Saint John the Baptist Church - Chipping Barnet - Sermons

On the Second Sunday of Lent, Fr Sam reflects on one of the most beloved verses in Scripture — “For God so loved the world…”, and invites us to see it not as a slogan, but as a revelation of relationship. Drawing on the intimate imagery of the Son resting “at the Father’s breast,” this episode explores how God’s very nature is love, a love so complete that it overflows into creation and into the g...

On the First Sunday of Lent, Fr Sam reframes Lent not as a season of gloom, but as a path to deeper joy. Reflecting on the wilderness temptations of Christ, he explores how Jesus reversed the pattern of Eden, resisting the temptations of appetite, power, and control where humanity had failed. Lent, then, becomes a season of abundance. Through fasting, prayer, and generosity, we are not punishing o...

On the Last Sunday of Epiphany, Fr Sam reflects on the competing pressures that crowd God out of our lives, busyness, noise, and a culture unsure of truth itself. Drawing on the Transfiguration of Christ and St Peter’s insistence that the apostles were “eyewitnesses of his majesty,” this episode calls listeners back to Jesus as the firm foundation of truth in a confusing world. In a time of overlo...

On the Second Sunday of Epiphany, Fr Sam reflects on the difference between seeking explanations about God and receiving revelation from God. Centered on John the Baptist’s declaration, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” this episode explores how God reveals Himself most fully not through ideas, but through the cross. Epiphany, we are reminded, reaches its deepest expre...

On the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, Fr Sam reflects on baptism as a gift, not an achievement. Using the image of baptism as a spiritual birthday, this episode explores how our deepest identity is revealed, not earned in God’s love. Just as Jesus is named “Beloved” at the Jordan before he does anything to prove himself, so too we are claimed, welcomed, and loved before all action or effort. Bapt...

As the new year begins, Fr Sam reflects on Epiphany as a story of insiders and outsiders, and God’s deliberate choice to reveal Himself beyond boundaries. Set against a world marked by fear, conflict, and division, this sermon explores how Jesus was born into political instability, poverty, and displacement, and how the first to worship Him were foreigners and immigrants. Epiphany reveals a kingdo...

On Midnight Mass and Christmas Day, Fr Sam reflects on the power of names and what they reveal about who we are — and who God is. Drawing from St John’s Gospel, he explores Jesus as the Logos : the meaning at the heart of reality who became flesh and lived among us. This episode traces the names of God through Scripture, the God who sees, the God who sustains, and the God who saves revealing a God...

On the Third Sunday of Advent, Fr Sam reflects on the doubt and confusion of John the Baptist as he waits in prison and questions whether Jesus truly is the Messiah. Through Jesus’ response “Blessed is anyone who takes no offence in me” this episode explores how faith can be tested when God’s work doesn’t match our expectations. Rather than bringing judgement and power, Jesus reveals a kingdom mar...

In this powerful Second Sunday of Advent reflection, Fr Sam asks a deeply searching question: Why does the Church exist? As St John the Baptist Church prepares to welcome hundreds of people through its doors for the Barnet Christmas Fair, this sermon reframes community activity not as tradition or visibility but as mission . Drawing on the fierce preaching of John the Baptist and the theology of S...

In this Advent Sunday episode, Fr Sam invites us to rediscover the season not as a gentle lead-up to Christmas, but as a wake-up call. While we may picture the nativity as a comforting scene with children’s costumes and soft candlelight, Sam reminds us that the real story was anything but safe or sentimental. God entered the world through poverty, scandal, political oppression, and refugee displac...

In this deeply honest and pastoral reflection, Fr Sam unpacks one of Jesus’ most challenging teachings, forgiveness without limit. Drawing from Matthew 18, where Peter asks how many times he must forgive, Fr Sam explores what it really means to live out forgiveness “seventy times seven.” Through a powerful personal story of betrayal and hurt from his time as a pastoral assistant, Fr Sam illustrate...

In this moving Remembrance Sunday reflection, Fr Sam challenges how we imagine heaven and the life to come. Too often, he observes, we picture heaven as “earth but a bit better”. A continuation of our current joys without the pain. But, as Fr Sam powerfully reminds us, that vision cannot hold for those who have seen or suffered the worst that humanity can do. For them, heaven must be something ent...

In this reflective episode, Fr Sam explores one of the most profound dimensions of faith — the kind of faith that we can hold for others . Drawing from the Gospel story of friends bringing a paralysed man to Jesus, Fr Sam challenges listeners to see evangelism not as a performance or a pressure, but as an act of love, hope, and quiet courage. He begins with a candid question: “Is there any point i...

In this sermon for the 18th Sunday after Trinity, Fr. Sam Rossiter-Peters invites us to a deeper, more courageous engagement with Scripture. Rather than reading the Bible in black and white, we are called to wrestle with it — to question, to study, and to seek God’s living truth within its complexities. Drawing from passages that challenge our understanding and our times, Fr. Sam reminds us that f...

Cyril Awere shares his story as part of celebrations of Black History Month at St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet.

In this episode, we reflect on what it truly means to be satisfied — not just physically, but spiritually. Drawing from John 6:25–35 and the story of the feeding of the 5,000, Fr Sam explores how Jesus invites us to move from seeking mere provision to encountering the Provider Himself. Using the relatable story of his young daughter learning to communicate her needs, Fr Sam illustrates how, like c...

Whilst Christianity is often thought of as a dualistic religion which says that the spiritual is Godly, and the world of matter evil, in fact God cares a lot about the material world. In this sermon for the 14th Sunday after Trinity, Fr. Sam Rossiter-Peters narrates how Jesus and St Paul simply advise us to orientate our concerns properly, putting God before the world.

In this sermon for the 14th Sunday after Trinity, Fr. Sam Rossiter-Peters reflects on the difference between knowledge and wisdom, drawing from the insights of philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle, and the deeper call of Christian faith. Through the story of Matthew the tax collector, we see how true wisdom begins with recognising our need for God and seeking Christ the Physician, who welcomes...

If our foundations of faith are built in a way that allows for questions, which embraces the challenges of faith, which has room for mystery and the unknown, then when the inevitable period of exploration comes there's a well-worn roadmap to follow. Young people who are taught to question and to think for themselves can use the time of exploration when they're older to establish an adult faith whi...

I realise that I've said to enough of you enough times, this is probably my favourite piece of scripture, that this sentence has lost any kind of meaning. That said, this morning's gospel is my favourite piece of scripture. I love it, because of how tender Jesus is with the disciples. That phrase, children, you have no fish, do you? Always sounds in my head, like a gentle and loving parent, lament...

This idea that in the face of guilt and despair we can look to Jesus for hope is the very heart of the Easter message. We don't usually, or often at least, attribute despair to Satan, but most of us have known that sense of crushing weight, the weight of realising that we've done something wrong. We've felt that moment at some point in our lives, the rising tide when an old mistake comes back and...

How would you go about calculating the value of a human life? How about the value of your life? That's a hard question to answer. We all assume that we're valuable, but are you valuable because of how much money you make or what you contribute to society through your job? Are you valuable because of how many people consider you a friend? Are you valuable because you have a family? The question mak...

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? These words echo through Good Friday. They're raw, violent, terrible. They're the silence which follows a question everyone was too afraid to ask. The heartbreak of a child crying in fear and pain. The wailing of a bereaved parent. Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains the events that occurred in the lead up to the cruci...

Yet when they made beings in the universe who could choose to reciprocate that love, those beings chose not to. We humans chose and continue to choose selfishness more than love, power more than generosity, riches more than contentment, the ability to dominate more than the ability to serve. Of course it would be easy to lay these traits at the doors of people like President Trump but truthfully t...

Yet when they made beings in the universe who could choose to reciprocate that love, those beings chose not to. We humans chose and continue to choose selfishness more than love, power more than generosity, riches more than contentment, the ability to dominate more than the ability to serve. Of course it would be easy to lay these traits at the doors of people like President Trump but truthfully t...