Janet Zirugo and Jessica Mwedzi struggle to put food on their families' tables in an area of Zimbabwe vulnerable to drought. ‘Women are at the mercy of climate change and hunger', Jessica says. Janet, Jessica, and the dry earth itself cannot be well if we are not well. And we are not well in this unequal world where the land, its creatures and its peoples are exploited and suffer for the gain of a few. But all shall be well and all will be well in this world when we live in it conscious it is our common home, shared together with God.

A talk for the The Fifth Sunday of Easter, 15 May 2022: Christian Aid Week.

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Dorcas the seamstress, realising what a precious gift God has put into her hands, feel encouraged to use her precious skills to create generous practical gifts for others in need; Peter the fisherman, likewise draws on the courage to find the right way and the right moment to share God’s good news with others.And  God gives us all we need to be of help to others, each one according to the gifts we’ve gained through our life experiences.

A talk for The Fourth Sunday of Easter, 8 May 2022.

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When Belfast Presbyterians Steve and Janice Stockman met Pope Francis in his Vatican library he told them that ‘The Christian faith is fundamentally about an encounter with Jesus Christ.’ When Saul encountered Jesus on the Damascus road, the scales which fell from his eyes were those illusions created by the false gods of religious and political ideology. His mission was no longer to serve religion, but simply to follow Christ. In a world of ethno-religious ideological conflicts, the teaching of Jesus is pretty explicit: there’s only one kingdom to which we should hitch ourselves a ride, and that’s the Kingdom of God.

A talk for The Third Sunday of Easter, 1 May 2022.

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Thomas, on seeing the change in his fellow-disciples and believing what they’d told him, didn’t doubt the resurrection. No, it was rather that Thomas still doubted the crucifixion. Thomas wanted evidence that Jesus had actually died that cruel death - he wanted to see his body wounds - because he was struggling to believe that the event had actually happened. His question was - could Jesus really have died so violently in the first place, if, on coming back to life, he was so free of vengeance, so lacking retribution, so full of forgiveness, so generous with peace?

A talk for The Second Sunday of Easter, 24 April 2022.

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If the events of Good Friday are universal (and they read like scenes from a contemporary war) then Mary’s encounter on the Sunday must also ‘happen every day’. Mary turns as she learns - from the teacher - that amid her grief she is awakening to an unexpected, radically new beginning. And from this we too may turn from our griefs and learn to find little resurrections happening every day.

A talk for Easter Day, 17 April 2022.

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Like the one child who said of the emperor, But he hasn't got anything on!", today I invite you to join me in saying, Hosanna! to all who puncture the pomp of kings and rulers, to reveal the hidden truth of their sorry passing powers; Hosanna! to those who illuminate the pitiful deference of their subjects so as to open the people’s eyes to other outlooks. From Banksy's subversive Palestine Separation Wall graffiti to Marina Ovsyannikova, that Russian TV journalist who last month walked onto the set of a live news broadcast holding a sign saying, “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” And the One who set in motion the crazy, wonderful practice of revealing the deficiencies of worldly rulers and the gullibility of their subjects by choosing to ride a donkey into Jerusalem on the same day that the Roman emperor entered the city in the high pomp of a military procession. 

A talk for Palm Sunday, 10 April 2022.

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"Mary, this sensitive woman who has just poured her life’s savings on his feet and filled the room with its sweetness, squarely faces reality. She sees the forgiving victim who embodies God’s love and responds with gratitude and devotion. She fills the house with the scent of love. Let us breathe it in on this fifth Sunday of Lent and learn to breathe out its forgiving power." - a sermon written by the late Tom Truby and downloadable as a PDF here.

A talk for The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 3 Aprl 2022.

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Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day tend to be regarded now as more or less the same thing; though some are still aware of Mothering Sunday being an English institution with religious roots, whilst Mothers’ Day is an American holiday associated with commercialism. Both events focus on the domestic role of women, and tend to sentimentalise motherhood. Interesting then to consider the origins of the various Mothers’ Days worldwide, which tell a wider, stronger women’s story.

A talk for Mothering Sunday (The Fourth Sunday of Lent), 27 March 2022.

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In this supposedly secular age people still do talk about God intervening in the world, but it’s often in these sort of terms - God must have let this happen to those people to punish them for something they’ve done. The question is, is that really the God we know? And are these sort of questions really how God wants us to respond to news of other people’s troubles? Victim-blaming and second chances for us all.

A talk for The Third Sunday of Lent, 20 March 2022.

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Jerusalem is a paradigm of our own social world. Are we happy for that city to continue being a place where different tribes set their faces against each other? And closer to home, will we persist in gathering only in our own tribes, clinging to our own dogmas, huddling behind our own flags - Christians and Muslims, Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians, vegans and meat-eaters, anti-vaxxers and pro-jabbers? Or can we commit to looking for the common ground we have with other vulnerable humans, will we give ourselves to learning ways we can shelter together under wings of love, warmth and protection, finding unity in our diversity? Can we give up believing there are some people who don’t belong here and learn instead to say, and show, and celebrate, that we all belong together?

A talk for The Second Sunday of Lent, 13 March 2022.

Find the text to this and all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks