Sermons

I do apologise because you’ve now had me three Sundays in a row, and the plan was for me to be on next week too! But Ros is kindly relieving me of the sermon next week – many thanks! Yet it’s always a blessing for me (perhaps not for you!) ...

One of my pet peeves in church is going to happen today, in this service. In fact, I’m going to be involved in leading it. It involves the Lord’s Prayer. I have been attending churches since I was a baby, and I, like many of you, have rattled through the ...

Two sisters: Mary and Martha. They are one of the most famous female duos in history. We’ve all heard the lesson “don’t be a Martha, be a Mary”, telling us that Martha was flapping about in a panic but Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, listening. Mary did the ...

Dear Friends,   Today is very special. Fr Glen is celebrating the Eucharist for the first time. Glen remains the curate of St Andrew’s Moscow. In a sense he is in exile here at St Mark’s. Until another posting is agreed, an absentee from his normal place of operation, we ...

Naming someone is an extraordinary gift.  I wonder, who have you named? We have three children, and we took much time in naming- what the names meant.  You know that name may shape who they are, how others look at them, and it will play a part on how they ...

Recently I watched on television the harrowing drama Cathy come home by Ken Loach.  Written in the 1960s, it tells of the plight of Cathy, who, through a series of misfortunes, is left homeless and separated from her husband and children.  In the last scene we see her trying to ...

From Galatians 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. From St Luke 8:39 Return to thine own house and shew how great things God hath done unto ...

What a gift it is to be called upon, with one day’s notice, to speak on the unexplainable mystery of the Holy Trinity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I might be being a little sarcastic! I spent a few moments thinking “how do I explain the Trinity?”, but ...

I’ve lately been reading a book by Iain McGilchrist about how the modern Western world has become increasingly left-brained ever since the Enlightenment. We are obsessed with taking things apart to see how they work, and then trying to build them up again. It’s a very useful skill, but it ...

You might have seen in the notices that we have our triennial visitation from the Archdeacon on Wednesday. It’s a mixture of pep-talk, Ofsted and gutter inspection. Archdeacons don’t get the best press in the canon of English literature. Archdeacon Mr Theophilus Grantly, Rector of Plumstead Episcopi is described by ...

Today is Rogation Sunday.  In the Christian tradition, Rogation is a time of procession, praying and fasting that looks towards the Ascension of Jesus to be with his heavenly Father.  It is also a time of the blessing of the fruits of the earth. I believe that this blessing is ...

Welcome to our patronal festival of St Mark the Evangelist, with First of May greetings to all. Perhaps you also enjoyed Radio 4’s broadcast of the Magdalen Choir singing an Old English air from the vantage point of the college’s historic tower. Across the land and often from a town’s ...

This last week I had training in Woking on preaching, and William led the first two sessions. So what I’m saying is – if this sermon is great, well what did you expect from me?; if it’s terrible, blame William😊 Today we will explore the reading from John, and the ...

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on / and our little life is rounded by a sleep.” Familiar words of Prospero to his future son-in-law, from Act IV of Shakespeare’s entrancing and slightly mystifying play The Tempest.  Dreams and sleep play their part in the Passion narrative in ...

Maundy Thursday. I always thought the meaning had something to do with mourning, but if we translate the Latin meaning, this is Commandment Thursday. The day Jesus gave us the command to serve each other, the command to commemorate him in bread and wine at Holy Communion, and the command ...

Today is Mothering Sunday.  How gentle that sounds at a time of continuing pandemic and the horror of war in Ukraine, with its destruction of people and places.  The cards, flowers and gifts that mothers will receive today as expressions of gratitude for all the love and support they have ...

Glen, could you just introduce yourself to us and give us some sense of your background and life prior to your move last July to be curate of St Andrew’s, Moscow? Thank you very much for welcoming me, it’s strange to think that this time last week I was in ...

One of the strange things about the last two years of lockdown and restriction is the deleterious effect upon one’s memory. I had forgotten what we did for ashing last year in 2021 and needed to be reminded of how we managed. Today is actually a day for memory. Remember ...

From today’s reading of the Gospel of St Luke, 9: v28 & v35: AND it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, Jesus took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, ...

Jesus’s visit to the Temple aged just 40 days old, and celebrated as the culmination of the Christmas Season at Candlemas, is arguably one of the most exquisitely crafted accounts in Luke’s Gospel. The symmetry of it with, on the one side the two parents bringing their child before God, ...

In today’s Gospel reading we learn that Jesus came down from the mountain where he had called and chosen his disciples and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a multitude of people who had come to hear him and to be healed of their ...

Seventy years ago this morning, King George VI died in his sleep at Sandringham. His heir presumptive, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary aged just 25, acceded to the throne, on the first leg of a Commonwealth Tour the King himself was too frail to make. In a moment I shall read ...

In today’s Gospel reading we learn that Jesus, in accordance with the law of Moses, was presented in the Temple in Jerusalem as ‘every first born male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’.  We also learn that Simeon, a prophet and High Priest of the Temple, rejoices in ...

From Isiah 43, v 1 Fear not: for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. And from St Luke 3 v 22 Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. Welcome to St Marks on the Feast of the Baptism ...