Kirking of the Council – Old High St. Stephen's, Inverness

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

I have just been reading a remarkable account of a British traveller who, just a few months after September 11 2001, walked across Afghanistan. It was just after the American-led invasion of the country, which drove the Taliban out of Kabul. The author writes:

The country had been at war for twenty-five years; the new government had been in place for only two weeks; there was no electricity between Herat and Kabul, no television and no T-shirts. Villages combined medieval etiquette with new political ideologies. In many houses the only piece of foreign technology was a Kalashnikov, and the only global brand was Islam.[1]

A healing community: sermon for the Kirking of the Council, Sunday 9 September 2018

By Pat MacLeod

On 9th September 2018

In Kirking of the Council, Sermons, Worship

Scripture Readings: Psalm 146

Mark 2.1-12

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

There is a bit of a hubbub in the lakeside Galilean town of Capernaum. News has got around about a young rabbi from the nearby town of Nazareth, whose preaching and teaching is sincere and heartfelt, and who has also got a reputation for healing miracles. He’s been in Capernaum already, then went on a preaching tour around the local synagogues; now he is making a return visit. This was an age and a place when people had an entirely different attitude from us to personal space and public space. You left your door open as an invitation to anyone to wander in. In a small, humble house, there would be no entrance hall- from the street, you stepped directly into the family’s living quarters.

Cherish the light! Sermon for The Kirking of the Council, 10 September 2017

By Pat MacLeod

On 10th September 2017

In Kirking of the Council, Sermons, Worship

Order of service

Scripture Readings: Philippians 4.4-9
Matthew 5.1-16
Cherish the light
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

On the 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin approached the surface of the moon in their fragile Lunar Module, the Eagle. It was a fraught descent. Aldrin was calling out computer data to Armstrong as they approached, but the computer played up- and only cool heads meant that the landing was not abandoned. And as he approached the surface, Armstrong spotted that their landing site was strewn with boulders the size of small cars. In his attempt to find a clear site to land, Armstrong almost used up all his fuel reserves, which would have meant that they could not return home, or crashed among the boulders.

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Category: Kirking of the Council

The Wisdom of Humility: sermon for the Kirking of the Council, 8 September 2019

A healing community: sermon for the Kirking of the Council, Sunday 9 September 2018