Sermon Archives - Rev. Robin Hanford

Christmas: The Importance of Stories

By Robin Hanford December 18, 2022Sermons

I am sure that many of us will have Christmas traditions at home or with our families. A key one for me has been watching a particular film at Christmas, every Christmas, something I have done for as long as I can remember. I have never seen it earlier or later in the year. It has always had to be watched at Christmas. This year, I broke this tradition – by seeing it early! I am, of course, talking about the best Christmas film in existence – and now I’ve uttered those words, I know that this is bound to go down as a controversial sermon. Any guesses as to what the best Christmas film ever is?

woman in orange coat with black and brown scarf

Advent and Prayer: The Importance of Patience

By Robin Hanford December 4, 2022Sermons

It might be a surprise for you to learn that I was once invited to become a monk. It certainly came as a surprise to me! The offer was made after I asked a question to a man with white hair, wearing a long white robe, at a conference of the Student Christian Movement. That man was Timothy Radcliffe, a Roman Catholic Dominican monk in the Order of Preachers who was the author of our second reading today. Of course, I had to decline Timothy’s invitation for a number of reasons, the main one being I told him, was that my then-girlfriend, now fiancée, would probably not be too happy about me taking monastic vows – an excuse I remember he graciously accepted.

Advent: The Importance of Being Woke

By Robin Hanford November 27, 2022Sermons

Being ‘woke’ has become something of a pejorative term. The other day an article in The Telegraph blamed “namby-pamby woke HR types” for trying to ban swearing in the workplace. Yesterday a Daily Express headline read, “BBC's World Cup coverage blasted as 'woke'”. But where did this term come from before it became widely used as an insult for anything or anyone considered to be a bit too left-wing? Well, it originated in the African-American community in the United States. If someone was ‘woke’ it meant that they were “alert to the issues of racial prejudice and discrimination”. That eventually expanded to mean being alert to other social issues.

Christ as King?

By Robin Hanford November 20, 2022Sermons

So, here we are at the end of the year. No, I’m not a couple of months early! I’m talking about the liturgical year. The Christian calendar begins at Advent and goes around, providing a framework for worship on Sundays, all the way around to today. So, what is today, this ecclesiastical equivalent of New Year’s Eve commemorated as? Well, in the majority of the Western Church, it is The Feast of Christ the King and well… I have some thoughts about this.

Holier Than Thou

By Robin Hanford October 23, 2022Sermons

The story of The Tortoise and the Hare must be one of the most well-known in the world. Yet, I struggle to think of the last time I heard it read or even read it myself. I suspect that the reason is that I did not really need to read it again. Aesop’s fable is so simple and so well drilled into our children through schooling that we could all probably tell it from memory. A comment such as “slow and steady wins the race” comes to our minds so easily and so often, and with it all the imagery of tortoises and hares to last a life time. All of this is likely what makes it such a successful fable. It is a simple story that presents the moral it wishes to impart to us clearly and with consistency.

brown wooden gavel on brown wooden table

Justice

By Robin Hanford October 16, 2022Sermons

[A sermon preached to Hinckley Unitarians on Sunday 16th of October 2022] (Readings: A 17th Century Folk Poem: Stealing The Common From The Goose, and Luke 18:1-9) Justice is a hard concept to…

human standing beside crucifix statue on mountain

Feast of the Cross: What Does It Mean for Us?

By Robin Hanford September 18, 2022Sermons

Wednesday marked the Festival of the Cross. This festival commemorates the finding of the supposed True Cross by St Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. It also commemorates the founding of serval churches by Constantine, and the return of the supposed True Cross to Jerusalem by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (Her-rack-le-us) after a Persian Emperor apparently nicked it in the 600s.

Better the Devils You Know

By Robin Hanford September 11, 2022Sermons

[A sermon preached to Hinckley Unitarians on Sunday 11th of September 2022] (Readings: Luke 15:1-10 and Letter 2 from The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil by C. S.…

Humility and Liberation

By Robin Hanford August 28, 2022Sermons

[A sermon preached to Hinckley Unitarians on Sunday 28th of August 2022] (Readings: Sirach 10:12-18 and Luke 14:1,7-14) “It is the responsibility of the host or organiser to tell people where to sit…

Lammas: The Spiritual Power of Everyday Bread

By Robin Hanford August 7, 2022Sermons

In 2001 a group of people gathered outside a church in the in town of Alamogordo, New Mexico and started a fire. They did not set fire to the church – this was not some sort of anti-religious arson attack – far from it. In fact, this group gathered to set light to a large pile of books that they deemed to be anti-Christian, satanic, and corrupting the minds of the youth by promoting witchcraft. All of these books in the pile that went up in smoke that day by one author J. R. R. Tolkien. Yep, they burned Lord of the Rings. Which is somewhat ironic as, if they had bothered to read it and comprehend what they were reading, they would soon have discovered that, for all its talk of wizards and magical creatures, it is one of the most Christianity influenced stories to have ever sat on a bookshelf.