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Category Archives: Sermons
(Not A) Sermon: Beginning the Letter of James
Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church 2nd of September, Pentecost 15 James 1:17-27 For the next month we are going to be reading our way through the Letter of James, attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, and addressed to ‘the … Continue reading
Sermon: Aren’t there times when you just want to punch Hitler?
I can remember the shock and fear I felt watching an ABC documentary that screened in 2000, so well within my adult life, about the bashing of gay men in Townsville. One young man said, ‘I’m a Catholic. It’s meant to be a woman with a man, not a man with a man. That’s sick. That’s hitting material’. Continue reading
Sermon: Scarcity, Abundance, and ‘Enoughness’
We are not God, we are not called to be God, and so just as we are, we are good enough, perfect enough, powerful enough, strong enough, extraordinary enough. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged abundance, being enough, bread, Gospel according to John, John 6, John 6: 35 41-51, scarcity, Year of Mark
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Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, has many symbolic and spiritual meanings, but it is also always about feeding the world’s hungry. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged bread, communion, eucharist, Gospel according to John, John 6:24-35, the Lord's Supper, Year of Mark
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Sermon: Kindred in unity
I believe that we will be able to live together in unity as kindred. That is not naïve optimism. It is faith based on what God has managed to do in the past. Continue reading
Sermon: The importance of good biblical interpretation
Bad Biblical interpretation has been used by Christians to justify the most appalling crimes against humanity: slavery; the Holocaust; apartheid. We must read the Bible carefully, in context, and through the lens of Jesus’ commands that we love God and neighbour because the alternative is terrifying. Continue reading
Sermon: So, you want to have a king …
In the same way that we can be certain that the author of Samuel was wrong to attribute a desire for genocide to God, we can be certain that there are things that we believe about God today that will later be revealed to be wrong – because we are human and, as the Apostle Paul wrote, we currently only ‘see in a mirror, dimly’. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged 1 Samuel 8:4-20, genocide, King David, King Saul, kingship, Prophet Samuel, reading the Bible, Year of Mark
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Sermon: Jesus (mis)reads the scriptures
The Pharisees are shocked at Jesus’ apparently cavalier attitude to the laws governing the Sabbath. Modern Christians are shocked at Jesus’ apparently cavalier attitude to biblical interpretation. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged Bible, biblical interpretation, Mark 2:23-3:6, sabbath, Year of Mark
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Sermon: Is Isaiah a role model for volunteers? (National Volunteer Week)
In the same way, Isaiah keeps prophesying even though he knows he will fail, and we keep offering our best efforts to the church community to which God has called us even if we don’t know what success would look like. It’s counter-intuitive, and it’s why volunteering is the wrong word. Instead we should talk about ministry, or service, or even about acts of love. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged Isaiah 6:1-13, Isaiah 6:1-8, National Volunteer Week, volunteer
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Sermon: What is love? (Baby, don’t hurt me)
It is, as I have said so many times that I’m sure you’re sick of it, the heart of the Christian faith. We. Are. Loved. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged Desmond Tutu, Easter 6, John 15:9-17, love, Madeleine L'Engle, Martin Luther King
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