Author: chrisbryan

David and Bathsheba: a story for our time

Proper 12 B: 2 Samuel 11.1-15. One reason I love the Scriptures is that they never duck away from the fact that there’s real evil in the world, including in those whom we think of as the best and the brightest. And that thought brings me...

22 July, 2021

AMDG: Sermon at the Ordination to the Diaconate of Pamela Morgan, in Little Rock, Arkansas: 22nd February 2001.

Let me begin by saying how honoured I am to be with you on this wonderful occasion, and how grateful I am to Pamela for inviting me to share with you all as she commits herself to this new stage in her life and ministry. Since...

22 February, 2021

Peter has a Bad Moment: a Note for the Parishes in Central Exeter

Proper 17A. For the Gospel: Matthew 16.21-28 This morning’s gospel belongs very closely with the gospel story we heard last week. Last week, you may remember, we heard Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter’s response—what we sometimes call his “confession”: “You...

28 August, 2020

Jesus and the Canaanite Woman: a Note for the Parishes in Central Exeter

Proper 15, Year A.  For the Gospel: Matthew 15.22-28 You sometimes hear people who think that they are being marvellously orthodox saying things like, “If Jesus was God, he must have known everything.” Actually, when they say things like that they aren’t being orthodox at all. They’re...

13 August, 2020

Easter 2020: a note for the parishes of Central Exeter

I’ve been a priest now for nearly sixty years, and during the whole of that time this is the strangest Easter I’ve known. I’m told it’s the church’s job to give hope, and no doubt it is. But hope for what? For a return to...

11 April, 2020

The Word became flesh: text of a sermon preached at St Stephen’s, Exeter on Christmas Day, 2019

Detail from Madonna and Child: Bernadino Luini For the past few years, whenever I’ve preached at Christmas it’s generally been at Midnight Mass. That means, of course, that I’ve preached on St Luke’s story of Our Lord’s birth: Mary and Joseph coming to Bethlehem, no room...

27 December, 2019

Judgement: text of a sermon preached in St. Olave’s Church, Exeter on the Second Sunday of Advent, 2019.

Advent 2A: OT Isaiah 11.1-10; Ps. 72.1-7, 18, 19; NT Romans 15.4-13; Gospel Matt. 3.1-12 I still remember the morning of my ordination to the diaconate. Thirty of us had been in silent retreat over the weekend. Now we were released from silence. The bishop had...

11 December, 2019

The Pharisee and the Publican. Notes for a sermon preached at St Olave’s Church, Exeter, on the Last Sunday after Trinity

For the Psalm: 84.1-7; the Gospel: Luke 18.9-14 The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican! It’s a simple tale, isn’t it? I’ve heard of a priest one Sunday who had to preach on it. He was in good form and told the story well, with just such touches...

28 October, 2019

The Slandered Steward. A sermon for St Olave’s, Exeter, on the 14th Sunday after Trinity

For the gospel: Luke 16:1-13 (often known as "the Parable of the Unjust Steward".) How strange the story that Our Lord tells us in our gospel this morning! Consider what happens!  We have a steward (or “manager” as some of the recent translations have it) who is accused...

18 September, 2019

A Dreadful Tale: Text of a Sermon preached at St Stephen’s, Exeter on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2019

Gen 22.1-24; John 13.31-37 . Our first reading this morning—about Abraham and his son Isaac—is surely one of the most dreadful stories ever told. I grant that as a family group Israel’s patriarchs and matriarchs do in any case seem to have been dysfunctional with a...

27 May, 2019