Sermon: Easter Sunday

Posted on March 30, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Easter Sunday, 31st of March, 2024

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 5:6b-8
Mark 16:1-8

I wonder whether, amid their sorrow, and their horror at the cruelty of Jesus’ death, the women coming to anoint his body feel some relief. They are on their way to do their very last service for the one they have followed and provided for since his ministry began in Galilee. Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had been among the many women who had come with Jesus to Jerusalem. They had stood at a distance watching as he died and as his body was quickly laid in a tomb before the Sabbath began. They had shown themselves to be true disciples, in comparison with Peter and James and John who could not even stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane. Unable to care for his body on the Sabbath, the three women now bring spices to anoint him. After the body has been so long in the tomb the spices will not do much to ameliorate the smell of decay, but they come anyway, because this is the last thing they can do for someone they have loved. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Street marches

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Palm Sunday, 24th of March 2023

Psalm 118:1-2 19-29
Mark 11:1-11

After hearing today’s gospel story, of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem the week before his death, I am a little surprised that the Roman powers in Jerusalem only executed Jesus, and did not also seek out all his followers to ensure that they had completely crushed the Jesus Movement. The last thing an occupying power wants is for the people it occupies to have their emotions raised and their collective identity reinforced by a public event. Crowds resisting the Powers That Be in the streets is a significant moment in many movements that overturn the status quo: the gay liberation movement that was sparked by the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1968, and that spread further when the NSW Police attacked the Gay Solidarity Group celebrating the Riots’ tenth anniversary; the Vietnam Moratorium marches in the 1970s; the People Power Revolution that overthrew the Marcos Government in the Philippines in 1986; the mass demonstrations that led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Marching in the streets is not enough without a campaign that includes less visible tactics like education and political lobbying. And popular uprisings do fail, when the Powers That Be are both powerful and willing to use murderous violence: the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968; the Chinese government’s massacre of thousands at Tiananmen Square in 1989; Israel’s killing of hundreds of Palestinians participating in the non-violent ‘Great March of Return’ in 2018-2019. Sometimes governments can feel confident enough that they just ignore street marches, as happened with the worldwide marches against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But taking to the streets is often an effective way of getting the attention of the Powers That Be and drawing people to the cause. Continue reading →

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Sermon: “We wish to see Jesus”

Posted on March 16, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 13th of March, 2024

Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Today’s gospel reading begins with people who are strangers in a foreign land. These are the final days of Jesus’ public ministry and Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem, the centre of the Jewish world. Immediately before today’s story, John tells us that the Pharisees were declaring that ‘the world has gone after him!’ (John 12:19) and what the Pharisees probably mean by ‘the world’ were all the people in Jerusalem for the Passover. But the Pharisees are more right than they know. The world is seeking Jesus, and so the next people to approach him are Greek. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Being whole and seeing wholeness

Posted on March 9, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Fourth Sunday of Lent, 10th of March 2024

John 3:14-21
Ephesians 2:1-10

‘O give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his great love is without end.’ ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’ ‘God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ’.

Despite these words of comfort and praise, today’s lectionary readings do not fill me with joy. Indeed, when I saw what it was that I had to preach on this week my exact words were: ‘Oh bother! It’s bronze serpent Sunday!’ Continue reading →

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Sermon: The Ten Words

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Third Sunday in Lent, 3rd of March 2024

Exodus 20:1-20
Psalm 19

Let the spoken words of my mouth
and the meditation of all our hearts
be acceptable to you, O Lord,
our redeemer and our rock.

The Ten Commandments, known by Hebrew scholars as the ‘Ten Words,’ do not have a good reputation among some Christians. I suspect we can blame this on the Apostle Paul, and his distinction between Law and Grace. In his letter to the Romans Paul even writes that, ‘if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”’ (Romans 7:7) Despite Paul saying in the very same passage that ‘the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good,’ (Romans 7:12) some Christians have taken the apparent impossibility of humans successfully obeying the law to mean that God never intended it to be obeyed. When I was at Williamstown Uniting Church the children spent a year reading through The Jesus Storybook Bible,[1] which told the entire Bible story through the lens of Jesus. The chapter on the Ten Words is called ‘Ten Ways to be Perfect’. It shows Moses receiving the Ten Words in the middle of a rather terrifying thunderstorm. Moses then tells the people that if they keep these rules God will always look after them, and the people promise that they will. But the Storybook Bible immediately says that this is impossible; that God knew it would be impossible; and suggests that God only gave the Ten Words so that the people would fail and turn to Jesus, the one Person who could keep all the rules. That particular story ended: ‘the rules couldn’t save them. Only God could save them’. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Ash ‘Wednesday’

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
18th of February 2024, ‘Ash Sunday’

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 6:1-6 16-21

On Ash Wednesday both Nell and I participated in parts of a pilgrimage to map Gaza onto Melbourne, one of at least 85 pilgrimages in 12 countries. Collectively, a group of Christians walked the 35 kms from Gaza City to Rafah, the distance that so many Gazans have fled in a desperate and ultimately futile search for safety. I did about half of that, starting at St Monica’s College in Epping at 6.30 in the morning, then walking through Lalor, Thomastown, Reservoir, Preston, Thornbury, before ending at North Fitzroy. After working at home in the afternoon I rejoined the pilgrimage in its final stage to St Paul’s Cathedral for the Ash Wednesday Service.

Avril entering St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne
Nell entering St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne

Continue reading →

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Sermon: The light wherein our shadows disappear

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
11th of February, 2024

2 Corinthians 9:2-9
Mark 9:2-9

Does the light illuminate everything, or does it make the shadows darker? Does the wonder and beauty of the Transfiguration, celebrated today on the last Sunday before Lent, make Jesus’ death on a cross even more painful and ugly? Does the Transfiguration put a barrier between the glorious Beloved Son and those of us who do not shine on mountaintops? What does the Transfiguration mean for those of us who live our lives on the plain? Continue reading →

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Sermon: Proclaiming the good news

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
4th of February, 2024

Mark 1:29-39
1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Together the gospel readings from today and last Sunday describe a complete day in the life of Jesus. Last Sunday’s reading had Jesus going to the synagogue at Capernaum on the Sabbath and teaching with authority. Then he was confronted by a man possessed, and he rebuked the demon and healed the man. Today, we hear what happened next. On the surface, this is a story of astounding success and recognition of Jesus’ distinctiveness. It will probably not surprise you that I am going to argue there is a lot more happening underneath that surface. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Trauma and Liberation

Posted on January 27, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
28th of January, 2024

Mark 1:14-20

I hope that you are feeling a little breathless. As I have said before, everything in the Gospel according to Mark happens ‘immediately’, or ‘at once,’ as Jesus, the disciples, and we readers journey without pause from the Jordan to Jerusalem. We are still within Mark’s very first chapter, and already John has appeared in the wilderness baptising; Jesus has been baptised; then driven into the wilderness and tempted; has proclaimed the coming of the kingdom at Galilee; and has called his first disciples. Now, in today’s reading, we get the beginning of what seems to be a typical day of ministry for Jesus, a day of teaching and healing. Continue reading →

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Sermon: The time is short

Posted on January 20, 2024 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
21st of January, 2024

1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

The time is fulfilled. The present form of this world is passing away. In the year 2024 it is hard not to hear the words of Jesus and Paul and respond, ‘Really?’ It was even hard for the author of the Gospel according to Matthew, which most biblical scholars agree was written slightly later than the Gospel according to Mark. In today’s Markan reading Jesus begins his ministry by saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;’ but by the time Matthew came to write the same scene Jesus simply says, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ (Matthew 4:17) Already in Matthew’s version questions of time have become difficult. Continue reading →

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