laudable Practice

At Parish Communion and Holy Baptism on the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 28.9.25 1 Timothy 6:12a “Fight the good fight of the faith …” [1] Saint Paul’s words in his First Letter to Timothy might make some contemporary Christians rather cautious: can such military language be used about the Gospel of peace? The answer must be ‘yes’ because this language is used in a number of places by the Apostle Paul in the Scriptures of the New Testament.  Our reading today was from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy. In his Second Letter, he also exhorts Timothy to be “a good soldier of Jesus Christ” [2]. In his Letter to the Ephesians, he encourages Christians to “put on the whole armour of God” [3]. In his Letter to the Philippians, he refers to someone ministering alongside him as his “fellow-soldier” [4]. The use of military language to describe Christian faith and life, then, is very clearly Scriptural. What is more, it has resonated with Christians across the centuries. John Chrysostom, one...

At Parish Communion on the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, 14.9.25 Luke 15:1-10 “And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them’.” [1] It is a common scene across the Gospels. The Pharisees - the spiritual elite, the righteous ones who kept the Law of Moses, the custodians of the Scriptures of Israel, who knew what it was to be the chosen of God - condemned Jesus for welcoming into His presence those who are termed “the tax collectors and sinners”. The chief problem with the tax collectors was that they raised taxes for the occupying Romans and therefore associated with pagan Gentiles - those outside the chosen people of Israel. To be a tax collector, then, was spiritual treason, to have abandoned the chosen, elect people of God. As for the term “sinners”, it refers to those amongst the common people who fell short of the rigours and rituals of the religious purity laws upheld by the Pharisees: such ritual impurity was reg...

At Parish Communion on the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, 17.8.25 Hebrews 12:1-2a “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses … let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” [1] Stained glass depictions of great saints and those who have gone before us in the Faith are a common feature of parish churches. Here in our parish church, their depictions surround us as we gather for worship.  A peaceful, quiet spirit often shines through such stained glass.  And yet few - if any - of these great saints, of those who have gone before us in the Faith - lived in peaceful, quiet times. From where I stand in this pulpit, I can view Saint Patrick, apostle to this Island. Patrick lived in turbulent times. His homeland, the place the Romans called Britannia, was subject to pagan raids and invasions as the Roman Empire collapsed. He, of course, was captured during one of those raids, becoming a slave on this Island.  When he returned as a bishop, carrying the ...

At Evening Communion on the First Sunday after Trinity, 22.6.25 Luke 8:26-39 “As He stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met Him.” Hearing these words at the opening of today’s Gospel reading from Luke chapter 8 might make us think that this passage - found also in the gospels of Matthew and Mark - sounds like a mythical story, far removed from our 21st century lives, on a quiet Sunday evening in late June, in a beautiful parish church. Talk of demons is surely for the fundamentalists: not for us moderate, reasonable Christians.  Except that we read this type of event again and again in the Gospels: of Jesus confronting the demons, of Jesus liberating people from the power of demons. So, no, those of us who like to think of ourselves as moderate, reasonable Christians cannot avoid this aspect of the gospel proclamation of Jesus.  Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, puts it this way: “Forget the mythical apparatus of horns and tails: demons are...

The long season of Trinitytide now stretches before us.  On the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, 26th November, Trinitytide will draw to a close with Stir-up Sunday. This is part of the reason why I particularly value Trinitytide.  It journeys from late Spring, through the long, warm days of Summer, into the rich hues and fruitfulness of Autumn, bringing us to the cusp of dark Winter. Today, here in Jeremy Taylor country, the sun will set at 10:03pm, after 17 hours of daylight.  On the last day of Trinitytide this year, Saturday 2nd December, the sun will set at 4:03pm, after a mere 7 1/2 daylight hours. And so does Trinitytide reflect something of our earthly pilgrimage, through days of growth, into long, full, busy days, moving into times of quieter maturity, bringing us to that season when "the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done". The weeks of Trinitytide are marked by the ordinary...