Tag Archives: worship

Sermon: My great-grandfather’s “true Jewishness”

This message is clear: to be the people of God, it is not enough to worship God. To truly belong to God, the people of God must also live out their calling in justice and in caring for those most in need. Continue reading

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Sermon: Ephesians 5:15-20 on being wisely drunk

I seldom sing in church because I cannot sing in tune, and I am afraid of putting the rest of you off. The only worship I have experienced where people have sung joyfully out of tune was at the World Council of Churches’ ecumenical institute in Switzerland. My African colleagues reminded me that the Psalms tell us to make a ‘joyful noise’ to the Lord, (Psalms 66:1, 95:1, 98:4, 100:1) not necessarily a tuneful noise. But, as I said earlier, my heritage is Scottish Presbyterian, not African, and I save singing lustily for the car or the shower. Continue reading

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Sermon: Be afraid, very afraid – or reassured and encouraged

The prophets told the people of Israel again and again that in order to be the people of God it was not enough for them simply to worship God, no matter how carefully they followed the requirements for such worship given in the books of the Law. To truly belong to God, the people of God needed to live out their calling in justice, and in caring for those most in need. Continue reading

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