Harvest display of produce with lamps and the moon in the background.

Harvest and Equinox

October 10, 2021Posted inSermons
We find ourselves in a time of festivals. Not long ago, my fiancée Zosh, an eclectic Pagan was celebrating the Autumn Equinox, quickly after that we have the festival of St Michael and All Angles – Michaelmas – the festival that gives its name to the first of the three Oxford terms. Many churches celebrate Harvest around this time. Later there will be All Souls and All Hallows.

The Price of Prophecy

July 11, 2021Posted inSermons
Both our readings today relate to prophets who faced consequences of being prophets. In our sermon today I would like to concentrate on Amos, from who’s book our first reading is from. Amos is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. In Jewish Bibles the books of the twelve prophets are presented as one combined book, yet they are presented as individual smaller books in Christian bibles.

Meetings and Partings

June 6, 2021Posted inSermons
So, this is it. The day is finally here. My last service of my first official ministry and my first time saying this sort of goodbye. The theme of this service ‘Meetings and Partings’ was taken from one of the Engagement Group sessions that I led with you this year. That Engagement Group was, appropriately, on liminal space. As I speak to you now, about to leave my official role as Student Minister behind at the end of this month and not quite fully knowing what is next, liminal space is exactly what I’m about to be entering into.
Easter: Being the Resurrection

Easter: Being the Resurrection

April 4, 2021Posted inSermons
The late, great Frank Schulman – a former chaplain, dean, and fellow in theology at Harris Manchester College advised Unitarian ministers-in-training that “with the Easter sermon there is a temptation to avoid the issue by speaking in broad terms about renewal of spring, flowers, and clouds wafting across the sky.” We can probably also add chocolate eggs to Schulman’s list of distractions yet, while I intend to remain faithful to Schulman’s advice today, I hope you will allow me to indulge you with a childhood memory of mine.
Jesus is shown holding a whip and driving out bankers from the temple. The bankers all represent different modern banks.

The Cleansing of the Temple

March 7, 2021Posted inSermons
Some of you might know that that religious attitudes that I encountered at my Church of England Primary School caused me to go through a distinct period of Atheism that lasted for many years. Indeed, at that time, I was probably the world’s youngest militant Dawkinsite Atheist. I have a now vague memory that those with power over myself and my fellow children at that school were very keen on us singing the Christmas carol ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and were especially keen on emphasising the lines

Miracles and Healing

February 7, 2021Posted inSermons
Back in the days before such things as Modernity and the Enlightenment had come about, if you had enquired of minister where the evidence was for the existence of God or Christ’s divinity, there is a good chance that they would have pointed you to the miracles in the Bible as infallible or unquestionable proof of such doctrines.

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.

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…