Pause for Thought – 1 July 2020

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Psalm 1 Philemon 1-21 Luke 14:25-33 Prime Minister Herbert Asquith once spent a weekend at the Waddesdon estate of the Rothschild family. One day, as Asquith was being waited on at teatime by the butler, the following conversation ensued: “Tea, coffee, or a peach from off the wall, sir?” “Tea, please,” answered Asquith….

I asked people what they thought I should say today, and lots of people said it needed to be a big. Some people said I needed to make it a cracker. So, here we are! A big cracker! Produce big Cracker Only the English could find a toilet roll and gun powder amusing! Now the…

Romans 8:12-25 As some of you know, my mother-in-law was a doctor. I think it’s fair to say that she more than enough paper and pens in her house supplied by drug companies to see out most of. And mugs. And sponges and brushes. Once drug companies started giving doctors long golfing holidays in sunny…

Luke 2:22-40 Is there anyone who hasn’t opened a birthday or Christmas present and hasn’t had a moment of disappointment when it wasn’t quite what you thought it would be? The story is told of the nine year old boy who one day saw what seemed like the perfect birthday present for his mother. He…

Ezekiel 37:1-14 Acts 2:1-21 It’s very easy to make three serious mistakes about Pentecost. The first is to assume that it doesn’t really apply in churches like this. We’re a middle-of-the-road church, people say. We’re not extreme. We’re not what is derogatively referred to as happy-clappy. We don’t all have our hands in the air…

Matthew 15:21-28 Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous letter from Birmingham Jail responded to criticisms of the local clergy who charged that he was an outside agitator who was stirring up trouble away from his home town. He wrote, “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I…