Christmas 2017

We often expect to see some good films over the Christmas period. I find that a really good film has deep, almost hidden religious themes, and these are enlightening. Maybe not all film directors realize this. Something new about faith can be learnt from a good movie. This was in my mind yesterday. Lynne and I had decided to go and see Paddington. It has had great reviews. I thought there could well be something I could learn before preparing my sermon for this morning.

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Midnight Mass – Christmas 2017

On December 21st 1968 Apollo 8 lifted off for its journey to the moon. Frank Borman was the senior astronaut. As they circled the moon in their tiny space module we were given the most incredible first real pictures of the earth from outer space.

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Advent 3 | Thessaloniki

Is 61, 1-4, 8-end; 1 Thess 5, 16-24; John 1, 6-8, 19-28  (Canon LW Doolan)

It is not always a positive thing to be defined by what you are not. There is something of the protest in that type of approach. Protest is something I now have to live with. Being in the centre of Athens, as many of you will know, is a constant series of protests which brings a good deal of disruption in its wake.READ MORE

Remembrance Sunday 2017 | Sermon

Our Anglican Lectionary guides us in a particular direction this morning. It would seem we are to consider Wisdom. Not only have we a reading from the Book of Wisdom, but we have, in our second reading, a parable of Our Lord, about the foolishness and wisdom of some virgins.

Wisdom, Sophia, is a powerful theme that runs through the Old Testament scriptures in its own distinctive genre of literature and is developed into the Christian era. A word of wisdom is particularly associated with the desert Abba or Amma. On this Remembrance Sunday I propose that we stay with wisdom as our theme.READ MORE

All Saints Sunday 2017

1 John 3, 1-3; Rev 7, 9-end; Matthew 5, 1-12

I have a confession to make. I am absolutely hopeless sin understanding how to use new technology. I feel not so much like a Luddite, which is like an iconoclast, but more like a dinosaur, which is prehistoric.

I can email, and like to email. My mobile phone can receive my emails as well. This is big step forward for me. I can take pictures on my phone – but I don’t know how to forward them  to anyone else, so they just sit there in my photo gallery. I can text with my phone, though my fingers are too clumsy, so I often accidentally send off a message when I’m only half way through it.READ MORE

Trinity 18 2017 | Harvest Sermon

I have not been in the Peloponnese since 1978. I sailed by ferry from  Italy to Patras, and then on to Athens for three weeks study at the British School (of Archaology and Topography). From the School we visited Mycenae, Epidavros, Olympia and Korinth. So after such a long time it is good to be back.

There is a legend, of course, about a monk called St. Regulus, who visited Patras and took possession of some of the bones of St. Andrew and transported them to the east coast of Scotland, giving the name to the town and later the University of St. Andrews. This year the university celebrates its 600^th anniversary, and it was my first university. So some little connections!

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Trinity 18 2017 | St. Paul’s Athens

Isiaiah 25, 1-9; Philippians 4, 1-9; Matt 22, 1-14

Many years ago I was a Team Rector in North East Suffolk. Lynne and I lived in a small market town called Halesworth  near to Southwold famous for its Adnams beer, and Adnams is a very good wine supplier as well. I recommend the Adnams ‘Fizz’ which friends from Suffolk used to bring us as a present when we were in Crawley and Cirencester.

Halesworth Team Ministry had its own very well produced church magazine called Team Times. The quality of its production was really only possible because we had a truly wonderful woman called Margaret Deering who sold advertising space to local businesses. READ MORE

Trinity 14 2017 | St. Paul’s Athens

Matthew 18, 21-36

Today the Church of England remembers the Battle of Britain. Between  1940 and 1941 the Royal Air Force fought the Luftwaffe against very heavy odds in a period commonly called ‘the blitz’. London, Portsmouth, Bath, Coventry, the Clyde in Glasgow – all these and more suffered from the bombing campaign of Germany. In September  of that same year RAF Bomber command began a series of night raids over Germany that marked a turning point in the war with Germany as the RAF disrupted German plans to invade Britain in what was known as Operation Sea Lion.

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Trinity 12 2017 | St. Paul’s Athens

Jeremiah 15, 15-21; Rom 12, 9-end; Matt 16, 21-end

There are times when other people drag you down. Lynne and I are generally quite cheerful and positive people. In our various parishes over the years we have encountered some very gloomy people indeed. These are people for whom it is always December, but never Christmas; always Lent but never Easter. When we encounter such people it is such a temptation to enter into their gloominess and share the negative views that they are spouting out. In my last parish we decided that whenever anyone said anything negative we would counter it with the exact opposite – even if we are feeling the same as them, or sharing their views. It made quite a difference, in fact, and some people either gave up expressing anything to us, or genuinely started to be a bit more positive.

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Trinity 10 2017 | St. Paul’s Athens

Isaiah 56,1, 6-8; Romans 11, 1-2, 29-32; Matthew 15, 21-28

It is funny how zoological my preaching seems to be at the moment. Some of you might remember a sermon I preached here a couple of years ago about how to eat an elephant – ‘in small pieces’. Then over the last few weeks we connected the little guinea pig type animal called a hyrax  to its nearest relative, which is an elephant;  then last week we had the irritated pig. Today we are keeping up the theme.

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