Sermon - Six impossible things before breakfast

Breakfast at Dawn, Mike Moyers, 2012

A sermon preached at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday 1st May and at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 5th May (Year C, Easter 3) based on readings from Acts 9.1-6 and John 21.1-19.

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Start:Stop-The Conversion of St Paul

The Road to Damascus by Jonathan Peter Jackson

Hello and welcome to this week’s Start:Stop reflection from St Stephen Walbrook, when we stop for a few minutes and start to reflect on a passage from scripture. My name is Phillip Dawson. 

This week the church celebrates the Conversion of St Paul - an event on the road to Damascus vividly described in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul’s own accounts of his experience appear, on the surface at least, to be less dramatic - but no less transformational. In his letter to the Galatians he explains that the revelation of the risen Christ caused him to reassess his response to three important questions:

Who am I?
Who is Jesus Christ? and;
How does Jesus Christ transform who I am?

Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles - inviting non-Jews to become followers of Christ, might be seen as a quest to help us all to explore the answers to these questions for ourselves.