August 2015 – Page 2 – For the fainthearted . . .

Indifference to Jungleland

It was forty years ago today that Bruce Springsteen released the album “Born to Run”. Having played it many times in the intervening decades, the thought occurred to me one day that Bruce Springsteen probably knew more about the pastoral care of ordinary people than any priest, minister or pastor I have met. He understood working class life, the grind of a blue collar existence; he sang about the stuff that people feel, the crap stuff as well as the good stuff.

When did you last hear a preacher talking …

Summer sermon series, 2015 – What’s it all about? 8. Who are our community?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” John 3:16

As a church, who are our community? Being honest, we could probably sit down and write the names of those we consider to be part of our community, but, if we are being faithful to Jesus, isn’t our community meant to be more than just the people we know. And what about the people who would identify themselves as being members …

Betcha, by golly, wow

KCLR, I’m never quite sure what it stands for. Kilkenny Carlow Local Radio, who would call it that? KCLR sounds like one of those American radio stations where even hazarding a guess at the meaning of the letters would be difficult. KCLR sounds more authoritative, it gives a feeling that it is something “out there”, a feeling that this could be a station at ease wherever it may be. Perhaps the impression arises from listening only on a Sunday lunchtime when the music stretches back to the Sixties and Seventies …

It is no longer so

A return to France approaches and with it the realization that the prospect of attending a church service is remote. Walking through a village on the Somme in July, along a frontline where for four years life and death had intermingled in some horrifying embrace, it was clear that old stories and old ways no longer commanded authority. A sheet of paper inside a wooden box advised of Mass times in the area; there seemed to be one Sunday Mass which rotated around a succession of twenty-five different churches: Mass …

Lies, Ashley Madison and statistics

News reports of the leak of the data from adultery site Ashley Madison make the astonishing claim that there were 115,000 people in Ireland with an account; it seems a number that is at least improbable.

The 2011 Census recorded the population of Ireland as being 4,588,252 (the population has fallen since 2011, but let us assume that figure). Breaking the total down the Census gave the number in each age range:

0 – 14 years 979,590
15 – 24 years 580,250
25 – 44 years 1,450,140
45 – 64

…

Sermon for Sunday, 23rd August 2015 (Trinity 12/Pentecost 13)

“You have the words of eternal life.” John 6:68

Reading Saint John Chapter 6, it is easy to miss details, while concentrating on the words of Jesus, it is easy to miss the background notes. The story shifts from place to place, it is a story of Jesus moving and the crowd responding. Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee in Verse 1, and the crowd follows him up onto the mountainside. Jesus crosses back across the water in Verse 19 and the crowd follows him to the lakeshore in Verse …