Each Sunday five separate sermons are delivered at Westminster Abbey or St Margaret's. The Abbey's clergy and guest preachers address current theological issues, religion and world events, and the interpretation of biblical texts.
2013
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6 January 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Epiphany 2013
The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Canon in Residence
This series of Residence Sermons at Matins considers the place of St John the Baptist, beginning here with his uncompromising message of repentance.
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6 January 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Epiphany 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
We, like the Wise Men, in St Paul’s words from this morning’s second lesson, must come to see ‘what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.'
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13 January 2013 Sermon given at Matins on The Baptism of Christ 2013
The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Canon in Residence
This series of Residence Sermons at Matins considers the place of St John the Baptist, today reflecting on the primacy of Jesus.
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20 January 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 20th January 2013
The Reverend Dr Robert Reiss, Canon in Residence
Some reflections on Vocation in the light of Isaiah 49.1
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27 January 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 27th January 2013
The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Canon in Residence
On national Holocaust Memorial Day, this sermon considers the continuing importance of ‘a place and a name’ (Yad Veshem).
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27 January 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Sunday 27th January 2013
The Reverend Dr James Hawkey, Minor Canon and Sacrist
The phrase “Think Global, act local” rings around much of English-speaking Western society – in environmental ethics, in business, in town-planning, in education, this is the current orthodoxy.
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1 February 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on the Eve of Candlemas 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
This great and beautiful feast of Candlemas points us both backwards and forwards in the Church’s Year. It points us backward to Christmas and forward to the season of Lent and Easter so soon to come upon us.
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3 February 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 3rd February 2013
The Reverend Dr Robert Reiss, Canon in Residence
The first of three addresses reflecting on ‘Honest to God’, a best-selling theological book published fifty years ago.
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3 February 2013 Sermon given at Evensong on Sunday 3rd February 2013
The Reverend Peter McGeary, Priest Vicar
'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth'. We need to see the text of Genesis 1, indeed much of the Bible, not so much as a repository of meaning but as a generator of rhythm.
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10 February 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 10th February 2013
The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Canon in Residence
While Moses was unable to look directly on the face of God, the Christian imperative is that we become children of God, made in the likeness of Christ.
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13 February 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Ash Wednesday 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
Enjoy Lent! This holy and beautiful season allows us to focus better on what really matters: the love of God above all and in all and through all.
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17 February 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 17th February 2013
The Reverend Dr Robert Reiss, Canon in Residence
’The second sermon in the series on Honest to God, looking at what Bishop Robinson said about Jesus.
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24 February 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 24th February 2013
The Reverend Dr Robert Reiss, Canon in Residence
The third and final sermon in a series on Bishop John Robinson's book, Honest to God.
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24 February 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Sunday 24th February 2013
The Reverend Professor Vernon White, Canon Theologian
How Christ shows us the reality of God in the mysteries of human consciousness: mysteries which go deeper than anything we can track in events of the brain.
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3 March 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 3rd March 2013
The Venerable Dr Jane Hedges, Canon in Residence
During March in her sermons at Matins, Canon Hedges looks at the subject of martyrdom, this week examining martyrdom in the Early Church.
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10 March 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 10th March 2013
The Venerable Dr Jane Hedges, Canon in Residence
During March in her sermons at Matins, Canon Hedges looks at the subject of martyrdom, this week examining martyrs of the English Reformation.
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17 March 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 17th March 2013
The Venerable Dr Jane Hedges, Canon in Residence
During March in her sermons at Matins, Canon Hedges looked at the subject of martyrdom, examining this week the lives of the 20th-century martyrs commemorated on the West Front of Westminster Abbey.
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28 March 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist with the Washing of the Feet, Maundy Thursday 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
Our suffering is shared in Christ by the God who knows what we suffer. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’
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29 March 2013 Sermon given at The Chapel Royal, Good Friday 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
Sin is defeated by the power of the Cross. Even our own sin and our own death cannot withstand the power of the Cross if we place our trust, our faith, in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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31 March 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Easter Day 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
Thank God for the raggedy and fearful band; may God bless us and empower us too, however raggedy and fearful we each may feel, to believe and trust in the love of God that conquers everything.
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25 April 2013 Sermon given at the Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving to mark ANZAC Day 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
What led so many young Australians and New Zealanders to enlist for service in the First World War?
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28 April 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on 28th April 2013
The Reverend Dr James Hawkey, Minor Canon and Sacrist
Finding a way of living lives of service and love, even in the small day-to-day things will often be to discover the condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.
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5 May 2013 Sermon given at Matins on Sunday 5th May 2013
The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Canon in Residence
In this sermon series in May, as a new legislative programme is announced in The Queen’s Speech, I am arguing that Christians have a moral duty to engage with political questions–Welfare Reform, International Aid, and Immigration.
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5 May 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Sunday 5th May 2013
The Reverend Dr Robert Reiss, Sub-Dean and Canon Treasurer and Almoner
Some reflections on the exchange of the peace in the light of the gospel passage from St John 14: 23–29
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8 May 2013 Address given at A Service to Commemorate the Life of Florence Nightingale 8th May 2013
Mark Bostridge, author of Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend
I’d ask you this evening to look at that lamp, not as a symbol perpetuating a simplistic, outdated legend, but as an image of the best of modern nursing, shining the light of humanity into some of the darker and lonelier corners of human experience.
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9 May 2013 Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Ascension Day 2013
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster
Human beings are capable of the most amazing acts of heroism, of courage and of fortitude. The heroic achievements of others challenge us and can encourage us to believe that we might be capable of more than we had ever imagined.