She’s our sister, let’s make her better!
A message to celebrate One World Week
Read: Matthew 22: 34-46
I would like to sing, but I wont’t. The song would be: He’s got the whole wide world in his hands, He’s got the whole world in his hands….
The world is like a new born child that a Father looks at in awesome wonder at the beginning of a great love story. It is a love from the beginning that has no ending!
Dear Friends,
It’s never too late
but earlier is better!
Luke 23: 42-43
I don’t know if you can still do it, but there was a time when, if you didn’t have any money, you could make a reverse charge call to friends and family. They would be asked if they wanted to receive the call so had the option to say, “NO!” That would be like having the door slammed in your face when going to ask a neighbour for some help — and, possibly, the end of a relationship.
Dear Friends,
“Is not this what I choose, to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house…”
Isaiah 58: 7
In 1990 there were 150,000 homeless people in the country and I was among those demanding Government action, but thirty years later the number has more than doubled. The number of homeless people is much worse than the figures tell us though and the solutions more complex than building new houses.
Dear Friends,
Better people
make a better world!
We all know that the health of the world is not good and that we need to do something to make it better. But what?
The world has been exploited, polluted, poisoned and abused so we need to do something to make it better: But how?
Dear Friends,
When you take away the plank from your eye
trust someone else to remove the splinter…
Matthew 7: 1-5
If you have ever removed a speck of something from someone’s eye you will know how careful and gentle you need to be. You will be trusted to hold the eyelid up and look inside to identify where the problem is so that you can gently brush it out with a finger.
Dear Friends,
Don’t pray for a miracle —
Listen to the warnings!
Matthew 21: 33-46
Donald Trump said something that made me realise that we wouldn’t need miracles if we did as we were told! He said the treatment he received for coronavirus was a miracle from God, but would he have needed such mighty intervention if he had listened to all the warnings?
Dear Friends,
Victims or victors:
who will inspire?
John 19: 28-30 and Luke 24: 1-8
However much we might want to we can’t change history, but by telling some of the untold stories we can understand it differently and make a better future!
October is Black History Month and I am always inspired by the stories of people I had never heard of before — the hidden figures who have overcome the adversity of racism to help shape our communities. There were some on television last night and credit to ITV for commissioning several new shows for Black History Month including, Alison Hammond: Back to School which heralded some black people whose achievements have been absent from the school curriculum for too long.
A SUNDAY TO REMEMBER HOMELESS PEOPLE!
Build people for homes;
build houses with hearts
and may love make a home….
Isaiah 58: 6-12 and Matthew 25: 34-40
When the disciples asks Jesus where he is living he says, “come, and you will see!” Have you ever wondered what they saw? I wonder whether they crowded into a tiny bedsitter with a shared bathroom down the corridor or whether he was sofa surfing, as they say, at Martha and Mary’s neat little terrace house. I somehow doubt it was a five bed mansion that he lived in, but it could have been a shop doorway or under a tree.
Don’t let it happen!
Isaiah 5: 1-7 and Matthew 21: 33-46
There is a warning on a packet of cigarettes that if you smoke there is a danger to your health in the future. There are warning signs on gambling adverts that “when the fun stops stop” and if you don’t stop, you don’t know what it will do to your future.There are warning signs “not to drink and drive” and if you do there is no knowing how many lives might be ruined in the future.
Services are now being held in Church on a Sunday morning at 10-30 am but numbers are limited due to the need for social distancing so please check in advance if you would like to attend.
October 4th 1030 am
Revd. Richard Becher – the Minister of Broadway United Reformed Church