Ruth Greenaway-Robbins

An Anglican Priest sharing sermons, musings and thoughts

recent posts

about

I’m an Anglican priest, an Associate Vicar in Diocese of London. I’ve lived across the UK and spent nearly a decade in Vancouver, Canada — places and people who have shaped my heart for welcome, justice, and the boundless love of God. Before ordination, I was a professional musician, voice teacher, and educator — music still threads through my life, alongside liturgy, liberation theologies, and the wisdom of Lady Julian of Norwich. I believe deeply in living a self-compassionate life rooted in the love of God — where all are welcome and no one is left outside. Here you’ll find sermons, thoughts, prayers, and glimpses of my life as a priest, Mum, wife, musician, swimmer, and lover of books, fashion, and rescue animals. This is a space where imperfection is welcome — dyslexia and all — and where my hope is that you might find good news, belonging, and reminders that you, too, are God’s beloved.

Category: Uncategorized

  • Good Friday: Give Me Only Your Love and Your Grace

    John 18–19 | Psalm 22:1–11 | Hebrews 10:16–25 | Romans 8:31-39 Today is not an easy day. Good Friday confronts us with the rawest edges of human experience:grief, abandonment, brutality, injustice.We have just heard it in the Passion according to St John,betrayal, denial, violence, humiliation, death. It is stark.It is uncomfortable.It hurts. And perhaps that…

  • Maundy Thursday Eat | Pray | Love

    Tonight, we begin something we do not finish. Or perhaps more truthfully, tonight, we are drawn into something that has no end. The liturgy of this night does not conclude with a blessing or a dismissal. It simply… continues. Into darkness. Into silence. Into watchfulness. For tonight begins a liturgy that last 3 days, it…

  • When Crowds Gather: Palm Sunday and Protest

    Yesterday, I stood in central London with hundreds of thousands of others, alongside folk from my neighbourhood in Stamford Hill. Around half a million people gathered to say no to racism. It was powerful. It was hope-filled. And, because there were so many of us, it was long, a happy problem to have. There was something deeply…

  • Fifth Sunday in Lent | The Great Silence | Keeping Holy Time 

    John 11:1–45 | Psalm 130 | Ezekiel 37:1–14 I’ve had a rather unusual week. I lost my voice with a chest infection that turned into Laryngitis – it is only just beginning to return. And so, this week has been marked by an unexpected companion: silence. Proper silence. The kind you don’t choose. The kind…

  • Lent 4 – Keeping Holy Time | Looking ahead to Good Friday | Standing at the Cross

    Luke 2:33–35; 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 Desolation – that is what I have always felt at the foot of the cross.Utter and complete desolation … and yet, somehow, deep gratitude. As a young person the feeling was almost overwhelming. Good Friday breaks me. It always has. Over the years I have tried to understand why. Why…

  • Lent 3: Keeping Holy Time: Maundy Thursday | The Body We Become 

    Lectionary Readings for Lent 3: Exodus 17: 1-7 | Psalm 95 | John 4: 5-42. As some of you may know, I have come to London via Wales, via Cardiff. Cardiff has been woven into my life since my early twenties, and that stitching began when I went there to study singing at the Royal…

  • Palm Sunday – Keeping Holy Time: Entering the Great Week

    This Lent, here at St. Andrew’s and in accross our partnership, we continue our series Keeping Holy Time, where we have been exploring why do we do what we do in Lent and holy week, and by engaging with it more deeply ahead of time we can be more able to enter into the mystery and…

  • First Sunday in Lent – Keeping Holy Time: From Garden to Desert

    Genesis 2:15–17; 3:1–7 | Psalm 32 | Matthew 4:1–11 Keeping Holy Time This Lent at St. Andrews N16, and in our partnership with St. Mary’s N16, we are journeying together through the theme “Keeping Holy Time.” Week by week, we are exploring the great days of this season – from Ash Wednesday and Lent itself, through Palm…

  • “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” | Sermon for Ash Wednesday

    “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51 | Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21 I wonder if someone has already asked you today what you are giving up for Lent? Chocolate is usually first.Then alcohol.Biscuits.Social media. And none of those are bad things. But Lent can begin to…

  • A Simple Ash Wednesday Devotion

    For use at home, at work, or wherever you are You may wish to light a candle or find a place to be still and quiet. The Sign of the Cross In the name of the Father,and of the Son,and of the Holy Spirit.Amen. A Beginning Grace, mercy and peacefrom God our Fatherand the Lord…