Sermon: Even when there is no peace

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Advent Two, 10th of December 2023

Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Thousands of years ago the first of the three prophets we call Isaiah looked forward to the coming of a king from the line of David: ‘For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’. (Isaiah 9:6) We will hear those words at Christmas, because to the first Christians it was obvious who this Prince of Peace was. In the Gospel according to Luke we are told that the angels sang at Jesus’ birth: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ (Luke 2:14). Today, the second Sunday of Advent, is known as Peace Sunday because peace was one of the gifts Jesus brought with him: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’. (John 14:27) Yet this year as I prepared the liturgy for ‘Peace Sunday’ I found myself thinking of other words Jesus was recorded to have said: ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’. (Matthew 10:34) This week I asked colleagues in despair how I could possibly preach peace given what is happening in the Holy Land. One of them replied, “Preach it like fire!” Continue reading →

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Posted on December 2, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Advent One, 3rd of December 2023

Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

Happy New Year! Today, the first Sunday of Advent, the church is beginning both a new church year and a time of preparation as we look back to Christ’s First Coming and forward to his Second. Because Advent is primarily meant to prepare us for the latter, we start the liturgical year where last week we ended it, with a prophecy of the end times, the eschaton. We start this Year of the Gospel according to Mark with the Markan apocalypse. This is a bit of a problem because, as Brendan Byrne writes, it is ‘the most difficult part of the gospel for interpretation’.[1] As another interpreter I read this week puts it, the thirteenth chapter of Mark ‘is largely ignored by pragmatists, activists, believers in progress, and all who dismiss preoccupation with the end of the world as a juvenile state of human development or an aberration of unbalanced minds’.[2] Since I am at least three of those four things, you can appreciate that today’s gospel passage is not the one I would have chosen to preach on at the beginning of Advent. As a dutiful daughter of the church I will, however, do my best.
Continue reading →

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Sermon: Being Sheep, not Goats

Posted on November 25, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Reign of Christ, 26th of November 2023

Matthew 25:31-46

To make a massive generalisation, I believe that Christians can be divided into ‘John 3:16’ or ‘Matthew 25’ believers. John 3:16, as you know, says, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’ It suggests that eternal life is a result of faith, of believing in the Son of God. Matthew 25, however, ends with today’s prophecy of the coming of the Son of Man in glory, and it says that the righteous will go into eternal life because of how they treat ‘the least of these’. As you can imagine, ‘John 3:16 Christians’ emphasise orthodoxy, right belief, and think that the church should prioritise evangelism. ‘Matthew 25 Christians’ emphasise orthopraxis, right conduct, and think that the church should prioritise acts of charity. Continue reading →

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Sermon: It’s not the Rapture

Posted on November 11, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
12th of November 2023

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

Oh, thank God! Last week I talked about the difficulty of the Revised Common Lectionary presenting us with Bible passages that have been used to promote hate. This week the Lectionary has given us a gift. Not the gospel reading, of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, which three years’ ago I described as ‘challenging’, but the extract from Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica in what is now Greece. The reading we hear today is one that has comforted me whenever I have been bereaved, and I hope that it comforts this congregation after the deaths of seven of our members in less than two months. Continue reading →

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Sermon: We will not use the Bible to justify genocide

Posted on November 4, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
5th of November 2023

Joshua 3:7-17
Matthew 23:1-12

Members of this congregation have occasionally asked me why I always preach on a Bible reading from the Revised Common Lectionary. One answer is that by following the ecumenical lectionary we hear the same readings each Sunday as many Anglican, Baptist, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches around the world, and I appreciate that connection with our Christian siblings. It is also a discipline for me to preach on passages with which I struggle or disagree. If I chose the Bible passages on which I preached all you would ever hear would be those that say, ‘God is love, so love one another,’ and while I do think that that is the core of Christianity, it is not all the Bible says. This week, though, is the closest I have ever come to turning my back on the lectionary and choosing some ‘God is love’ readings instead. I do not just disagree with today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. I think that readings like this one from the Book of Joshua are currently contributing to the murder of innocents. Continue reading →

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Sermon: There is always enough

Posted on September 23, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
24th of September 2023

Exodus 16:2-15
Matthew 20:1-16

Poor Moses. Last week’s reading from the Book of Exodus ended, ‘Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the LORD and believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.’ (Exodus 14:31) This week’s reading begins, ‘The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness’. It is the ‘fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt’ (Exodus 16:1), very soon after the Israelites saw the waters of the sea retreat and return as Moses gestured, and yet already the Israelites are complaining that there is not enough food in the desert and they want to go home. Moses would have had every right to say, ‘Okay then,’ and turn the metaphorical car around. Instead, he continued to lead the Israelites for decades. Continue reading →

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Sermon: No peace without forgiveness

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
17th of September 2023

Exodus 14:19-31
Matthew 18: 21-35

Today we are anticipating the twenty-first of September, the International Day of Prayer for Peace, inaugurated by the World Council of Churches in 2004. This week is also the World Council of Churches’ Week of Peace in Palestine and Israel, in which Christians are asked to promote a just peace in Palestine and Israel. We are joining with millions of others in Australia and across the world in praying for peace throughout the world. The lectionary, rather than offering any of the many descriptions of peace the Scriptures contain, has instead given us the death of the Egyptian army as they chase the escaping Israelites across the sea. While today’s story begins with the Lord keeping the armies of Egypt and Israel separate with a pillar of fire and cloud, it quickly moves on to the Lord using Moses to divide the sea so that the people of Israel can walk across it dry-shod; clogging the wheels of the Egyptian chariots; and again using Moses to return the sea to its normal depth: ‘As the Egyptians fled before it, the LORD tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.’ Continue reading →

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Sermon: Our God doesn’t murder children!

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
10th of September 2023

Exodus 12:1-14

Later this month I am going to be a guest on a podcast that will talk about a book written by comic fantasy author Terry Pratchett. If you enjoy fantasy and have never read Pratchett’s Discworld series, you are seriously missing out. They are brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny. However, the book I have been asked to read is the fourth in a ‘Science of Discworld’ series, which has alternate non-fiction chapters written by two scientists, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, and it is driving me mad. The theme is set by a quote at the beginning: ‘Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.’ Stewart and Cohen argue that religion argues for something called ‘belief’ which is based on faith, as opposed to scientific truth which is based on evidence, and say that science and religion will never be reconcilable until religions discard the supernatural.[1] They compare the scientific method with what they believe religions do: scientists accumulate knowledge by trying to prove themselves wrong, while, ‘few faith-based systems advocate self-doubt as a desirable instrument of change.’[2] Continue reading →

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Sermon: In which Avril confesses her besetting sin

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
3rd of September 2023

Romans 12:9-21

‘Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.’

It is awful when the Bible convicts you of your besetting sin. I can read the many biblical commands in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures to share what I have with the poor and to welcome the stranger unperturbed because I do seek to do those things. I read Jesus commanding us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us with some discomfort because I know I frequently fail, but at least I am trying. And I have found that pausing to pray for any misogynists and homophobes attacking me does at the least calm me down. But today we hear the Apostle Paul telling the Christians in Rome not to be haughty and not to claim to be wiser than they are – and ouch! If there is any sin of which I am consistently guilty it is being haughty about my intellect and my education. I do not know whether I claim to be wiser than I am, but I frequently claim to be wiser than a number (small or large) of the rest of the Australian population. On this count, Paul has got me bang to rights. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Righteous Outlaws

Posted on August 26, 2023 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
27th of August 2023

Exodus 1:8 – 2:10

I recently had a conversation with the psychologist I see about whether she and I can break the law. She cannot. If she wants to keep her registration as a psychologist she must not have a criminal record. I, on the other hand, can. The Uniting Church Code of Ethics and Ministry Practice says that, ‘It is unethical for Ministers to deliberately break the law or encourage another to do so. The only exception would be in instances of political resistance or civil disobedience’. (Code of Ethics 6.2) This is not because the Uniting Church wants its ministers to be less law-abiding than the Psychology Board expects of its psychologists. It is because of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. The Uniting Church knows that not all laws are good ones. As I have preached before, if our allegiance to God comes into conflict with our allegiance to the state, then sometimes the only God-fearing thing to do is become an outlaw. Continue reading →

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