Category Archives: sermon preparation

Early week wordplay

Let tares grow, let tears flow; there is no justice without tearing our selves apart; Until life’s ending, we are left tending weeds tenderly as the wheat field. alternatively Let tares grow, let tears flow; there is no judgement without … Continue reading →

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Wormfood

Whilst musing over this Sunday’s parable (the sower and the different soils), I hit upon the Dummies.com article, “How to Improve Soil Quality for Healthy Plant Growth,” by Sven Wombwell. Sven suggests that “Worms really are a gardener’s best friends. … Continue reading →

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Year A Proper 9: Little Donkey

When I was growing up, a trip to the seaside meant buckets and spades, sandcastles in the sand, fishing nets, for catching shrimps in the rockpools, ice cream, and late in the afternoon, before loading up the car for home, … Continue reading →

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Independence Day

It feels like a good day to be contemplating Sunday’s sermon. Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a … Continue reading →

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Things I can’t imagine doing this week

Going out for a beer with a corporation. Telling a woman that her choice of contraception is against my religion. Bellowing “no one wants you” to a bus load of children. Carrying an assault rifle into a department store. Carrying … Continue reading →

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Paying the piper

But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ …Yet wisdom … Continue reading →

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Year A Proper 8: Whoever welcomes you

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me; whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me (Matthew 10:40). When my parents took me home, they invited into their family a whole other set of DNA, a whole other history, a whole other … Continue reading →

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Good

On the other side of nothing, the waters of the dark womb rage and writhe, resisting God, labouring the eternal void. On the other side of nothing, over the pitched waters, the breath of God hesistates; surfing the storm, hopeful … Continue reading →

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Pentecost: a sounding

I try to imagine the sound. They say a tornado sounds like a freight train; what would the apostles say? We each tell only of what we know. Was it the bluster of flapping canvas familiar from their days at … Continue reading →

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Eternal

Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Today was my son’s birth day. Small and soft, he begins to unfurl, a birthmark smeared beneath … Continue reading →

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