Revd Caroline's Retirement Thoughts

    27 th  July 2025   This passage begins with what is surely one of the most familiar parts of the New Testament and of our own Christian lives.  Today it is in its less familiar form: Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer.  We are more used to using the Matthew version both in our public worship and I suspect because of that in our own prayer lives.   It is good in our worship to take time and think about what we are doing when we pray.  My own view is that on one level it is instinctive and sometimes a little self centred.  Yes, when going into a busy car park in a hurry I am likely to send up an arrow prayer and say something like please God let there be a space!  Such prayers are perhaps a normal response to a stressful situation, but they are not the entirety of our prayer lives.  True prayer can feel illusive a quite difficult.  It is an aspect of our relationship with God and like all r...

  St Mary’s Wheatley 26 th January 2025   Today’s gospel reading from Luke, gives us the story of Jesus returning home to Nazareth. The narrative gives us the story of Jesus’ first act of public ministry. Following his baptism in the River Jordan and his time in the desert wilderness fast and temptation, Jesus returns to his home country, Galilee and the city of Nazareth, there were probably about 12000 people so a small town. Reports about him have been spreading through the population, probably the result of his healing miracles and his synagogue teaching. When Jesus returns to Nazareth it is quite an occasion!  A sort of local boy returns home to adulation, fascination and a little bit of ‘just who does he think he is’.  A little further on from today’s reading we have these verses ‘all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”  23  He said to them, “Doubtless you will quo...

  19 th  January 2025   When I was a child my dad a non-drinker used to sing a song called a pub with no beer, I will spare you my singing, but I looked it up on Google and I think there were the words; ‘but there's nothin' so lonesome, so morbid or drear  as to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer’.  For some reason whenever I hear this story of the wedding party at  Cana  I get an ear worm and think of this song and of my dad.  A wedding without wine reminds me of a pub without beer! weddings and wine belong together.     This is an exhilarating gospel story, I find it very easy to imagine the scene. Jesus is the protagonist but says very little – only three short sentences – yet the whole story is a revelation, a disclosing, an epiphany.    An epiphany is a revealing of that which is hidden, and as we go through the Christian year, we learn how Jesus reveals the nature of God to us through the...

  Epiphany 2025 St Giles Horspath   Today we anticipate the Feast of Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas which is tomorrow.  What we celebrate at Epiphany is a deep mystery – God’s revelation to the world in Jesus Christ, born as a humble, vulnerable child in an out of the way place.  Emmanuel, God with us.    The Epiphany narrative occurs only In Matthew’s gospel; the Magi strangers from far away. Here is a key message at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, a gospel written for a largely Jewish community, this is that Jesus is here not just for the Jewish people but for all.   When they do find him, their first instinct is to stoop low and worship him.   These Magi/wise men who were probably learned and used to high status have the sense to know that they do not have all the answers, to know what you don’t know is an important kind of wisdom.    The Magi have dropped everything, left their country and the comforts of ho...

  Garsington Sunday 29 th  December     Christian children all must be mild, obedient good as he. A well-known but not terribly realistic couplet from Once in Royal City, curry can be mild, weather can be mild, the boy Jesus the boy Jesus is anything but mild! Our gospel reading today is a supremely important reading.  It is a story only seen in Luke’s gospel and a reading which gives us a sole glimpse of Jesus growing up, so here he is a 12-year-old boy, who has given his exasperated parents the slip!   John Bell member of the Iona Community and writer of many hymns suggests an adaption to Once in Royal with the following couplet.   Christian children must abscond if of God they’re truly fond.   Mary and Joseph appear to have lost Jesus; we can probably easily imagine those feelings of cold-blooded panic.  Have you ever lost a child, grandchild or someone you were looking after even for a few moments on a supermarket visit or a wal...