Bishop Stephen urged all Christians to use their talents to act this year to support others, as he gave everyone in the congregation at Salisbury Cathedral a Christmas card designed by a six year old.
Orla, a year one pupil at Bishop Aldhem’s primary academy in Poole, designed the card, which depicts Jesus in a manger, cradled in her palm print.
His sermon looked back to his installation, when he handed £10 to each member of the congregation to use and grow, in an enactment of the parable of the talents.
People found ways of doubling, tripling it and even more. Find out more here.
Bishop Stephen said today the £10 gift “wasn’t about money, it was about action, and about compassion, and about confidence in ourselves”
At this mornings service, he instead gave out envelopes containing Orla’s Christmas card.
Bishop Stephen said: God’s answer to our questions, is himself. This is not the all-powerful dictator or politician who tries to rule our lives, this is the Son of God who comes to govern our hearts with the law of love. In fact, God is so humble, so bold, so simple, that his response to human evil is to place the most precious gift ever into our hands. I invite you, please take a look at your hands, God is placed there – vulnerable, able to be squeezed out, or able to be shared, to be held, to be loved as we are first loved. God places all of his talent into our hands, so the question is, what do we do with it.”
Download the sermon here. Read Bishop Karen's Christmas Day message here.