Sermons

Today I would like to pose and endeavour to answer two simple questions. The first is simply, Who was St. Mark? The second, for us in this Church dedicated to St. Mark, Who is St. Mark? Our Patronal Festival is the occasion to think about what it means to be...

Easter Day 2025 (1700th Anniversary of Council of Nicaea) The year is 1550. For fans of Wolf Hall, we’re ten years on from the death of Thomas Cromwell, and three from Henry VIII. There’s another season to be made, and here’s my pitch for the screenplay. I want to explain...

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Thy sight oh Lord our strength and our Redeemer! Amen. Dear Friends in Christ, The whole Church in the East and West, regardless of denomination, is today placing the cross before our eyes. The...

Friends, I’m here today at William’s request to do 2 things. The first is to speak about the Jewish festival of Passover- and this is the eve of day three of 7, running sunset to sunset- and the second is to allay some myths and point out some similarities between...

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The theme of my sermon today is compassion. Compassion is very much a feature of Luke’s Gospel and is particularly evident in today’s Gospel reading. I would say that compassion is pity, inclining one to...

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Good morning. I greet you today with a cheerful welcome and two extracts from today’s reading and gospel. From Jeremiah: I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every...

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If we look at the passages in Mark’s Gospel that precede today’s Gospel reading, we can see that there were many questions that were being put to Jesus by the chief priests, the scribes and...

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:  yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. For 2,000 years Christians have seen in those words, and in that whole passage of the...

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In 1832, Thomas Arnold, educator and historian, wrote the following words: ‘the church as it now stands, no human power can save’.  In 2009, this pessimistic view was echoed by the then Bishop of Winchester...

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In today’s Gospel reading we learn that the Jews are disputing amongst themselves that which Jesus has told them about who he is.  In the verses that lead into today’s reading, Jesus has revealed himself...

When I read through today’s Gospel reading to prepare for my sermon today, the word that came to mind was ‘compassion’.  That word leapt out at me as I read how Jesus invites his disciples to come away and rest after all they have done and taught.  He is mindful...

The theme of my sermon today is what is meant by being set apart. In today’s Gospel reading we learn that by the Sea of Galilee Jesus invites his disciples to leave the crowd behind and go with him into a boat. The disciples are being set apart from the...

At the heart of our worship and how we praise God is music. Most churches, indeed most religions set a great deal of store by the importance of music. We begin our Annual Summer Music Festival today, and in recognition of this celebration of the musical gifts in our midst...

The biblical story opens with God speaking order into chaos, creating the heavens and the earth. But what is meant by “heavens” and “earth”? In Hebrew, the word “heavens” literally means “the skies.” In modern English, we usually use the word “earth” to refer to the whole planet or globe, but the Hebrew...

‘The whole earth is full of his glory’ the seraphims chorus to each other in that celestial vision we heard first today from the prophecy of Isaiah. We’re so familiar with the text of the Sanctus that passage inspired, and which features in every Eucharist service, that we easily overlook...

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit Despite all the horrors of our world, with its wars, malpractice, and onslaught on the climate, I believe that when we look at the manifestations of nature that surround us, such as the spring flowers...

When I was growing up, Reverend Rankin’s sermons featured on high days and holy days, when he would tackle mysterious or difficult Bible passages by swerving disputatious detail in favour of the main message. “The main thing is the plain thing”,he was fond of saying, “It will also get us...

Is this country in decline?  This was a question raised in a Question Time I watched recently on television.  The general view was expressed that it is, and for a variety of reasons.  There has been the effect of the pandemic, some adverse effects on the economy post-Brexit, the war...

The theme of my sermon today is trust. How often have you heard the expression ‘trust me, I am a doctor’.  The doctor is asking you to have faith in her or his ability to heal you by advice and the recommendation of surgery if needed.  It is up to...

One great advantage still enjoyed (for now at least) by the Church of England, and which I believe it ignores at its peril, is that it is there for everyone – whether or not they happen to be ‘signed up’ members. We see that in the focus for national celebration...

The theme of my last sermon was war.  So, I thought by way of contrast that as we are in the fourth Sunday in Advent, looking towards the imminent birth of Christ, I would preach on the theme of peace. I found it more challenging to reflect upon peace than...

Today is the Feast of Christ the King, or – as our Roman Catholic friends call it, with characteristic flair – the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. It’s the final Sunday of the Church’s year, and the culmination of what has become known in the...

‘The day of the Lord is at hand’, asserted the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, and if you glance through it, you’ll notice that in the New Testament Epistle offered for today, St. Paul, writing to Thessalonian Christians, holds pretty much the same view: ‘the day of the Lord so cometh...

                In today’s first lesson, Micah hears the nations of the world saying: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of...