Tagged: The Beatles
Hail Mary, full of grace
Well, it’s all over for another year, with people across the country wondering what on earth to watch on TV last night – we certainly were! Yes, a week ago yesterday Stacey Dooley and her partner Kevin Clifton were crowned Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars outside the UK) champions for 2018, with Kevin shouting out live on air, “it’s a Christmas miracle.“
Continue readingEaster 6 – my sermon for this week
This Sunday the gospel reading was Jesus giving the disciples the new commandment of love. Here is what I said.
Every Saturday night, as I cook our Saturday Supper, I close the kitchen door and put on some good, loud music to cook by. And you can’t help but notice just how many of the great songs released over the past fifty years or so have something to do with love.
There seem to have been more songs written about love – whether requited or unrequited love – than about anything else. There are thousands of them – and many of them instantly forgettable, though some of them have stood the test of time. “All you need is love”, sang the Beatles, tuning in to the mood of the Sixties but rather missing the point that life is not quite that simple. And, I suspect, thinking of love as warm feelings, feelings of kindness, a desire to do good to others, even, perhaps, as desire for others, but without any of the sense of deep commitment that Jesus calls his disciples to in today’s Gospel reading. Perhaps Michael Ball was closer to the Christian concept of love when he sang the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber: “Love, love changes everything, how I live, and how I die”.
Abba sang about love a lot. I should know. I listen to Abba a lot. Take their song “People need love” which I listened to again last night while preparing our Jambalaya. Continue reading
What I said on Sunday – Advent 4
Today the gospel reading is Mary’s visit to Elizabeth following the Annunciation. Here’s what I said.
Botticelli – Annunciation
When I first looked at today’s gospel reading last Monday morning there was a bit of me that thought: Perhaps I should put off any sermon preparation until after the 21st – after all, no point in putting a sermon together if it turns out I don’t need one. As it is, the end of the Mayan calendar on Friday didn’t result in the world coming to a sticky end, as some were predicting. And we all woke up on Saturday morning to find the world still here, and much the same as it was the day before. So, here we are, with yet another failed end of the world prediction behind us, considering once again the reaction of a young Jewish girl to the news that – for her, at least, the world was never going to be the same again. For most people, the day following the Annunciation was much the same as the day before. For Mary, the visit from God’s messenger, Gabriel, meant that her whole life was to be turned upside down and she was projected from unknown Jewish teenager to eventual global fame.
There are those who think that receiving the blessing of Simon Cowell and winning X-Factor is a big deal. Believe me – Mary’s blessing from God puts her in a whole different league. Continue reading
View from the Valley 