Category Archives: Uncategorized
Sermon: No peace without forgiveness
But, as always when I preach about forgiveness, I want to warn about forgiveness that is offered too easily. We know only too well that throughout history the church has demanded that victims forgive their abusers, even if those abusers continue to abuse. Continue reading
Sermon: In which Avril temporarily agrees with Richard Dawkins
Let the horror that this story of the binding of Isaac provokes in us remind us that the sacrifice of children is never justified. Let our answer to every such ‘test’ be to protect the innocent, even when the powers that be tell us they must be sacrificed. That is the only responsible reading of this story, and the only way in which it can be foundational for our faith. Continue reading
Sermon: The Church – always ‘of God’ but never perfect
We are those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. We are the New Testament church. Despite all their failings, Paul could give thanks for the Corinthians because of God’s faithfulness to them. The same is true of us. Yet while our status as the New Testament church should comfort us, it must never blind us to the church’s failings and our need to constantly seek to be better so that we may ‘be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ’. Continue reading
Sermon: Jesus’ female ancestors
I lived through a ‘think of the children’ scare campaign as a young gay woman; I do not appreciate politicians, political candidates, and neo-Nazis replaying it with trans people today. Continue reading
Sermon: Losing our lives
I have also mentioned the Census numbers, because every church in Australia needs to take them seriously. They could be seen as evidence that Christianity in Australia is dying. I do not believe that it is. I believe that Christianity is becoming what it always meant to be: the salt, not the whole meal; the yeast, not the whole loaf. Continue reading
Sermon: Be afraid, very afraid – or reassured and encouraged
The prophets told the people of Israel again and again that in order to be the people of God it was not enough for them simply to worship God, no matter how carefully they followed the requirements for such worship given in the books of the Law. To truly belong to God, the people of God needed to live out their calling in justice, and in caring for those most in need. Continue reading
Sermon: The faith and generosity of Hannah
Both Hannah’s and Mary’s songs are deeply political songs about the way God wants the world to be; a world in which the hungry are ‘filled with good things’ (Luke 1:53), in fact the ‘hungry are fat with spoil’ (1 Samuel 2:5); a world in which God lifts the needy from the ash heap to sit with princes (1 Samuel 2:8) while the proud are brought down from their thrones. (Luke 1:52) Both Hannah and Mary sing of a world overturned. Continue reading
Sermon: On not blaming the poor for their poverty
The end of the Book of Job does not simply return Job to the situation he was in at the beginning. He has been transformed by his experiences, and so have his friends, and so, hopefully, have we. Continue reading
Sermon: Not just those like us
this encounter between Jesus and a Gentile woman can remind us of the words attributed to John Wesley: ‘Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.’ Continue reading
Not really a sermon about Michal
The pious answer is that it is not about who David is, but about who the Lord is. The Lord remains faithful to David regardless of David’s wrongdoing. That answer makes sense if we are reading the books of Samuel through the eyes of David, but not if we try to read them through the eyes of Michal or Bathsheba. So, I do not have an answer. I just do not want Michal to be forgotten. As the lectionary leads us through the deeds of the great King David, remember his wives. Continue reading
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