This Sunday we begin a new nine-week sermon series called The Seven: From Vice to Virtue. It has nothing to do with the Seven Wonders of the World, The Magnificent Seven, or even the rather less magnificent seven dwarfs. Instead, we will be exploring seven patterns of thought, desire and behaviour that Christian tradition has identified as particularly destructive: pride, envy, sloth, wrath, greed, gluttony and lust. In case you are already thinking, “This sounds like the perfect time to try another church for a couple of months,” let me try to dissuade you!

I recently saw Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey. I greatly enjoyed it and would warmly recommend it—although, at almost three hours, you may want to choose your cinema seat carefully! The film has been both a critical and commercial success. Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus, it has already earned more than $1.1 billion worldwide, becoming Nolan’s highest-grossing film.