John Davies: Notes from a small vicar

Referencing Hebrews 9.24-28 , Mark 1.14-20 demands: "When I think about God I think of a person who would never murder or kill anyone. But when you think about it you wonder , because wasn't it God who swept the angel of death over Egypt? It makes you think doesn't it? Is God against it or is he not? I mean what had the boys done to die? It was the Pharaoh wasn't it? Now do you realise how little...

On this All Saints Day we recall all those ghosts, saints, and souls we hold in blessed memory... from Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac to The Wesley Brothers and The Isley Brothers. A talk for All Saints Sunday, 3 November 2024.  Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/johndavies-talks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

Why call Jesus names he never used of himself? Kings, and Messiahs, and Lords, are people distant from us, with whom we have little common ground. But the Son of Man is a Human One who suffers with everyone else who suffers; his divine power works totally unlike and in opposition to the ways of Kings, Messiahs, and Lords, the worldly structures and powers of death. A talk for The Sixteenth Sunday...

Think Veganism; or Jeremy Clarkson. When it comes to overheated debates about food, Jesus invites us to turn down the temperature. It's the way we treat each other that matters, whatever our differences. It’s a concern we may share as we reflect on how poor are the quality of our public conversations these days. A talk for The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 1 September 2024.  Referencing  ⁠⁠...

The celebrated hymn-writer The Rt Revd Timothy Dudley-Smith, died this week. A celebration of what he called the 'functional art' of hymn writing. A talk for The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, 18 August 2024.  Referencing  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ Ephesians 5.15-20. Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/johndavies-talks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

We are ‘angelic demons’: sensing that we are damaged because we’ve eaten too much of the fruit of the world’s fears and hatreds: we are hungry for the bread of life to feed us. A talk for The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, 11 August 2024.  Referencing  ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ Ephesians 4.25 - 5.2 , Psalm 130 , John 6.35, 41-51. Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/johndavies-talks⁠⁠⁠...

Learning from Anne Scargill's encounter with a lovely woman who had got her facts all wrong about Arthur. A talk for The Seventh Sunday after Trinity, 14 July 2024.  Referencing  ⁠ Amos 7.7-15 , Mark 6.14-29 , and a story from Ian Clayton, Anne Scargill, Betty Cook,  Anne & Betty: United By The Struggle. Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/johndavies-talks⁠⁠...

Throughout scripture, God speaks directly to exiled and oppressed peoples in the words which Bob Marley used in his freedom anthem, ‘ Get up, stand up , Stand up for your right; Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.’ A talk for The Sixth Sunday after Trinity, 7 July 2024.  Referencing  Ezekiel 2.1-5 , Mark 6.1-13. Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/johndavies-t...

That the “last will be first” and the “least will be greatest” are not clumsy statements of class war. They are affirmations of God’s truth that the healing of the whole body politic, the healing of us all, will come when society attends first to the needs of the poorest. Lessons in equity from Mark's gospel and Taylor Swift. A talk for The Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 30 June 2024.  Referencin...

Temple, or Church: “Anger is the force that protects that which is loved.” If our anger with it expresses our deeper love for the institution, then it might just help to save it. A talk for The Third Sunday of Lent, 3 March 2024.  Referencing  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Exodus 20.1-17 , John 2.13-22 .  Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/johndavies-talks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

"We have beautiful crosses on our churches, in our lapels and around our necks," preached the late evangelist Billy Graham. "And yet the Bible says the cross is a stumbling block, an offence, a scandal among men, a base and despised thing.” Graham was a fine example of how to ‘take up one’s cross and follow Jesus’. A talk for The Second Sunday of Lent, 25 February 2024.  Referencing...

The ‘bogus baptism’ debate is a testing feature of the volatile world in which we live. Taking inspiration from the slaves and their Spiritual songs, can we follow Jesus out from the wilderness of this world into the dawning of a whole new age? A talk for The First Sunday of Lent, 18 February 2024.  Referencing  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ Genesis 9.8-17 ,  Mark 1.9-15. Find the text to this and all my talks at ⁠⁠⁠...

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

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...

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 - 6...

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 o...

"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...

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 h...

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-...

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 , Ma...

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 ab...

"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 t...

Moses died by the kiss of God.  Where our bible tells us that ‘Moses died … at the Lord’s command’, Hebrew scholars teach that the literal translation is that ‘Moses died by the mouth of the Lord ’.  His last breath was drawn while being gently kissed by a loving God. It was a peaceful transition from life to death. Moses’ final moments were peaceful because he stopped fighting God’s judgement. He...

We are reading Exodus at a time of elevated crisis in the Middle East; and in a conflict driven by religious ideologies of different kinds - Zionism and Islamism clashing - all these themes of Exodus are right there on the surface: Can the scared and suffering ones make it over the border? Which of the warring factions will win control of the land? And where is God to be found in this struggle?  I...

Is this your God, O Israel: the enraged king, violent and vengeful towards those who disobey him, who will burn down whole cities in his anger;  or is it the one  who is expelled with the outcasts, and who bears the punishment of the world with grace? Is this your God, O Israel: the golden idol you create, expecting it to make you whole, who you trust to remove your suffering, who you think will g...