From Revd John Davies, vicar of Clapham with Keasden and Austwick with Eldroth in the Diocese of Leeds. Prayers and reflections from the Churches Weekly Newsletter in a time of the coronavirus: 18 July 2021, The Seventh Sunday after Trinity.

Featuring 'The King of Love my Shepherd is' (H.W. Baker), performed by Utah State University Chorale, Cory Evans, Ellie Evans, Amelia Merkley & Jeremy Adriano. iTunes single, 2019; 'My Shepherd will supply my need' (Psalm 23, paraphrased by Isaac Watts, 1835), performed by Allyse Smith from Come Thou Fount, 2008; 'Gather us in (Live)', written and performed by Marty Haugen, 1982 GIA Publications. From Anthology I: 1980-1984 – The Best of Marty Haugen, 1985; 'Father, hear the prayer we offer' (Love M. Whitcomb Willis, 1864), performed by The Jubilee Choir from You’ll never Walk Alone, 2003.

Including my reflection for the day 'How we long to be gathered in safety', also available with all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.

At a time of year when our local shepherds gather in the sheep for shearing, this theme of gathering together again after a long time apart is very current, as tomorrow in England sees the lifting of legal restrictions on our meeting and travelling. This will be both a relief and a cause of anxiety: what politicians are calling ‘Freedom Day’ feels less liberating than it might, as we’re asked to enter it with caution, and with particular care for others, especially those who are most vulnerable to Covid-19. How we long to be gathered together again with friends, family and neighbours who we may have kept in touch with over the past 16 months but who we’ve not been able - or felt able - to see. But we long to be gathered in safety.

A talk for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity, 18 July 2021.

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

From Revd John Davies, vicar of Clapham with Keasden and Austwick with Eldroth in the Diocese of Leeds. Prayers and reflections from the Churches Weekly Newsletter in a time of the coronavirus: 11 July 2021, The Sixth Sunday after Trinity.

Featuring 'Lord of the Dance' (Sydney Carter, 1963) performed by Shusha, Maddy Prior, Melanie Harrold, John Kirkpatrick, Robert Johnson, Sydney Carter from Lovely In The Dances: Songs Of Sydney Carter, 1981; 'You have called us by our name' (Bernadette Farrell) from the collection Journeysongs Third Edition: Volume 16, 2012; and Love divine, all loves excelling' (Charles Wesley, 1747), performed by the Wallingford Parish Church Choir, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Adam Langston & Dr Sue Ledger, from The Hymns Album, 2011.

Including my reflection for the day 'Redeeming Salome: let the little daughter dance', also available with all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.

Salome: in popular imagination she is the quintessential femme fatale; or what one 19th century writer called ‘the symbolic incarnation of undying Lust, the Goddess of immortal Hysteria, the accursed Beauty exalted above all other beauties ... the monstrous Beast, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning.’ But there is no Salome in Mark's gospel passage about Herod's birthday party - just 'a little daughter', a pre-teen dancing for play and fun and then being taken advantage of by a conniving mother and uncle. Why is our society's instinct always to create creatures like Salome out of childlike girls? And can we clean up our minds, and make space to let the little daughters dance?

A talk for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity, 11 July 2021. 

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

I first encountered it in 1980 when news of John Lennon's murder was met by some in his home town with the uncharitable judgement, 'He's never done anything for this city...' Anthropologists talk about the complex relationship which we groups of people, whether villages or cities, crowds or churches, have with those people we uphold as our ‘models’ - how at one and the same time we attack and cherish them, hate and love them, diminish and exalt them. 

This is the state of the hometown crowd in Nazareth with respect to Jesus. The proverb that a prophet is honoured everywhere except in his own home sums up the scandal. Envious of this person, we are at the same time attracted and repulsed by them. The crowd wants to be like the ‘other’ and to destroy him, because he is so pleasing.’

Teasing out this universal human trait, with reflections on the receptions of born-again Bob Dylan, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, the 'Accidental Footballer' Pat Nevin, and Frank Skinner, recent author of A Comedian's Prayer Book.

A talk for The Fifth Sunday after Trinity , 4 July 2021.

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

From Revd John Davies, vicar of Clapham with Keasden and Austwick with Eldroth in the Diocese of Leeds. Prayers and reflections from the Churches Weekly Newsletter in a time of the coronavirus: 4 July 2021, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity.

Featuring 'Praise, my soul, the King of heaven' Words: Henry Francis Lyte (1834), music: John Goss (1869), Performed by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Richard Farnes & Sir Stephen Cleobury from Abide With Me - 50 Favourite Hymns, 1996; 'I believe in you' Bob Dylan © 1979 Special Rider Music. Performed by Alison Krauss on BBC Four Transatlantic Sessions, 24 March 2012. Sourced from YouTube: https://youtu.be/b5dpkBV2ifs; 'I, the Lord of sea and sky (Here I am, Lord)' Daniel L. Schutte, 1979, Performed by John Michael Talbot from Table of Plenty, 1997.

Including my reflection for the day 'Prophets without honour at home: destroying those we love, loving those we destroy', also available with all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.

The initiative here belongs entirely to the woman. From first hearing about him from afar, she slowly but surely closes the gap between them and, touching him, triggers a flow of power from Jesus that is beyond Jesus’ control, intention or even awareness. She is healed before Jesus is even conscious of her presence. When, finally, he says, ‘Your faith has made you well’, he is simply naming what has already happened - responding to ‘the whole truth’ that she has told him. What was this woman’s ‘whole truth’ which she told Jesus? 

A talk for The Fourth Sunday after Trinity , 20 June 2021.

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

From Revd John Davies, vicar of Clapham with Keasden and Austwick with Eldroth in the Diocese of Leeds. Prayers and reflections from the Churches Weekly Newsletter in a time of the coronavirus: 27 June 2021, The Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

Featuring 'My Song is love unknown', Samuel Crossman, 1664. Melody: John Ireland. Performed by The Easter Hymns Band from 20 Favourite Easter Hymns, 2005; 'Psalm 130: Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD' Arranged by Michael Hay & Joseph B. Sullivan. Performed by the William Ferris Chorale from Lectionary Psalms, Vol. 4, 2013; 'We cannot measure how you heal', John L. Bell and Graham Maule ©1989 WGRG, Iona Community, Glasgow. Performed by Joy and Ruth Everingham, 2021, Source: https://youtu.be/OrNoQisGbDw; 'Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord!', Timothy Dudley-Smith, 1962. Melody: Walter Greatorex. Performed by Huddersfield Choral Society & Huddersfield Choral Society & Joseph Cullen from The Hymns Album, 2006.

Including my reflection for the day 'Man, interrupted: becoming a listener to a woman’s whole truth', also available with all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.

From Revd John Davies, vicar of Clapham with Keasden and Austwick with Eldroth in the Diocese of Leeds. Prayers and reflections from the Churches Weekly Newsletter in a time of the coronavirus: 20 June 2021, The Third Sunday after Trinity.

Featuring 'Now thank we all our God' Author: Martin Rinkart (1636), Translator: Catherine Winkworth. Performed by The Cambridge University Brass Ensemble & The Choir of Queens' College, Cambridge from Wedding Hymns, 1999; 'Some went down to the sea in ships' Psalm 107 adapted and performed by Pastor Joel S Neubauer, St Mark Lutheran Church (ELCA), Yorktown, Virginia; and 'Psalm 107: Give thanks to the Lord (His love is everlasting)' composed by Francesca LaRosa Rohrer and performed by Francesca LaRosa © 2021.

Including my reflection for the day '“Those who go down to the sea in ships…” Overcoming our sea blindness', also available with all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.

When the stricken mega-ship ‘Ever Given’ blocked the Suez Canal many were amazed to learn that 12 per cent of global trade passes through the canal, making the economic damage caused by its closure very significant: a boggling $9.6 billion a day. 

All of this was something of a revelation to many of us, for as Rose George so powerfully puts it in her book Deep Sea and Foreign Going, shipping is an ‘invisible industry that brings you 90% of everything’. ‘It has quadrupled in size since 1970. We are more dependent on it now than ever’. And yet we suffer from what the chief of the Royal Navy, the First Sea Lord, calls ‘sea blindness’. We pay little heed to the sea itself and those who traverse it, to the companies who run shipping under their very elusive flags of convenience; we pay scant attention to what goes on behind the high-security fences of the world’s container ports, and least of all to the conditions in which the world’s seafarers live. They will joke that their job is like being in prison with a salary - but those who know both forms of institution agree that sea life is the far harsher form of incarceration.

This talk attempts to overcome our sea blindness and open our eyes to these people who have brought us nine out of every ten things we own.

A talk for The Third Sunday after Trinity , 20 June 2021.

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