This year there are 21 Sundays after Trinity taking us up to the end of October, so covering almost half the church's year. Everything really exciting - Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost - has already happened, in the year’s first half.

So is that why the second half of the church’s year is referred to as 'Ordinary Time'? In fact not. Rather the phase ‘Ordinary Time’ comes from the way in which the Sundays are counted - with Ordinal numbers: first, second, third, etc after Trinity.

Today we are looking at the Old Testament lesson, an uncomfortable, indeed shocking, story where a father feels called by God to offer up his son as a sacrifice. The father is Abraham and the son is Isaac, and at the vital moment as he raises the knife,....well, come on Saturday and hear the rest of the story. And more importantly learn what such a bizarre biblical tale can have to say to us today!

PIcture above, an extract from 'Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac' by David Teniers the Younger, from the Art Institute of Chicago. The author died in 1690, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.