Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 12 May 2024. ‘Humanity is rife in its selection of personal resentments, all demanding redress and restitution. But none of this remotely sets aside the glory and wonder of Jesus Christ, risen and ascended.’
Easter 5: Rejoice in new harmonies
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 5 May 2024. ‘How can an ear rejoice in new harmonies when still deafened by old discords, or an eye see colours when still having to look through a darkened lens, bespattered by mud?’
Easter 4: Grounded in where we belong
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 28 April 2024. ‘Jesus is not going away, even when things feel dark and foreboding. He is as much with us in those times of trial and temptation as in times of light and peace and joy.’
Easter 3: The Peace of God
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 21 April 2024. ‘God is always with us. Like a shepherd – calling us, healing us, tending us, leading us into new pastures, with fresh food and water and shelter.’
Easter 2: Jesus is doing the same today, for each of us
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 14 April 2024. ‘He meets us in the scriptures, and in the breaking of bread, as we gather together before Him and as we share in that communion in which we relive with Him that atonement He has made for us.’
Easter 1: A story to tell
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 7 April 2024. ‘Here is love – and it starts with God and His total self-giving.’
Easter Sunday: Christ is risen!
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 31 March 2024. ‘That is why we gather together, why we worship and find that in the presence of God we also have an identity and a purpose that can never be matched by the wealth, the opulence or even the scientific knowledge of the world.’
Maundy Thursday: A foundation for their lives together in prayer and worship
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Maundy Thursday, 28 March 2024. ”Do this in Remembrance of Me’ would become a command to love one another, as they allowed His love to flow through them.’
Lent 5 / Passion Sunday: God’s cleansing agent
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 17 March 2024. ‘Jesus would carry the load than none could carry for themselves. He would be the atonement that none even dare imagine, and which no amount of self-appointed good works would ever satisfy.’
Lent 4 / Mothering Sunday: The work of the Holy Spirit
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 10 March 2024. ‘We find ourselves by looking to Him and as He leads us into those dimensions of His love which we never even imagined.’
Lent 3: The power of God over death
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 3 March 2024. ‘Is self the measure of all that we do and are? Is it humanity in its many forms of community and its political doctrines, each locality choosing its own model? Or might it be God?’
Lent 2: Walk before Me faithfully and be blameless
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 25 February 2024. ‘Jesus may have been following Abraham, but He was also leading the rest of humanity in general and the church in particular.’
Lent 1: Repent and believe
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 18 February 2024. ‘We can make a better sense of the things that hold us back – especially the things that do not have to.’
Quinquagesima / Epiphany 9: No alternative and no evasion
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 11 February 2024. ‘The Holy Spirit is still promised to us, to support us in need and to strengthen us in weakness. To bring us to the fulness of Jesus Christ and to support us as we seek to abide in Him.’
Epiphany 4 / Sexagesima: It is the Lord who desires to lead us
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 4 February 2024. ‘His love and His direction are there to bless us and to enable us to share them with others. This is the focus of our lives as Christians – and if we let Him lead us in it then He surely will.’
Epiphany 3 / Septuagesima: Time is moving on …
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 28 January 2024. ‘It is when people are more uncertain that perhaps the gospel message can offer a different set of assurances. The peace of God can still live in us when others want to threaten.’
Epiphany 2: Called into realms of holiness
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 21 January 2024. ‘Are there areas of failure, guilt, regret, inadequacy, shame or anguish? Then we may lay them before the Lord, for we do not have to be defined by them.’
Baptism of Christ: the Spirit of the Lord
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 14 January 2024. ‘What we need is the power of Jesus Christ in our lives – to endow us with His personal presence and authority.’
Epiphany: Mary and Jesus
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 7 January 2024. ‘This is a confident Mary, proud of her first-born, contented in her home. There is nothing defensive here, no cowering in fear.’
Christmas 1: More than a number
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 31 December 2023. ‘To know His Name in the worship and liturgies of the church is not enough. We also need to know Him for ourselves, and to let Him be named within us just as we also may be named within Him.’
Christmas Day: What defines us
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 25 December 2023. ‘What started life as a helpless baby became risen, glorious, triumphant over the very powers of sin and death. We also need to move on from our own mangers…’
Advent 4: A revealing of things long hidden
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 24 December 2023. ‘May God be glorified in every generation of the church, and therefore may the Body of Christ also be wholly committed above all else to the same gospel message and truths.’
Advent 3: Just what we are looking forward to?
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 17 December 2023. ‘… And so Paul looks for the workings of the Holy Spirit: that the people may be filled with His grace and that they may live in His life.’
Advent 2: God has not turned aside
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 10 December 2023. ‘The Lord is still at hand, and He comes: either when we are least expecting it, or in the fulfilment of our expectations, as we look to Him day by day. For the promises of the Lord are not given cheaply or as afterthoughts. They are given so that we may trust in them.’
Advent 1: The tension in the strings of the orchestra’s instruments
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 3 December 2023. ‘So also are the people of the Lord as an orchestra: living in and with a tension – but one in which Jesus Himself is the One who composes, conducts and leads.’
Christ the King: The One who has given his all for the Church
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 26 November 2023. ‘The theme of the intimacy of Jesus with His obedient disciples runs through the New Testament like a vein of gold in rock.’
Trinity 23: Nobody is unimportant
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 19 November 2023. ‘We may not feel that we have much to offer – but as we offer ourselves then we will find that the self that we do offer has already been blessed and enriched.’
Remembrance Sunday: The different kinds of remembering
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 12 November 2023. ‘As we come together this Remembrance Sunday, we are both remembering those who died in the great wars of the 20th century and in lesser wars since then and ongoing today. But we are also taking care of what we remember and how we remember it …’
All Saints: Deeply and directly personal
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 5 November 2023. ‘We are given some very practical and personal applications of what it means to serve the Lord … It goes to the heart of our motivations and how we confront them.’
Trinity 19: The rejects of polite society
Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 15 October 2023. ‘These were Christians of simple and practical faith. They might have been looked down upon by the well-placed but in the sight of Paul they were God’s wonderful people. Just stay like that…’
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