Sermons

Candlemass Malachi 3.1-4 Psalm 24 Hebrews 2.14-18 Luke 2.22-40 ©Lauren Martin As we gather today to celebrate Candlemas, or the presentation of Christ at the Temple, we are invited into a place of joy, as we say farewell to Advent, Christmastide and Epiphany for another year. Today we gather to celebrate the coming of light into the world. The light born 40 days ago at Christmas, this is the very same light we celebrate at Easter. This is the light we are all called to carry out and share in the world, as God’s people. The Christ child is the … Read more

Sunday 15 January John 1.29-42 Second Sunday after Epiphany                  ©Suzanne Grimmett The Gospel today is a story of interruptions. John the Baptist was a disturbing presence. He was a man who attended closely to the world and closely to the truth. He spoke his words of conviction against the uncompromising and exposing landscape of the desert, interrupting lives with words many did not want to hear. Those who did listen came and were baptised in the Jordan, turning again to God and setting a path for their lives in a new direction of holiness. In this encounter we hear … Read more

 Baptism of Jesus Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17  ©Kate Littmann-Kelly When I was 12 years old, I was confirmed by Bishop Ralph Wicks at Ekibin Anglican Church.  I was confirmed at my grandparent’s urging.  I was also baptised at my grandparent’s urging.  My family didn’t attend church, so it didn’t really matter to my parents.  But for my grandparents, this was important.  After I was confirmed, I didn’t attend church or even think about God again until much later in my life.  I was “all done” wasn’t I? I mean, I’d been baptised and confirmed, so the … Read more

The Feast of the Epiphany Matthew 2.1-12 Living with longing                                                                         ©Suzanne Grimmett Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage. The turn into the new year is always haunted by the longings of who we want to be and the kind of life we want to be living. The symbol of a star can express for us that faith that is needed in the darkness, and the bright guide we may follow to find our way through, holding gently the desires … Read more

Isaiah 62.6-12 Psalm 97 Titus 3.4-8a Luke 2.8-20 Christmas Day 2022 Hope in humanity: the secret of the incarnation                             ©Suzanne Grimmett Christmas is the day when even the most hardened cynics among us might let cracks appear in the wall of their jaded view of humanity. Christmas is the day when we have that sense that maybe all of our world-weary assessments of the human race are actually disfiguring the hopeful possibilities of our kind. While we might come here on Christmas Day to connect with the presence of God in this story of a babe born to a humble family … Read more

Isaiah 9.2-7 Psalm 96 (vv. 1,2, 9-13) Titus 2.11-14   Luke 2.1-14 Christmas Eve 2022 ©Suzanne Grimmett There is in Christmas a power to connect with our deepest hopes, and reawaken our inner child. If we suspend our judgement for long enough to reflect on this and silence the inner voice which might be whispering to us to grow up, we might recognise the truth that that inner child is also the part of us that is most fully alive. Christmas can make us all kids again, if we allow it, and in the best possible ways. There is that in … Read more

                          ©Suzanne Grimmett O Emmanuel                                                         by Malcolm Guite O come, O come, and be our God-with-usO long-sought With-ness for a world without,O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken NameCome Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,O quickened little wick so tightly curled,Be folded with us into time and place,Unfold for us the mystery of graceAnd make a womb of all this wounded world.O heart of heaven beating in the earth,O tiny hope within our hopelessnessCome to be born, to bear us to our birth,To touch a dying world with new-made handsAnd make these … Read more

                           ©Suzanne Grimmett “We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul” These are words of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine in a speech given a couple of days ago, foreshadowing a ban on churches affiliated with Russia. Given the laws protecting freedom of religion in Ukraine, this will present some complex questions, but the recognition that empire can set up strongholds in the soul of a people is a powerful one. Invasion of a nation and the processes of colonisation are promoted not only through the acquisition of land and the violence of warfare but … Read more

Song of Zechariah Colossians 1.11-20 Luke 23.33-43 Reign of Christ Sunday 20th November 2022                                        ©Suzanne Grimmett “This man has done nothing wrong.” Or had he? We speak of Jesus as being free of sin, but he was not free of breaking laws- the kind of laws that see you nailed to a cross in Roman occupied Palestine. The cruel joke (and yet revealed truth) of the sign, “The King of the Jews” points to why Jesus found himself punished by the rulers of his day. Preaching and teaching about a kingdom other than Caesar’s was sedition. With Jesus, what … Read more

23rd Sunday after Pentecost 13th November 2022 Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 98 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19 ©John Rolley +In the name of God, Loving Creator, Compassionate Christ & Healing Spirit, Amen. Our world – its nuts! It is like every aspect of our lives is being threatened – wars overseas with leaders rattling nuclear sabers, the climate doing wacky things like floods, drought, fire…where we lurch from one extreme to another; and NOW inflation with the rising potential of a global recession. It is so easy to get caught up in the mess and give over to despair. A wise … Read more

Feast of All Saints Daniel 7.1-3, 15-18 Psalm 149 Ephesians 1.11-23 Luke 6.20-31 Sunday 6 November 2022 Woven into the web of being                                ©Suzanne Grimmett The gathered glories                                                   by Malcolm Guite Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light, It glances from the eyes, kindles the words Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed, The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed. Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing He weaves them with us in the web of being They … Read more

Homily for the Feast of All Souls Romans 8:31-39 Matthew 11.28-30 Sunday 30 October 2022                                                                ©Suzanne Grimmett Benediction the task is endedgo in pieces † our concluding faithis being rear-endedcertainty’s being amendedand something’s getting mendedthat we didn’t knowwas torn † we’re unravellingand are traveling to a placeofnew-formed-patterns,with delusion as a fusion ofloss, and hope, and pain and beauty. † so, † the task is endedgo in piecesto see and feelyour world. This is an intriguing Benediction written by Pádraig Ò Tuama.  I thought of it as we approached All Souls as a significant grief can leave us all in … Read more