New Year: Predictions and Perspectives

January 3, 2021Posted inSermons
About a week ago, my Dad forwarded me an article that he found highly amusing. It was published on the website of the Daily Mirror with the headline ‘Nostradamus terrifying predictions for 2021’. Now I’m know that the tabloid press is commonly perceived as having no aversion to kicking people while they are down, however to do such to the hopes of an entire population first struck me as being in bad taste and highly frivolous. It still strikes me as very frivolous, but we might be able to use it to our advantage. It is, after all, a very useful and, depending on one’s sense of humour, fun, way to think about the future.

Queerness, Shepherds and the Holy Family

December 30, 2020Posted inSermons
Liturgically it is not too late for another Christmas address. We are, technically on day 5 of what is a 12-day long festival of Christmastide! The life of Jesus queered social boundaries from the start. Who outside the Holy Family should hear of his birth first but shepherds. Shepherds were, according to the religious orthodoxy of the day, seen as ritually and physically unclean. They were at the mercy of the constant demands of their flocks and had no time for the meticulous program of ceremonial hygiene that would have been demanded of the average person.

First Sunday After Christmas

December 27, 2020Posted inSermons
So in this past week we arrived out of the season of Advent into Christmas. Many of us completed our Advent calendars, listened to carols from King’s College, Cambridge, and left appropriate festive fair by the fireplace for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day you might have been lucky enough to have your family with you for a great dinner, you might have called friends and family members from afar, or maybe you felt slightly green around the gills after over indulging in the chocolate from your selection box.

Where is Home?

December 20, 2020Posted inPoetry
Home is a dwelling in which people reside, So my dictionary testified. However, I believe that to be a house and not a home. Although, in this conviction, I may…

Advent: Looking Forward from a Time of Pandemic

December 13, 2020Posted inSermons
When I preach during Advent, I have been known to have a bit of a moan at people who to skip observing the quiet solemnity of Advent and instead, choose to plunge headfirst into the manic merriness of Christmas earlier than they liturgically should. This is not going to be one of those occasions.

Remembrance Sunday

November 8, 2020Posted inSermons
[A sermon given via Zoom to the Oxford Unitarians congregation on Sunday, 8th of November 2020] (Readings: Parable of the Old Man and the Young by Wilfred Owen and Matthew…

History of LGBTQIA+ People in Unitarian Ministry

November 7, 2020Posted inTalks
I wish to start with a brief plug. As part of my ministerial training, I need to conduct a rights of passage service. So, if any of you here this afternoon wish to get married, you are especially welcome to contact me! You might laugh at this but one of my other options is conducting a funeral and I’m sure I will get even fewer willing volunteers for that! Why can I make the offer of being able to marry people in this queer space so confidently? Because the chapel of Harris Manchester College is the only Oxbridge college chapel registered to preform both opposite and same-sex marriages. But why, in this age, is it the case that HMC is the only college chapel to offer marriage equally to all who want it to the full extent that the law allows? In part it is because of the college’s Unitarian heritage.

Pride in Tying Times: Princess Dresses and Stormy Seas

October 11, 2020Posted inSermons
I have to start by saying how wonderful it is to be preaching to what for many years was my home congregation while I lived, worked, and studied in the wonderful city that is Leeds. This must be a really odd time of you as a congregation. You would, in any other year, be recovering from putting on a host of activities as a part of Leeds Pride. However, with 2020 being the year that it is, it was sadly not to be. Pride may not have been the same this year and I cannot possibly make up for that with a sermon – but I’m going to try. Just for you – and whoever is watching this online afterwards – I am going to try to make this my most Queer Theology packed sermon yet!

Dry Bones and the Spirit

April 27, 2020Posted inUncategorized
[A sermon delivered to the Oxford Unitarians congregation via Zoom on Sunday, 27th April 2020] (Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14) https://www.facebook.com/234936560005244/videos/537538673566089 Watch the sermon via Facebook https://soundcloud.com/user-353204573/dry-bones-and-the-spirit Listen to the sermon via Soundcloud Just…

Evensong Sermon

February 19, 2020Posted inUncategorized
[A sermon delivered to the members of Harris Manchester College, Oxford on Wednesday 19th February 2020] (Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 and John 17:20-26) Our reading from the Hebrew Bible today was…