Minister’s Message – May 1, 2022

Today’s three readings show us a number of people who encounter or see Jesus in radically different ways. First we have seven disciples, who’ve been fishing all night without success, unexpectedly noticing Jesus on the lake shore. He shouts to them because he can see a shoal of fish which, in the dawn light, is invisible to the fishermen. On his instructions they put out their nets one final time and haul in a bumper catch. They beach their boat and Jesus cooks breakfast. Even though this is one of Jesus’ somewhat mysterious resurrection appearances, the whole scene seems commonplace, even domestic.

Minister’s Message – April 24, 2022

The late lamented “Room 101” was a comedy programme on which people could talk about the things that made them angry. Well, I don’t know about you, but over the last couple of years I’ve definitely become more and more angry about more and more things. Some of those things are trivial and make me sound obnoxiously self-righteous: I get annoyed by people who get on the bus and only then start rummaging around for their purse and credit card; I get angry (though I never say anything) with people who swim too fast in the slow lane of the pool; and I get really cross every time I see the long line of cars – all with their engines running – queueing at the McDonald’s Drive Thru.

Minister’s Message – Good Friday, April 15, 2022

The people who run the TV networks don’t want us to be adversely affected or upset by their programmes. So they quite often give us warnings to make sure that this doesn’t happen – in fact they may be required to do so by the television regulator. The warning we hear most often comes on the news, and is of course designed to protect people with epilepsy: “This report contains flashing images”. But there are many others: a murder mystery may be preceded by the warning that “it contains scenes of violence from the start”, a drama may come with the comment that it “contains strong language”, we can be told that characters in a historical documentary display “historic attitudes which some viewers may find offensive”. My favourite advisory though is the one that’s given before Channel 5 programmes about a hospital Accident and Emergency Department: “contains scenes of trauma and surgery”. To be honest, I’d feel a bit short-changed if it didn’t!

Minister’s Message – April 10, 2022

You probably all know the story of Jones the Welsh spy. At the height of the Cold War a Russian secret agent is sent (I can’t think why) to a village in the Rhondda with instructions to make contact with a fellow-traveller called Mr Jones. The Russian has never met Mr Jones, he hasn’t been told his first name, and has no idea what he looks like. All he has is a coded message: “The tulips are blooming well today”.

Minister’s Message – April 3, 2022

Shumukh is the world’s most expensive perfume. It’s made from “a stunning combination of ingredients” including Indian agarwood, sandalwood, musk, Turkish rose and others that haven’t been made public. The packaging features a leather display case nearly 2 metres high, while the bottle itself – all three litres of it! – is decorated with symbols of the United Arab Emirates, who commissioned it. So it has three gold Arab horses and three silver clamshells on its base, each (naturally) containing a real pearl. Elsewhere there are three roses in pink gold and diamond dust, and a mini globe with gold continents; while three marble pillars support a golden dome topped with a diamond-studded gold falcon. Altogether the bottle is studded with 3,571 jewels: diamonds, gold, silver, pearls and topazes. I have to say that you can’t buy Shumukh at your local Boots or even on London’s Bond Street: there’s only one bottle in existence and it’s valued at well over a million pounds – which I think is pretty good value for what you get. I wonder if they throw in free gift-wrapping and delivery?

Minister’s Message – March 20, 2022

“Early one autumn evening the cheap-jack arrived with his cartload of crockery and tinware, and set out his stock on the grass by the roadside before a back-cloth painted with icebergs and penguins and polar bears. Soon he had his naphtha lamps flaring and was clashing his basins together like bells and calling: “Come buy! Come buy!”

Minister’s Message – March 13, 2022

Chronic fear is bad for our health. It weakens our immune system and can cause damage to our heart, problems with our digestion, decreased fertility, accelerated ageing and even premature death. It can damage parts of our brains, impair the formation of long-term memories, play havoc with our emotion, impact our thinking and decision-making and leave us feeling so anxious that we don’t even want to leave our house. This kind of fear is like a cloud hovering over our lives; either one lying so low overhead that it threatens to plunge us into darkness, or one that is lurking on the horizon, convincing us that today’s sunshine will soon be replaced by dreary drizzle or rain.

Minister’s Message – March 6, 2022

“Exile” (Lamentations 1:1-7).

Oh Sutherland is a bonnie land,
Beyond the Moray Firth.
And Ross-shire smiles at the Western Isles,
The land of Gaeldom’s birth.
From Scrabster Bay to Mingulay,
The mighty mountains weep;
For each sad glen has been cleared of men
To make way for the great white sheep …
From every glen the silent men
Have a prayer upon their lips;
As they crouch by the sea in poverty
And wait for the white-sailed ships.
The Atlantic roar on the rocky shore
Will lull the bairns to sleep.
No more they’ll stand on their father’s land –
It has gone for the great white sheep.

Minister’s Message – February 27, 2022

We’ve all been horrified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I didn’t think it would actually happen – but I was wrong. I thought that Russia would gather its forces at the border, carry out its military exercises, and generally show Ukraine that it would be very foolish for them to look towards the West, the European Union and Nato. Would that have been a show of strength, and bully-boy tactics? Yes. But a full-scale invasion on the scale we’ve seen this week? Probably not. But it’s happened, and the whole world has been plunged into nervous uncertainty. There is a real fear that we and many other countries will be dragged into a conflict which would inevitably cause misery and destruction, a war which would have no real winners, only losers.

Minister’s Message – February 6,2022

Waitrose is known as a purveyor of ‘posh nosh’, the supermarket for the middle classes. And it’s interesting to notice where it has its stores: in Pontprennau (just!), Cowbridge, Monmouth and Abergavenny but not in Ely, Grangetown or Trowbridge (so why not Llandaff or Pontcanna? Perhaps they couldn’t find a suitable site).