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Temple Cowley United Reformed Church

Oxford Road, Cowley, OXFORD, OX4 2ES

United

Reformed

Church

The

Articles & Sermons by the Revd Dick Wolff

Jesus the New Temple. If you want to understand God’s power, look at the crucifixion of Jesus. If you want to know what Jesus was about, look at his relationship with the Temple. A sermon on John 2 : 13 - 22. For a version that prints back-to-back as a booklet, click here

‘Faith-based schools should form no part of a State education system’. Dick Wolff’s speech in favour of this motion at a high-profile public debate in November ‘05 (Acrobat 114Kb)

(For a booklet-printing version of this please request by email)

Christian Oomph : an attempt at a less flawed interpretation of Jesus’ parable of The Talents. (Nov ’08) (Acrobat file)

The Homing Spirit (address for Collinwood Road URC. Adobe Acrobat, 441Kb)

Idolatry & Morality. A sermon following the 500th edition of Radio 4’s ‘Moral Maze’. “Do the roots of all morality have to be in Religion?” For transcript of the discussion and critique, click here

on Christian Unity (for St James C of E, Cowley, 16th Jan ’11) “The Gospel is reconciliation, reconciliation is the Gospel” Adobe Acrobat file

6-part series on ‘Life in the Christian Community’

Dealing with Disagreement
Our needs can build community
Dealing with Money (the god Mammon)
The Ministry of all God’s people

“It’s not about the packaging . .’ A sermon for Christians leading ‘double lives’ - one in the church, one in the world. Feb 8 ’09 (Adobe Acrobat file)

Protection Racket Theology : God doesn’t need buying off - by anybody. All is gift. It’s Religion and Empire that run the protection racket, and it’s Jesus that exposes it.

Awaiting developments

Retribution versus Restoration. A response to a charge by a conservative evangelical who said that the liberal churches were poor at evangelism because they no longer believe in eternal punishment for the ‘unsaved’. June 2008, pdf

‘The God who connects all things’ : Sermon for Trinity Sunday. For a version that prints back-to-back as a booklet, click here.

Keep an eye for updates to this page using Google Reader or equivalent.

Grounds for Confidence. . . in the face of our own death. In which I argue that to have real grounds for confidence we need to be in active membership of the Christian Church.

‘Hope that Saves the Planet’
We are living through the final advent of Humanity’s existence on the planet . . a sermon following the church’s participation in ‘The Wave’ march.

‘Wheat & Weeds’
A completely different take on the parable of the weeds in the wheat (see ‘The Problem of Evil . .’ below), this sermon looks at what it might mean for the church to offer a truly ‘radical welcome’.

a Eucharistic Prayer

In a pregnant nothingness
your Word called across the face of the deep
and a universe began.
Before all light, your Light shone in the darkness

a light that darkness, we thought, could not extinguish.

Your light blazed before Moses
and, through him, called a people to abandon the slavery they knew
and to follow a promise into the wilderness.
Your Word, through the prophets, called that people, time and again,

back from the comforts of religion to the costliness and risk of discipleship.

Your Word, in the person of Jesus,
reentered our darkness on our behalf
and, killed by us, reclaimed our darkness as your domain
that, in the power of holy loving,
death, too, might be made your servant, not our master.

Rekindled, it breathed into being a new community in the Spirit of Christ.

And so it is, with all your people
through all time and across the planet
with the holy angels

we proclaim your greatness and sing your praise :

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord
God of power and might!
Heaven and earth are full of your glory :
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest!

In the gathering darkness of an upper room
your Son convened that new community
the pioneers of a New World Order
whose foundations are as deep as the universe itself
rooted in the love which brought all things to be

and by which all will stand judged.

In the pregnant nothingness of a tomb
you birthed a new universe out of the old
raising Jesus to sit at your right hand

on the judgment-seat of heaven.

He alone is worthy of worship.
He alone we seek to serve, and all humanity
through him, with him and in him
with all the saints in glory
and in the power of your Holy Spirit.

Dick Wolff

God’s ‘Big Society’. A parable of Jesus suggests that government cuts in welfare spending is a pagan heresy, and it’s time the rich joined the ‘Big Society’

The addresses here are not necessarily recent, though some are. The collection here is intended to give a balanced menu of ideas about personal spirituality, life in the Church, and political/social issues.

‘Render to Caesar’ (Matt 22:15-22). How should we interpret Jesus’s response as to how to respond to an oppressive money system. In the light of the global protests of 15th October 2011 (Word 97 file)