of Israel and the king of Aram. The king of Aram had got a bit of territory, Ramoth-gilead, and the […]
Derby Diocesan Conference, Monday 17 November 2014 (Compline meditation), on this reading We have a moment now to reflect on the day, and on the story of the road to Emmaus. Towards the end of this evening’s talk we were thinking about the importance of eating together. The story offers us that. And about the importance of silence. I don’t […]
St Oswald’s Ashbourne, Friday 30 May 2014 (service and lunch for retired clergy), on these readings A matter of questions about words and names, says Gallio in the first reading, and he isn’t interested in questions like that. Nonetheless I would like to preach about words, two in particular. The word Now, because in this […]
Derby Cathedral, 29 May 2014 (Ascension), on these readings It is difficult – at least, it is for me – to think about what Ascension looks like. There are pictures of it but they end up just as feet disappearing through a cloud. The whole mental picture of the heavens has changed for us – we can’t […]
Derby Cathedral, 4 May 2014 (Easter 3), on this reading Opening the scriptures. ‘He was opening the scriptures to us.’ There was a novelist once who had just published a novel and who therefore had been sent on tour by her publishers, to turn up at bookshops and give a talk and sign copies of […]
St Peter’s Derby, 18 April 2014 (Good Friday), ecumenical service Thank you for asking me here today; it’s a great pleasure to be here and to see so many different Christian traditions represented in this gathering for Good Friday. Like many of you, probably, I represent several traditions myself; among other things, I have some robustly […]
Derby Cathedral, evensong, 6 April 2014 (Lent 5), on these readings. I have been here at the Cathedral for a month now. I spent some time this week studying job advertisements. They sound like this: The ideal candidate will be able to clearly demonstrate successful experience of the position’s requirements, within an aligned environment. Engagement with […]
Sunday 10 February 1666/67 (Lord’s day). Up and with my wife to church, where Mr Mills made an unnecessary sermon upon Original Sin, neither understood by himself nor the people. Not the first unnecessary sermon, nor the last.
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