What (or who) are you following at the moment? We are all followers. An exploration of discipleship and where it might take us.

A talk for The Second Sunday before Lent, 4 February 2024. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠Proverbs 8, John 1.1-14.

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Who will bring consolation to Israel? It's an age-old question with relevance to us all. Will the answer be left solely those who use force of violence, or are there other traditions of Israel which we can draw on?

A talk for The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas), with Holocaust Memorial Day, 28 January 2024. 

Referencing ⁠Hebrews 2.14-18, Luke 2.22-40.

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

New Year is a good time for pondering. For going over what has been, and considering what is to come. It’s a good time for re-setting ourselves if we think that life has bent us out of shape. It’s a good time for putting life in context, and remembering the larger reality which may otherwise be crowded out.

A talk for The First Sunday of Christmas, 31 December 2023. 

Referencing Isaiah 61.10 - 62.3, Luke 2.15-21.

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

Is 'Peace on earth' achievable? Christmas gives us an opportunity to hone our peacemaking skills - in those rooms and around those tables where we are placed, sometimes uncomfortably, alongside people we may see only once a year - maybe some of whom, if we were honest, we’d prefer to see even less often. 

If we admit to ourselves our reluctance to let old wounds heal, or our strategies of avoidance of people we disagree with, or of sidestepping uncomfortable conversations, then we are at the start of building peace on earth. For the beginning of making peace from within is to ask ourselves why we act that way, and prayerfully, carefully, begin to work out what we might be able to do to change.

A talk for Christmas Eve, 24 December 2023. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Titus 2.11-14, Luke 2.1-20.

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"Among you stands one whom you do not know" - said the Baptist of Jesus; and he hardly knew Jesus himself. How Jesus' mission leaves out all traces of vengeance and nationalism, though throughout history, religion has succumbed to what Ivan Illich describes as ‘the troubled legacy of Christendom ... the terrible perversion that comes of love and truth when these are underwritten by institutional power.’ 

A talk for The Third Sunday of Advent, 17 December 2023. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Isaiah 61.1-11, John 1.6-8, 19-28.

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We come to worship at Advent, and these are the first words we hear: ‘Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.’ After a time of suffering and pain, the most uncomfortable of times, when the grass has withered from the earth, the world’s flower has faded, God wants us to know that he is coming to create new beginnings. And, to tell the world that this good news is coming, God is commissioning his messengers. Today we hear from Isaiah and from Mark. The book of Isaiah and the Gospel of Mark were written in, and describe, deeply uncomfortable times. They are both books of prophecy, for, like Isaiah, Jesus was a great prophet of his time.

A talk for The Second Sunday of Advent, 10 December 2023. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Isaiah 40.1-11, Mark 1.1-8.

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When Jesus tells his disciples to ‘Keep awake’, ‘Watch and pray’, he’s not telling us to bunker down and wait for the apocalypse. He’s giving us the tools by which we can face the traumas of life with faith, the challenges of the world with hope; by which we can flourish and help others to flourish. 

A talk for The First Sunday of Advent, 3 December 2023. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Isaiah 64.1-9, Mark 13.24-37.

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This Parable of the Man who Liked to Dig is an upside-down version of the story which usually gets called the Parable of the Talents. It invites us to ask the question, what if this parable is about being happy not to spend your life striving for wealth and prestige?

A talk for The Second Sunday before Advent, 19 November 2023. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Zephaniah 1.7,12-18, Psalm 90.1-12, Matthew 25.14-30.

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Any person determined to live in peace in this world must work out how to be ready in mind and body to act peaceably in every situation: to be prepared to develop the self-discipline to obey peaceful instincts over aggressive ones, to be ready to do the thing which unites, not divides; to be able to do the thing which generates love, not fear. All this requires a firmness of mind and heart, an absolute commitment of time and effort and energy: a strength of character which challenges the lazy criticism that pacifism is a form of weakness. Far from it.

A talk for Remembrance Sunday, 12 November 2023. 

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wisdom of Solomon 6.12-20, Matthew 25.1-13.

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"For me, the other side, the enemy, is not the Palestinian people. For me the struggle is not between Palestinians and Israelis, nor between Jews and Arabs. The fight is between those who seek peace and those who seek war. My people are those who seek peace. My sisters are the bereaved mothers, Israeli and Palestinian, who live in Israel and in Gaza and in the refugee camps. My brothers are the fathers who try to defend their children from the cruel occupation, and are, as I was, unsuccessful in doing so. Although we were born into a different history and speak different tongues there is more that unites us than that which divides us." - Nurit Peled-Elhanan, whose daughter Smadar died in a suicide bombing in 1997.

A talk for the First Sunday before Advent, 5 November 2023.

Referencing ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Micah 3.5-12, Matthew 24.1-14

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