Choral Classics - My Beloved Spake

Egon Tschirch: Song of Songs, No. 11 (picture cycle 1923)

It was a great joy to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook this week, inspired by the text and themes of the Song of Songs. My script is below. Watch a recording below: 

Prayers - Teach Us O Lord

Joseph Beuys, Four Blackboards, 1972 (Tate)

It was a great pleasure to officiate at Choral Evensong at St Stephen Walbrook on Wednesday 8th February. I wrote these prayers in response to the words of part of Psalm 119, sung by the choir during the service. 

The text in the image above reads ‘He who in 1972 can live carefree and sleep peacefully despite knowing that two thirds of humanity are hungry or dying of starvation while a large proportion of the well-fed third must take slimming cures in order to stay alive should ask himself what kind of man one is and whether, moreover, he is a man at all.’

You can watch the service online below or at this link.

Choral Classics - Ev'ry time I feel the spirit

James Keay-Bright, Trinity Redemption, 2013

It was a great pleasure to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook on Wednesday 8th February 2023. My script is below. You can watch the recording below or on YouTube at this link.

Start:Stop - Talking the talk and walking the walk

George Grotz, Metropolis, 1916

Start:Stop at St Stephen Walbrook enables busy people to start their day by stopping to reflect. Ten minute reflections are repeated on the quarter hour, from 7.45am until 9.00am every Tuesday morning, beginning with a reading from scripture, followed by a reflection based on an event from this week in history, with space for silence and prayer. You can hear a recording of this week’s reflection at this link and read the script below.

Good morning and welcome to St Stephen Walbrook and our Start:Stop reflection. Today is the anniversary of the birth of master-storyteller Charles Dickens, whose Night Walks through the streets of Victorian London provided the inspiration for novels and short stories that revealed his concern for the poor and the oppressed. 

Dickens had an on-off relationship with the church into which he was baptised. Though, by his own admission, at times he struggled to do so himself, he was highly critical of those who attended church every week to say the creeds but who seemed to fail to act upon them. People who “talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.”

A criticism shared by the author of the First Letter of John, writing to the church in the first century. His readers are exhorted to live the word - through acts of righteousness.

Our reading this morning is from the second chapter of the First Letter of John.

Prayers of Intercession - The Feast of Candlemas

La presentación de Cristo en el templo, Kelly Latimore

Prayers of Intercession written for the Choral Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 2nd February 2023. The Feast of Candlemas. Based on texts from Malachi 3.1-5, Psalm 24, Hebrews 2.14-end and Luke 2.22-40.

Prayers of Intercession - Follow Me

Carl Kylberg "Venez a ma suite (Följ med)" (Come, Follow Me)

Prayers of Intercession written for the Choral Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 26th January 2022 (Year A, Epiphany 3) based on texts from 1 Corinthians 1.10-18 and Matthew 4.12-23.

Choral Classics - Celebrating John Donne

The last look of John Donne by Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943) - Brooklyn Museum

It was a great pleasure to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook on Wednesday 25th January 2023. My script is below. You can watch the recording below (the video will not appear in ‘mobile view’ – please click “view web version” at the bottom of the home page if reading on a tablet or phone) or watch on YouTube at this link.

Start:Stop - Trust in the slow work of God

Paul on the road to Damascus - Peter Bellone

Start:Stop at St Stephen Walbrook enables busy people to start their day by stopping to reflect. Ten minute reflections are repeated on the quarter hour, from 7.45am until 9.00am every Tuesday morning, beginning with a reading from scripture, followed by a reflection based on an event from this week in history, with space for silence and prayer. You can hear a recording of this week’s reflection at this link and read the script below.

Thank you for joining us for Start:Stop. This reflection will last under ten minutes and you are welcome to come and go as your schedule dictates. This week we consider two very different anniversaries. Often presented as pivotal moments in history that brought about an immediate transformation that changed the world, in both cases, beneath the bright lights and pizazz, we also find an alternative - but no less real - story. One of slow and steady progress towards lasting change.  

Our bible reading is from St Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Chapter 1, verses 11-17.

Sermon - We “are” baptised

Ivanka Demchuk (Ukrainian, 1990–), Baptism of Christ, 2015. 

Sermon preached at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday January 15th 2023  and St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 19th January 2023 (Year A, Second Sunday of Epiphany) based on readings from 1 Corinthians 1.1-9 and John 1.29-42.

Start:Stop - Role Conflict and Joseph's Dream

Joseph's Dream by Georges de la Tour (1628-1645)

You can listen to an audio recording of this reflection at this link.

Role conflict is a significant cause of stress. It can occur in the workplace when we face seemingly incompatible expectations - for example, conflicting deadlines set by different supervisors or clients. Role conflict may also arise when there is ambiguity or overlap between the different roles we fulfill; for instance, where a manager has to discipline members of a team who they consider to be their friends. 

It’s not just at work that we encounter role conflict, but within all areas of life - and particularly where different areas of our lives meet. This can often be the case at this time of year - returning home for family gatherings we may have a role as siblings and children as well as parents - all at the same time.

It isn't always a third party - another person - who places these pressures upon us; it is just as likely that role conflict arises from expectations we place on ourselves or from a desire to conform to overlapping societal and cultural “norms” - to have, for instance, a successful career and a happy family.

This week our gospel reading confronts us with multiple role conflicts. What can the example of Mary and Joseph teach us about the conflicting roles we embody in our lives? 

Sermon - And one will be left

Graveyard under Snow, Caspar David Friedrich, 1826

A sermon for Advent Sunday (Year A) given at the Sung Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 1st December 2022  based on the text of Romans 13.11-end and Matthew 24.36-44. This sermon was also given at St George’s Bloomsbury.