7 Mar 2010 - "The Call to repentance"

Diane Whittaker - St Mary's
Luke 13 v1-9

Thousands of Haitians suffered in the earthquake.

What did these people do to deserve this?

Hundreds suffered in the Chilean earthquake.

What did these people do to deserve this?

Millions starve each year, others die of Aids

What did these people do to deserve this?

28 Feb 2010 - "Jesus on the road to Jerusalem"

Diane Whittaker - St Mary's
Luke 13 v31-35

Setting the scene – Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, his ministry is gathering pace – he has travelled through many villages and towns preaching and healing on the way. He has said and done some fairly shocking things –

He has healed on the Sabbath – the crippled woman – prompting the synagogue leader to warn the congregation not to seek healing on the Sabbath.

He has failed to keep purity laws.

He has criticized the local leaders – Pharisees and lawyers – in harsh terms – Luke Ch11 v42 - 52

28th Feb 2010 - A Challenge to a King and the Call to Fairtrade

Colin Hull - St Mary's
Jeremiah 22 1-9, 13-17
Acts 4:32-37

Josiah and sons

In 640 BC Josiah came to the throne of Judah. He was only a young man and had a faithful commitment to God. He was stirred by a reading of “the book of the law” found by the priests in temple. It encouraged him to carry out some social and religious reforms, to get back to faithfulness to God’s covenant. In many ways Josiah tried to be the kind of king that we sang about in Psalm 72 to be a good and just ruler who looked after the poor of the land.

But this did not last. In 609 Josiah was killed in battle with the Egyptians. He was succeeded by one his sons Shallum (alias Jehoahaz). But Shallum only lasted 3 mths before Pharoah Necho II deposed him and placed another son of Josiah (Jehoiakim) on the throne. Jehoiakim had little independence and only ruled at Necho’s favour. None of Josiah’s sons were as devoted to God as he had been and the reforms he had tried to make came to an end. Things went socially backwards. At the same time there was an increasing threat from the Babylonian empire and 13 years later Jerusalem was conquered and the temple was destroyed. Judah ceased as an independent nation. The last few kings only reigned with Babylonian consent. All this is the background behind much of the prophecies of Jeremiah.

21 Feb 2010 – "The Temptations of Christ"

Diane Whittaker - St Mary's
Luke 4 v1-13

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”

This is such a familiar passage that there is a temptation to think we know it all.

When I revisited this passage in preparation for the Lent Group session I took last week, and for preaching this morning, the fact that Jesus was full of the Spirit when he went into the wilderness struck me for the first time. I think I’ve always had the idea that Jesus was in some ‘super-human’ way struggling with these temptations on his own. On the contrary – he was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. I think that begins to make a real difference to how you view this episode in Jesus life – just before he begins his public ministry.

So - I’d like to look at this account of Jesus’ temptations a little differently this morning – looking at the bible passage in more detail – to see where that leads us.

24 Jan 2010 - "The unity and joy of the Spirit"

Stephen Fielding - St Mary’s Welwyn and at Ayot St Peter

One of the joys of my role as a curate is to go every week to Tewin School and to take the assembly. I love it. In those children there is an extraordinary openness to God, and I believe it is so vital to nurture their spiritual growth. Every Wednesday it is the greatest delight to talk to and to worship with the children. Last term we learnt together a prayer that Jesus would have prayed, like a good Jew, every morning and every evening. It is the prayer that begins ‘Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord’ - the prayer that we know from the book of Deuteronomy. We learnt it in the Hebrew – the Shema - and the children learnt to sing it in Hebrew. And if you would like me to sing it to you now I will be very happy to do so. To hear those children sing this great declaration from the book of Deuteronomy was one of the most moving experiences I can remember, and when they sang it spontaneously at the Christingle service their parents were caught up in the emotion of it as it took each child back to the prayer that Jesus would have prayed every morning and every evening.

24 Jan 2010 - "The Conversion of Paul"

Diane Whittaker
Isaiah 49:1-13
Acts 22:3-16

We have just come to the end of the week of prayer for Christian Unity, and I thought that it was appropriate that we celebrate this evening the minor festival of the Conversion of St Paul, for two reasons. Firstly, Paul’s ministry and his development of a theology of the Gospel which still speaks to us today through his letters, has a lot to say to us about Christian Unity.