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Summer Psalms: Psalms of praise

  Readings.   Psalm 8, Matthew 21: 12-17    Praying is sometimes hard.    What words are we supposed to use?   One thing I love about the disciples is that they had many of the same questions we have.    Luke 11: 1, we read: ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’   Jesus responded with what we now know as “The Lord’s Prayer”.    We recite it, but I think it has much to teach us as a pattern of prayer , rather than just a fixed set of words.    His pattern is incorporated into what we know as the Lord’s Prayer.      It begins not with ourselves, but with God.    Recognising who He is – our Father, whose name is to be recognised as holy, respected, revered...    It puts us in the right place to start praying.   But the words can be difficult to find; any words a human can come up with will be inadequate to describe God, but tha...
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Sink or Swim

Matthew 14 verses 22 to 33. Romans 10 verses5 to 15.   Last Sunday Richard preached from the same chapter of Matthew. If you were not with us ,  the verses today follow on immediately after the account of the feeding of the 5000 and the news that John the Baptist had been killed at the command of Herod. Richard explained that this passage had much to say to him personally, as well as the rest of us. He spoke of the deep nourishment the Father wants to bless us with, providing us with physical, spiritual, and emotional care so that we can experience strength, healing and the support needed to stay strong in our faith in God. My decision to continue in this chapter is also because I feel that it contains truths that are important for me to hear and, if that is true, I believe it is likely others may find exploring these 11 verses useful also. When I was training to be a teacher,   I had to pass one area of the curriculum that filled me with horror. It was compu...
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Feeding of the 5,000 - A Tale of Two Banquets

  Matthew 14 – Feeding of the 5,000 A Tale of Two Banquets If you were to turn back just a few verses in Matthew 14, you would read about a party. But it wasn't a party you or I would ever want to attend. It was the birthday banquet of Herod Antipas. A feast held in a grand, lavish palace, filled with the political elite, fuelled by pride, lust, paranoia, and fear. And it ended with the bloody head of John the Baptist being brought in on a platter. It was a display of earthly power at its most corrupt, self-serving, and destructive. And then we turn to verse 13. Jesus hears about the brutal murder of his cousin John. Grief-stricken and exhausted, He steps into a boat to withdraw to a solitary place for some much-needed rest. But the crowds hear about it. They follow Him on foot along the shoreline, streaming out from the towns. When Jesus steps ashore, He doesn't find a palace. He finds a desolate, isolated wilderness. He doesn't find dignitaries; He finds the...
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