Author Archives: Avril Hannah-Jones
Sermon: Do not be afraid
We do not need to fear the future or look back on the past with nostalgic regret, because we know that the God who does new things will walk with us into whatever lies ahead. It may be death, but we also know that after the crucifixion comes resurrection. We have nothing to fear. Thanks be to God. Amen. Continue reading
Sermon: Two brothers
We often fail to live as the people God creates us to be, and then we repent that, but that doesn’t mean that we need to try to earn our Father’s forgiveness. As this parable shows us, all we need to do is come to ourselves in whichever far country we have exiled ourselves, and return home. The Father will come running to welcome us. Continue reading
Sermon: Don’t blame the victim
Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting ChurchThird Sunday of Lent, 20th of March, 2020 Isaiah 55:1-9Luke 13:1-9 Humans have a dreadful tendency, in our need to make sense of life, to blame victims. We tend to see it when a woman … Continue reading
Sermon: “All shall be well”
As we lament over the pain of the world, and pray for its healing, as well as doing our own small part towards caring for the vulnerable, we can hold on to the reassurance offered to us by a fourteenth-century mystic. Because we know that at the core of the universe is love, we believe that ‘all will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well’. Continue reading
Lent 1: Journeying with Jesus
It is this very danger that Ash Wednesday seeks to overcome, by making visible the fact that every single one of us is a sinner who needs to repent. None of us is perfect, and today that truth will be marked on our faces. And we can acknowledge and accept our imperfection, because God does not save perfect people. Continue reading
Sermon: The beauty of the mountains
Mountains are beautiful, but even if we feel ourselves to be living on the plain, even if our lives seem weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, God’s Son, the Messiah, walks beside us on the exodus that will ultimately lead us to the kingdom of God. Continue reading
Sermon: Do as you would be done by? Not necessarily
A world in which people of every faith and of none treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves would undoubtedly be an improvement on the world as it is. But that is not what Jesus is asking of us. Instead, Jesus tells his followers to treat others as they have not treated us Continue reading
Sermon: Of equal worth
In the eyes of God, however, every human life is equally important. To God, our lives are without price, so valuable that in Jesus God was willing to die for us. And the same is true of every other person: those we love; those we know: those we will never meet. From God’s perspective, we are all equal and we are, all of us, priceless. Continue reading
Sermon: Exercising our gifts
one ministry that absolutely does not depend on being active and mobile is the ministry of prayer. I do not want to say that ‘anyone can pray,’ because for me one of the signs that my clinical depression is becoming acute is an inability to pray, but it is true that prayer does not require the person praying be filled with youthful vigour. It can be done as well, if not better, by the elderly and frail as by the young and strong. Continue reading
Sermon: Day of Mourning
Today, the Sunday before the 26th of January, is commemorated by the Uniting Church as a Day of Mourning, remembering that while the raising of the Union Jack in Sydney Cove was ultimately wonderful for all the Second Peoples who have been able to live here, it was the beginning of centuries of dispossession, disease, and violence for Australia’s First Peoples. Continue reading
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