Fr Luke Miller

The Protect Duty is a new statutory responsibility which will impact Churches and Places of Worship. Responses to this consultation are needed . The deadline for responses is 18 March 2024 What is all this about? The consultations and parliamentary process for the Bill to implement a Protect Duty (" Martyn's Law ") have made a difference. Changes have been introduced to mitigate the severe unintended consequences of the original proposals. As it was they would have given terrorism a win by making things very difficult for churches and places of worship. I set out why that was here . It is now really important to respond to the consultation on the impact of the proposals as they now stand so that the changes for the better are not lost and so that the Bill can be improved further. Government needs to be clear about the impact of the Duty on Churches and other places of worship The more individual responses there are the better. Please respond yourself, and ask others in ...

God’s Glory revealed in the face of Christ. Sermon for the Sunday before Lent at S Marks Hamilton Terrace. S Mark's church burnt down in 2023 and the community worships for the time being in the church hall. There are two sorts of barbers. Those who are silent and those who talk. Of those who talk there are those who talk and cut and those who only do one thing at a time. If you get one like that then you are sunk. It is going to take all morning just to get a short back and sides. The place I go to used to have a chap there who would talk but not cut, and one who was silent. I would always try and get to the silent one – but I did not usually manage it as the talkative chap loved to talk religion and I was to him as a honey pot is to a bee. I went one 6th August and he told me that today – he was a Greek Cypriot – was a great festival, the feast of the metamorphosis. You don’t have this festival in the West he said, yes we do said I it’s called the Transfiguration no metamorphosi...

Sermon given in the context of the S John Passion at Holy Trinity Sloane Square, Palm Sunday 2023  The S John Passion was written as a liturgy to surround the sermon, and while tonight we perform it as a concert, there is justification for a few remarks about the religious import of what we are listening to. This is a Lutheran work but draws on the tradition of the Catholic Church to read the whole of the passion narrative of Saint John on Good Friday. On Palm Sunday one of the other gospels is read but St John comes round every year on Good Friday. Bach wrote for a Good Friday evening worship in which the passion lifted from Luther’s German translation of the Bible, specifically the 18th and 19th chapters of Saint John’s gospel, sung interspersed with hymns and interpretive Arias, and with a sermon at the heart. As we have heard, it begins with the betrayal and the question which is put to those who come to arrest Jesus but also to the congregation, Wen suchet ihr? whom do ...

During the debate I spoke on the amendment calling for the Pastoral Guidance to be published before the implementation of the Prayers of Love and Faith.  This was my speech. You can watch it here . I welcome this amendment. We were promised in the debate in July that we would see the full guidance before the prayers came into use, and we should take our time to make sure that that is the case. Five issues which specifically affect the clergy. First, whether they use or do not use the prayers, the Pastoral Guidance will provide protection for clergy from challenge. Without it clergy are exposed. Seeing legal advice might give some consolation on this point, but even had that been offered it would be necessary to see the Guidance in full before the prayers are commended. This means secondly that the pastoral guidance fits into the framework of clergy discipline and with the clergy conduct measure passing through Synod we need to be clear abou...

 Sermon on the monring after the Coronation preached at the  Temple Church London . The readings were for the Fourth Sunday after Easter: James 1.17-21 and John 16.5-15

The Lections (from the Authorised Version)  Ezekiel 34.11-16a    1 Peter 2.19-25   John 10.11-16 The Third Sunday after Easter, 23 April 2023  1 Peter 2:25 The shepherd and bishop of your souls Audio here The reason we find it difficult to understand the Bible is dry stone walls. Dry stone walls create enclosed pastures. Despite the enormous work that has gone into building them, dry stone walls are a labour-saving device. Once built, you can release your sheep into the area bounded by the wall, and then let them get on with it. The Shepherd can zoom around on his quad bike visiting and dealing with the issues that the sheep may have, but he does not actually have to stay with them. The biblical Shepherd on the other hand pastured his sheep in the vast areas of the Palestinian wilderness. With relatively small amounts of grass creating fields was a nonstarter. The Shepherd must lead the flock, gathering them in when they stray and taking them from pasture to pas...