Sermon Details

1.   A few years ago, Mount Etna erupted sending a stream of molten lava towards one of the local Sicilian settlements in the foothills.    I saw a picure in the Guardian of a local Catholic Priest standing in front of the lava flow holding a crucifix in front of him and commanding the lava to stop.

A modern King Canute.

I am tempted to say (for all his evident good intentions)
that the priest would have been better employed
helping move people out of their houses.

2.  I want to tell you the story of Glennys Bamford -

Glennys is now a supernumerary Methodist Minister in the midlands.

It must be 15 years ago now that her husband, Roland, also a Methodist minister, was taken critically ill and rushed to hospital with a subacharoid haemorrhage.

The hospital said there was nothing to be done - he was dying.

At this time Glennys wrote an article for her Church newsletter - as follows:

“We can only live one day at a time at the moment - by the time you read this, who knows what will have happened.   I scream inside myself at what is happening, and I am filled with fear for the future.    I dare not look ahead.    However, ‘assured alone that life and death, his mercy underlies’ I believe not that we are spared pain and grief and suffering, but that in it and through it comes the love of God.    Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and that in the ultimate, whatever happens to Roland , life or death, ‘all will be well and all manner of things will be well.”

What mattered for her - and I suggest for us,
as we face heartache and sickness and bereavement -
was not ultimately whether Roland was sick or well,
whether he lived or died in this world -
but whether God was there with him in his trouble
and on his journey through life and death.

In fact, Roland remained critically ill for a long time,
and the surgeons had to struggle to keep him alive - but in the end, after a protracted battle, and against all the odds, Roland recovered and was finally able to return to his work as a Methodist minister.

People told Glennys that their prayers had been answered -
that God had intervened and worked a miracle overturning medical science, bringing him back to health.

Glennys didn’t see it that way.

If it was a divine miraculous intervention, she said,
“Why didn’t it come earlier in the process and save a lot of resources, anxiety and grief?    I believe that God’s grace, and people’s love and prayers, sustained and helped us, and that the skilled care of the neurosurgical team enabled Roland to recover.    But I reject completely that there was anything special about us, or that God is in any way selective in allowing some people to recover and others not to do so.     God’s love and grace would have been in the situation, whatever had happened.

Its great to see Markus and Soyeon with us today after their wedding. We wish you God’s richest blessing in your life together.
We hope and pray that you will have much joy together.

But God’s blessing is for more than that - it is God’s promise that in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, he will be there for you and keep you safe - May God bless you both!

Last night we were performing here in Mother Goose -
those of you who were not here missed an amazing production -
I’ve got big hopes for the BAFTAs.    
Mother Goose is a story full of miracles - the greatest of which last night was that the cast remembered most of our lines ….

Of course the plot hinges on the destitute Mother goose owning a goose which lays golden eggs and thus gives her the possibility of escaping from poverty.

Thank you Richard for what you have shared with us today -
wonderful good news stories of development aid.

Listening to you, I realize that the age of miracles is not past -
it is here today in the power of the Spirit as we use our God given gifts to work miracles of healing and reconciliation in our dark world.