Belhelvie Church - Sermons

‘When was it that we first forgot that questions help us grow?' That's a line from one of the hymns we sang this morning as we remembered the only story we have of Jesus' life as a young man. Aged 12, having been to the Passover feast for possibly the first time, he stayed behind in Jerusalem - unbeknown to his parents – so he could hang around the Temple and have discussions with the scholars and priests there. Our question to the 12 year old Jesus this morning is ‘Why? What made you want to stay so badly that you forgot (or overlooked!) how worried your parents would be when they realised you were missing on the journey home?' (Clue. It's something about being in a community where genuine questioners and genuine questions are made welcome).

New year, new beginnings. What stars are you following as we move into 2023? Some thoughts on why the Wise Men were wise in our Epiphany Sunday morning service.

From the cradle to the grave, change is an unavoidable facet of life. How do we deal with it? How do we harness it for growth? Where is God in the middle of it? These are some of the themes we'll be looking at this morning in our three cheeseboard stories.

Happy Christmas! A wee reflection on why we do Christmas Trees at Christmas, and a story about three particular trees long ago and how their dreams were fulfilled, but not in the way they might have expected.

We had a great time this morning reworking the '12 Days of Christmas' song to tell the Nativity Story and remind us why Jesus came to be with us all those years ago. You can join in with the fun by following the link below.

Christmas? It's really for the children. Or is it? When you actually look at the Christmas story there are far more adults involved than children and if we focus on the baby who was born without remembering the man he became, we rob the incarnation of most of its meaning. This child who was born is the very same one they sent to the cross for challenging the powers of his day by bringing the message of God's inclusive, radically forgiving love. That's why we always celebrate communion during Advent. To help us remember that we can't separate Christmas from Easter or the child in the manger from the man on the cross.

Our annual service of lessons and carols with the Bon Accord Silver Band leading our worship.

If the gospel is going to make any sense, it has to make sense in our real lives in all their complexity and contingency. That's why I'm arguing this morning that Matthew's account of the nativity is especially helpful. Luke gives us the Christmas bling (!) – the shine and the glory; Matthew reminds us that the light comes in the darkness of confusion, trouble and sadness – in other words, in the real world. Today's sermon is a word for everyone for whom the ‘ideal' of Christmas feels pretty far from their lived experience. Don't lose hope. The light has come.

Today, the last day of the church year, is known as ‘Christ the King Sunday'. Today we used the story of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe to remind us what kind of King was born all those years ago in Bethlehem as we prepare for his coming.

In today's Remembrance Service we reflected on the generational links that tie us to the story of last century's great wars, and in the wake of Queen Elizabeth's passing we remembered the way she and her family shared in the sufferings of their people during World War 2. By staying in London when it would have been safer to leave; encouraging people with their presence and their broadcasts; getting alongside folk and being real with them and rejoicing with them when the fighting had finished, the Royal Family identified with the struggles that the rest of the nation was going through. In the same way, in becoming human in Jesus, God not only identified with his human family, but went even further by paying the ultimate price to secure their future.

Ancient wisdom, not to mention human experience, tells us that body and soul are intimately connected. We're creatures of sense and we can only experience our world, and indeed God himself, through our senses and our minds. Almost every spiritual practice you can think of begins with the body. So today we're giving thanks for the ways in which God makes himself known to us through our physicality and remembering that he didn't consider it beneath himself to join the community of those who wear skin when he came among us in Christ. We also celebrated the baptism of Lily and Ben East this morning. Congratulations and well done!

Jesus wants us to be selfish, greedy people who only look out for themselves Read today's story – the parable of the shrewd manager – and you could be forgiven for thinking that's what it's saying. Lots of commentators reckon this is one of the hardest parables to get to the heart of, but at its core it's saying “if the crooks of this world know how to use resources shrewdly for their own gain, how much more should people of faith use what they have wisely, for better ends?” In a spell when discussion about tax cuts and tax rises is ubiquitous, maybe it's not a bad time to be thinking about the good we can do when we're open handed and learn to share more of what we've been blessed with.

It's just two little words, but their presence can make a big difference, and their absence speaks louder than we might sometimes like it to. “Thank you.” Today we're reflecting on the story of the healing of ten lepers, reflecting on why it was that only one of them came back to thank Jesus, and thinking about how ready we are to offer our thanks to one another, and to our creator.

Today's is a weird parable. A farmer has his harvest plans sabotaged by an enemy who sneaks in and sows weeds among his wheat when no-one's looking. Instead of wading in and trying to haul out the weeds then and there, the farmer chooses to wait ‘til they're fully grown before finally sorting things out. This little story is flagging up some big truths. The world's not as we'd like it to be. It's beautiful and broken at one and the same time. The weeds and the wheat spring up in the same places and the hard truth is, that includes our own hearts and minds. In his patience, God holds off disrupting the good crop to give it the best possible chance of growing; but his promise is that there will come a time when all that mars our growth and fruitfulness will finally be dealt with once and for all. This is our ultimate hope for ourselves and our world – that one day all that's wrong in it will finally be weeded out, leaving only the good. In the meantime his Spirit give us the help to do a bit of weeding in the only bit of creation we really get to tend, which is our own lives.

Just past Newburgh, over the Ythan and a couple of miles down through the dunes, lies Forvie Kirk – a 12th century church that, along with the whole of the village, was buried by sand in a storm in the middle ages. Forvie's old lichen-crusted stones spoke to me the day I first went to see them, more than 15 years ago. They had a few things to say about faithfulness; and that's what we found ourselves thinking about in this morning's service.

In this Sunday's all age service we're reflecting on Her Late Majesty's reign, hearing some moving and funny stories about her life, but also thinking about what the foundation of that exceptional life was.

Today, and next Sunday, we're going to be reflecting on the Queen's life together as we worship. This morning, the first half of the service will be given over to remembrance, and we'll have some of Her late Majesty's favourite hymns as well as videos and prayers to help us reflect on her reign and the foundation of faith it was built upon.

It's often said that life's a journey, not a destination, and what's true of life is equally true of the life of faith. Discipleship isn't a destination, it's a road we choose to travel, whatever stage of the journey we're on – whether we're ‘just looking', beginning to scope out what all of this means for us, or taking steps to grow our faith and work out how we can support the life of a congregation and not just receive from it. Today, Jesus challenges his hearers not to be hangers on but to commit to the path of discipleship which asks for commitment, intention and no little self-sacrifice. It's a hard word but a necessary one, and the vitality of any local congregation depends on its members responding to it. Will you? Today was a communion service, so if you want to join in please have bread and wine or equivalents ready for the end of the service. https://youtu.be/lIC16TQxjrU

1200 miles over two and a half months on foot. That's what our friend John Gibson, supported by his wife Isobel and other family and friends, has accomplished – walking from Land's End to John o' Groats to raise awareness of issues around suicide, after his son Cameron took his own life in October of 2019. Last Saturday we joined John, and many others whose lives have been touched by suicide, for the Black Isle stretch of his journey. Today's sermon reflects on that experience and what we can learn from how God drew near to Elijah at the very lowest point of his life. Whatever the circumstances, we have it in us to help others in inner pain with the simple gift of our presence and our listening. https://youtu.be/j70SuwjPQTM

It isn't only bodies that can be crippled. Hearts, souls and minds can be crippled too. Crippled by stress, loneliness, doubt, loss, sadness, fear…. The list goes on. In today's gospel reading Jesus heals a woman who had a crippled back, but the intriguing thing is that he proclaims her healed before there's any sign that it had actually happened. It's like he knew what was going to happen to this woman (healing), and was proclaiming as a reality it in the present. What if that little individual story actually represents the big story of the human race? What if forgiveness, healing and fullness of life is where we're headed, but we can begin to live into the reality of those things now, through faith? What if everything that holds us back was dealt with at the cross, and all we need to do is claim that wholeness and live in the light of what Christ has already done for us? Deep waters for an all age service, but that's where we went swimming today!

A cat kept wandering into the temple as the guru taught his disciples, so he had it tied up so as to avoid distracting everyone. Over time, people forgot the origins of this practice and by the time a century had passed, learned scholars were writing essays on the religious and theological significance of having a cat tethered to a pillar during worship. Today we're looking at an argument Jesus had with the religious leaders over handwashing rituals and using that story to think about our traditions in the church. We're reflecting on the benefits of our traditions – the way they ground us and give us a sense of belonging, but we're also highlighting two pitfalls: making them too important (and inhibiting change) or getting too familiar with them (and robbing them of their significance).

She was powerless. He was powerful and held her fate in his hands, but didn't care one thing about her situation. There was nothing in it for him. The only thing she had going for her was her persistence. So she kept getting in his face – at his work, on the golf course, even at his home. Day after day after day, she finally wore him down to the point where he cracked and promised to give her what she wanted – the justice she deserved. God isn't like that, says Jesus in today's parable. He doesn't need his arm twisted to do what's right; and though our prayers might not always be answered at the time or in the way we hoped for, we can always trust in God's character. We can know for sure that he cares about what's right and helping those who have right on their side. https://youtu.be/yDcZRRH7p4U

Two sisters welcome an important guest and his entourage into their home. One of them thinks the most important thing she can do is sit with him and hear what he's got to say. The other feels caught up in the business providing hospitality and is soon feeling hassled and harassed in the kitchen. ‘It's not fair' she complains to her guest and her sister – and she was probably right! - but the answer she got back wasn't at all what she was expecting. This is the story of Mary and Martha as we find it in Luke's gospel and it's got a lot to say to us today about how we make our choices and how we prioritise the important things in the midst of all the urgent things that we feel need done. Hope you can join us.

We know the story of the Good Samaritan and what it teaches, but today we're going a little deeper and seeing the story in a new way. This isn't just a story about the need for people to get on and help even those who are their enemies; it's a story that teaches the amazing truth that God, in Christ, has reached out to the whole human family to bring our ultimate healing and restoration.

A desperate father whose young daughter is dying on the cusp of womanhood. A chronically ill woman whose life has been overshadowed by her condition. Jesus brings healing into both situations in this morning's reading, but how do we read and understand these stories in the light of our own experiences with illness and death? Does God not heal today, or does our understanding of what makes for healing need to grow? A word that touches all our lives from the gospel this morning.

She was childless. And in the culture of her day, a childless wife was no wife at all. Hannah was her name and she was in serious danger of letting her infertility have the last word on her identity. Today we're thinking about the tendency we all know to let our hardest, most personal struggles overtake us and become the place we live out of. Grief, loss, illness, sadness. All of us have difficult times and experiences, but it's never a good idea to pitch our tents there and make them our home. We are more than our present experience, no matter how hard it may be. We are beloved children of God, whatever it is that we happen to be going through, and that realisation helps shed some eternal light on our real, but temporal problems.

Today at Father's Day All Age worship we spent some time thinking about what makes for a good dad and realised just how many of those things apply to God as well. It's no accident that when Jesus teaches us about God, his main metaphor is that of a good Father. And in terms of his relationship with us, God's Fatherhood comes first and modifies everything else: “He creates as a loving Father, he exercises his power as a loving Father, he oversees and manages things as a loving Father. He bears with us, as a loving Father; he guides and warns and punishes when he has to, as a loving Father; and he's committed to us from beginning to end, as a loving Father.” So as well as remembering our human dads, we remembered our heavenly one too and gave thanks that we know we're part of his family. This was also our Sunday School prizegiving service, and a big thanks to all the volunteers who help with Sunday School and Kirk Klub during the year. https://youtu.be/0lItSmVUU3w

This morning was our annual memorial service where we remember the folk who've passed on within our church community over the past year. As part of that service we light candles in their memory and we remember the scripture promise that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overcome it. https://youtu.be/0JGoskkIPEM

This morning we had our annual elders' service, led by Francois, Mark and Laura, and the group looked at three themes that coalesced on this particular Sunday – Pentecost, Jubilee and our Presbytery Mission Plan discussions. Thanks to everyone who took part, and to the Welcome team and the bakers for a very special Jubilee spread afterwards. https://youtu.be/qtM27-GPzks

What are you wrestling with at the minute? Relationships; jobs; getting back to normal after the pandemic; money worries; inner demons; an unknown future? Today's story from the Old Testament is about a man who finds himself wrestling with God, as he faces up to the harsh reality of what he's done and who he's become. The struggle is a real one, and it almost breaks him, but he ends up with a new name and a better path to follow in life. Tune in today so see how ‘Jacob', the grasper, becomes ‘Israel', the one who grapples with God, and what this ancient story has to say to you and me in the middle of our struggles.

Today we're thinking about the fact that we are remembered by God, but also that we have to work at remembering God in the midst of our busy lives. We talk a little about some of the ways that we do that, and we also take leave of the Mackenzie family who are moving away to Australia to be with family after a long involvement with our congregation. https://youtu.be/LkzofVoyg04

What makes for a hero? Muscles? Smarts? Superpowers? Today I'm suggesting that the real heart of heroism is, in fact, the heart! When we see selflessness, courage and purpose in someone, that's what true heroism is about, regardless of who they are or what they happen to look like. The anointing of David illustrates that point well. He was the smallest and youngest of his brothers, yet David was the one Samuel was told to anoint as King. Remember, God said, people look at the outside, but I look at the heart. This morning we thought about that with help from the Marvel Comics Universe, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings; from Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelensky. From Janet Zirugo, a 70 year old grandmother from Zimbabwe looking after the orphaned children in her extended family, and of course from Jesus – who is the exemplar of a hero who looked nothing like a hero in his most heroic moment – bleeding out from a hundred wounds on a cross that he chose to bear for us. Selflessness, courage and purpose. That's what makes someone a hero.

This Sunday, John the gospel writer chooses to focus on Peter in the last chapter of his telling of Jesus' story. Peter got at least as much wrong as he got right in following Jesus. He was the kind of guy who'd act first and think later. Who'd open his mouth to speak and end up putting his foot in it. Nobody's kind of role model. And yet, John ends his gospel spelling out what resurrection life – life lived with the risen Christ – looks like, using Peter as his example. Together life, forgiven life, called life. For all his faults, that's what we see in Peter's story. And if there's hope for him, there's hope for all of us.

The post-resurrection encounters with Jesus often have this strange feature that he's not recognised straight away, even by folk who knew him well. Cynics draw any number of conclusions from that. Today, I'm offering some more nuanced reasons – some practical and some spiritual - why this might have been the case, but reminding us that the key thing is that in every case, Jesus draws alongside his friends. And that doesn't change. We ended the time with a few minutes of contemplative music and prayer to help us focus on the Christ who is with us now, in the midst of whatever we're going through in life. Meditative music from Wilderthorn - please check out his Youtube Channel for some more superb meditative creations. https://youtu.be/sJXVXfe_or8

This morning in our all-age service we ranged from the joys of ‘Wordle' all the way back to 6th century depictions of the resurrection from the early church! And those ancient images helped us see the story in a new way. Easter Sunday isn't just an individual story about Jesus being resurrected. It's a corporate story about humanity being raised *in him*. And if that's true, it means that death isn't the end for any of us, despite how it seems. Christ is Risen! And we are raised in him. Happy Easter!

A picture tells a thousand words, someone once said. Today we're looking at a very familiar story, the story of the Prodigal Son, but looking at it in a different way: seeing where our imaginations take us as we try to visualise the story for ourselves. What might the images we conjure tell us about the story, about ourselves and about God? This way of approaching Scripture is as old as the hills. It's called ‘imaginative contemplation' and it breathes new life into passages we know so well that they've almost stopped speaking to us. https://youtu.be/dkCVOtpUTJ4

The story of David and Goliath feels all too real these days, given what's happening in Ukraine. That situation was very much in mind today as we met for all-age worship, but so too were the giants that many of us are facing in our everyday lives – weariness, fear, apathy and sadness as this pandemic and the fallout from it drags on. Like David, we need a handful of smooth stones to help take down these enemies. Tune in to find out what they are.

The courage of those who know the danger and yet stay put, refusing to be bullied…. The bullishness of those whose power makes them think they're invincible and can do whatever they want… The desire God has to see his human family reconciled to one another and to Him….. The impossibility of reconciliation while we're unwilling to recognise the humanity of the other – that they, like us, are made in the image of God. Didn't expect to find all of this in Luke 13:31-35, but a timely passage for the days we're living through.

Lent. When less is more; When the wilderness proves fruitful; When faith gets tested and that testing builds character. 40 days in your year to take stock, rethink, listen, deepen, pray. Lent. There's more to it than giving up Crunchies….. https://youtu.be/ZDppF0U-SaQ

Sometimes in life we need a bit of help to see better. Magnifying glasses and microscopes help us see things more closely. Binoculars and telescopes help us see things that are far away. All of them help us see well beyond our natural range. Today, in Luke 6, Jesus says that we must learn to love our enemies, and that's going to involve seeing them differently – seeing them through the lens of God's love. That's a big ask, and we're going to need help to do it because it's well beyond what we can manage naturally! These are the waters we're paddling in this morning in our All Age worship.

Money, human needs and desires, justice and compassion, being your own person and going against the flow. All of these are addressed in what Jesus says to us in today's reading from an ancient book which, according to some, has absolutely nothing to say to modern people like us… Luke 6 – the sermon on the plain – is where we're sitting today.

He was a big man; hands like shovels. Gruff outside, but a good heart inside. Practical. Took things at face value. Trusted his senses. Nobody's fool. Kept his religion, but kept it at arm's length, maybe. Did the necessary. And then one day this guy commandeered his fishing boat and sent him out to the deep waters for the most life-changing catch he was ever going to have. Peter's story is there to inform ours. Change happens when we get close to Jesus. When we move from being mere observers –watching from the shoreline - to participants and co-workers in the story he's telling.

I once heard the Irish poet and writer John O'Donohue say that, for each of us, there are probably about six or seven thoughts in our minds that – to a large extent – have determined how our lives play out. Just six or seven thoughts, he says, and they entirely shape your life. We're in similar territory in today's sermon – thinking about the power that words have over us, for good or for ill, and reminding ourselves that God's prior word to us in Jesus is the one that should order all others. As we make room to listen for what he speaks into our lives, all the other voices find their place, or are shushed to silence, before the truth he brings us.

Today we read the well-known story of the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. But how did Jesus feel at a wedding – seeing this young couple commit to one another for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health? Was there a hint of sadness knowing that he'd never know that kind of love? I don't think so because the truth is – Jesus has a bride and the New Testament tells us exactly who she is. Tune in for the big reveal and the trumpet fanfare…… https://youtu.be/pktbWEvnlDY

This Sunday, Harry Burns from ‘When Harry Met Sally' gives us a way in to talking about why Jesus got baptised and what baptism means for us: **SPOILER !!** At the end of the movie Harry races through the streets of New York to catch up with Sally, the woman who's been his best friend for years and who he finally realises he loves. He bursts into the New Year's party she's attending and confronts her on the dance floor with a declaration of his love that begins a whole new phase in their life together. And – as he tells Sally - it's not because he's sad, and it's not because he's lonely and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. It's because “when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!” For two millennia, baptism has been that beginning for Christians. Not just a Kodak moment in the church, but the beginning of a Way to live from the cradle to the grave. A way that leads to life, as we become who we are in Jesus through cultivating the good and dying to the bad in our lives. If you're baptised, what does your baptism mean to you? How are you living it out? https://youtu.be/qBzfe_hQspo

Welcome to the Cheeseboard! You know the little bites at the end of a big meal that fill out the corners? That's what this service is – a few wee tasty stories to keep you thinking as we enter a New Year together. There's a little extra bit after the benediction this week, so please stay tuned for that too. Every Blessing for 2022! Paul

This morning in our Bon Accord service we're thinking about touch. One of the hardest things about the pandemic has been not being able to hug or hold the ones we love as we normally would. Touch is such an important way of expressing love, and we see that all throughout the Christmas story. Today we're remembering that one of the reasons God became a human being in Christ is so he could draw close and genuinely touch people with his words, his hands, his kindness and his healing. That's what Christmas is all about – God drawing close in ways we can understand.

Today we've entered the season of Advent, leading up to Christmas. Some will be remembering the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem; some might even remember that the man Jesus promised to return again at the close of the ages to restore all things – the so called ‘second coming'. But what about the interim time? What about now? Does Jesus just bookend history (and our lives) or does her pervade it? This morning we're remembering that Advent is as much about the present as it is the past or the future. We can know God with us now, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. https://youtu.be/qU6Vkhwwu14

Ever been on the receiving end of a ‘conversation' that was one-way traffic? Did you leave feeling like you'd were nothing more than a conveniently receptive pair of ears? Have you ever wondered how God feels being on the end of all our prayers? All our talk? What would prayer be like if we spent more time listening and less talking? And how do you even begin to listen for God anyway? Some practical help with all of this in this morning's service from Belhelvie.

Poppies are everywhere just now as we commemorate Remembrance. But do you know why they became the symbol for our national mourning? And did you know that growing vegetables and even flowers in gardens was a part of life in the trenches? And did you know that by ‘magic' you can turn a flower into a mobility scooter? One or two surprises in this morning's annual Remembrance Service….. https://youtu.be/tbK6UFqu6S4

Today, in response to COP26, we're reflecting on the climate crisis in the light of our faith.