But what is a neighbour? It’s one of those funny words that mark the difference between England and America. For a start, one of us spells it wrong! But the contrast goes deeper: I remember wondering when I came here what neighbourhoods where. In England we just have districts or places but Americans have neighbourhoods. …
Author Archives: Rob
Sunday of Corpus Christi
I have a burning question this morning … what happened to those twelve baskets of leftovers? What did the disciples do with all that half chewed bread and fish? Haven’t you ever wondered? The gospel writers are so delighted with the excess but they never spare a word about where it went. Did the Twelve …
Trinity Sunday
Why on earth do we celebrate this awkward feast right here, right now, when we are still reeling from Pentecost, still wondering how to put our feet down into ordinary time and get on with the brisk business of living? Why distract our attention from the here and now with this feast of the where …
Pentecost Sunday
Is school over yet? I ask because I want to start with a quiz, a tough one: what phrase appears on every American coin but on no American bank note? … It’s OK you’re allowed to cheat … … … “E pluribus unum.” Any of you know what that means? … It’s Latin: “Out of …
Sunday Week 5 of Easter Year C
How many times this week have I heard the groan of guilt and the in-drawn breath of panic as someone else has realised that Mother’s Day was coming? And the groans got louder and the panic sharper as the week wore on. I hope all you mothers out there are satisfied with all the guilt …
Sunday Week 4 of Easter Year C
This week I experienced a deep personal trauma—I turned forty. Now for half of you this evening that’s all in the past and no big deal and for the other half it’s still far enough away to forget. But forty crept up on me unawares and bit. I hadn’t been expecting it—hey, what’s another birthday …
Sunday Week 2 of Easter Year C
Poor Thomas. Thomas the Twin. Doubting Thomas. It seems we never remember poor Thomas except for what he isn’t—he isn’t his brother and he isn’t faithful, he doesn’t believe. But Thomas is—in his own right—the first and greatest of believers. And what he comes to believe is still astonishing. The disciples are huddled in fear …
Sunday Week 1 of Easter
I live in Berkeley, just north of the Cal campus, just across from a fraternity house, the band fraternity in fact. And whatever the reputation that such places might have this house is a decent one, pretty quiet, pretty considerate. And as part of that consideration there was a knock at the door last Wednesday …
Sunday Week 4 of Lent Year C(A)
This is our prayer today: Let us see. Let us not be blind. Dear God remove our blindness! It’s the prayer we will pray for our catechumens on their journey out of darkness to the light of Easter. But it had better be our prayer today too. For we are blind. We are blind because …
Sunday Week 2 of Lent Year C
A terrifying darkness with smoke and fire and animals torn into pieces. A mountaintop brilliance with burning figures out of legend and a voice booming from a darkening cloud. What do these two moments, one from the Hebrew scriptures and the other from the Christian, have in common. One thing is terror. Abram is terrified. …