Category: Sermons and Talks

Advent is a funny time of year, a time of contrasts that jar and vie for priority: Society at large turns its attention to more important things of life (friends, family, identity, and often some sense of spirituality) whilst at the same time spinning on the frantic axle of sales, keeping up with the Joneses, tatt and the grinding encounter of the generous impulse with budgetary necessity. Most of the world celebrates family and friends, while the lonely and the bereaved feel the weight of sorrow doubled. The Church begins her New Year and focuses…

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A friend recently posted, complaining about the Band Aid song ‘Do they know its Christmas time at all?’ and how he had suddenly been stuck by the arrogance of the question “Do they know its Christmas?” for a song originally written to address a drought in Ethiopia, home of one of the Ancient Christian Churches. But, halfway through the season of Advent, and being asked for some thoughts about Advent, I began to wonder if it is perhaps the question we are more directly faced with here and now. Do we know its Christmas? Of…

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About forty-four miles east of Dallas is a town called Blank. I spent a night there once. A random, wretched, shabby huddle, dumped by the highway: gas station, general store, Dairy Queen, a few abandoned cars, empty skips, and the Blank motel. The sort of ugliness it takes years to create. I imagine that if you live in Blank, you need an alibi. “Where do I come from? Oh, Dallas, well, near Dallas, anyway.” Perhaps the people of Blank wonder how they got there, perhaps they sit over undercooked hash browns and bitter coffee, tracing…

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Drive out of New Orleans first thing on a Sunday morning after the town’s had a frisky night, and you learn that depravity isn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds. Suzy and I, three children on the back seat, passed through the French Quarter, getting an early start home after a day in the Bayou among more mosquitoes than I had skin to feed. Now the dawn light curdled on the streets in a bilious yellow. A young guy in pink trousers and a torn shirt sorted a stack of dollar bills, flattening them…

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