Reflection: Fighting on God’s Side

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
20th of December, 2020

Luke 1:26-38
Luke 1:46-55

I know that this year has been different because here we are at the Fourth Sunday of Advent and I am not yet completely over Christmas carols. Usually by this time in December I have heard so many carols at Christmas events or while shopping that the thought of hearing another one drives me batty. But this year there have been few Christmas parties, and shopping has been a matter of deciding beforehand, walking in, and walking out, and so I am not my usual ‘Bah! Humbug!’ self. Continue reading →

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Reflection: Rejoice!

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
13th of December 2020

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126

Today, the third Sunday in Advent, is Joy Sunday, known for centuries as Gaudete Sunday from the Latin word for ‘rejoice,’ with the liturgical colour pink. Designating this single Sunday out of Advent’s four as a time of joy immediately raises the question: what are the other three Sundays meant to be? The answer is that for much of the Church’s history Advent was a solemn time; a time for Christians to examine themselves and the world in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ; a time of fasting and quiet contemplation. This of course is why the liturgical colour of Advent is purple, the same colour as Lent. A few weeks’ ago Emily shared with me a website about ‘Celtic Advent’ but we both decided not to introduce Celtic Advent practices to the congregation when we found they included fasting. Continue reading →

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Reflection: Called to make peace

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Advent Two, 6th of December 2020

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Mark 1:1-8

Today, the second Sunday of Advent, is known as ‘Peace’ Sunday. Today we look forward to the birth of the Prince of Peace, at which angels sang, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

It might be the pessimist in me, but whenever I think of ‘peace’ the two sayings that come first to my mind are one from the prophet Jeremiah: ‘They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace”, when there is no peace’ (6:14; 8:11); and one from the Roman historian Tacitus, apparently quoting a Scot: ‘where they make a desert, they call it peace’. The psalmist tells us today that God ‘will speak peace to his people’ and that ‘righteousness and peace will kiss each other’. To which my response is: ‘Really? When?’ As we look at our world, how can we possibly say that peace has come? We live in a time of civil wars and terrorism – how can we say that peace has come? We live in a world in which desperate refugees flee for safety – how can we say that peace has come? We live in a country in which people who came to us seeking asylum have been locked up for seven years – how can we say that peace has come? We live in a country in which family violence is widespread – how can we say that peace has come? Yet today, on this second Sunday of Advent, that is what we proclaim. Continue reading →

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Reflection: Hope at the End of the World

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Advent One, 29th of November 2020

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

Happy New Year! And to those of you here, in the nave, welcome back to worshipping in the church building after months of lockdown. In previous years it might have been hard for us to experience the beginning of Advent as something ‘new’ because we were doing pretty much the same things at church that we had done the week before, give or take some Advent candles. That is not an issue this year. This year, as we start the new liturgical year, we are also starting a new (or renewed) way of worshipping God: together, not merely in spirit but in actual physical fact, in the church building. 2020 has been the year of learning to appreciate things that we previously took for granted, and being in the same place as other members of the congregation as we worship is one of those things.

Continue reading →

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Reflection: This is what it all comes down to

Posted on November 21, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
22nd of November, 2020

Matthew 25:31-46

Here we are, finally at the end of the church year, and at the story of the Last Judgement towards which we and Matthew have been heading for the past month. Today we are told exactly what distinguished the wise from the foolish bridesmaids; the slave with five talents from the slave with one; what more the one who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ must do to prove themselves a follower of Jesus. Today we hear one of the fundamental texts of Christianity. As we listen to it, we affirm that Christ is the ruler not just of our hearts but of the whole world, and that following the way of Jesus should determine everything we do and say. Continue reading →

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Reflection: Being extremists

Posted on November 14, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
15th of November, 2020

Matthew 25:14-30

Ex-Prime Minister John Howard once said of the story that we hear today, the story most often known as the ‘Parable of the Talents,’ that it is: ‘the “free enterprise parable”. The parable that tells us that we have a responsibility if we are given assets to add to those assets’. This is why we should not ask politicians to do biblical exegesis. On the face of it, Mr Howard’s interpretation seems reasonable. In this story there are three slaves, two of whom double their master’s money and are rewarded, the third of whom merely preserves his master’s money and is condemned. Read simply, it does seem to be a parable about an apparent responsibility to increase wealth. But when we look at the context of the parable, and the details in the story, we discover that Jesus’ message is quite different.

Continue reading →

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Reflection: Being wise, not foolish; wheat, not weeds

Posted on November 7, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
8th of November 2020

Matthew 25:1-13

So, here we are, near the end of the liturgical year and the end of Jesus’ life on earth.  Over these last three Sundays we hear three parables about the coming of the Son of Man that Jesus tells his disciples on the Mount of Olives in his last days. Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel according to Matthew began with the ‘Sermon on the Mount’; now they end with the stories he tells his followers as they gather privately on another mountain. These are parables for the church, for the people who follow Jesus and call him Lord. Continue reading →

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Reflection: As I have so often said, it’s all about love.

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
25th of October, 2020

Matthew 22:34-46

We are (still!) in the series of controversies and arguments between Jesus and his opponents in the Temple on the day following his entrance into Jerusalem. Jesus has told three parables against them; the chief priests and elders have asked Jesus whence comes his authority; the Pharisees and Herodians have asked him about paying taxes to the Emperor; and the Sadducees have asked him about the resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33). (The lectionary for the Year of Matthew skips over that last controversy, and we only hear it in the Year of Luke, which I think is a pity because I love Jesus’ reassurance that the woman in question will not be confronted with seven husbands in the afterlife.) Now we come to the final controversy and, finally, to Jesus turning the tables on his interlocutors and asking them a question. We are getting close to the end of the gospel, to the moment when Jesus’ opponents will move from reasonably civilised controversies in the Temple to betrayal and execution. Continue reading →

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Reflection: When the things of God and the Emperor conflict

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
18th of October 2020

Matthew 22:15-22

After Jesus has told three parables aimed at the leaders of the Jewish people, it is unsurprising that some of those leaders now set a trap for him. What is surprising is the two groups that Matthew tells us are working together: the Pharisees and the Herodians. We know all about the Pharisees, those teachers of the Law who wanted to impose the purity demanded of those involved with the Temple on every member of the Jewish nation. They were among the people most opposed to collaboration with the Roman Empire. On the other hand, the Herodians were those who supported Rome’s puppet king, Herod Antipas. They owed their position to Rome and were collaborators themselves. Yet these two groups are united in their opposition to Jesus, because he challenges both. Continue reading →

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Reflection: What is that ‘wedding robe’ all about?

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
11th of October 2020

Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

We are in the final weeks of the liturgical Year of Matthew and I, for one, am glad. The Gospel according to Matthew is my least favourite of the four canonical gospels. Look at today’s parable. Both Matthew and Luke describe Jesus telling a story about someone giving a banquet who finds their invitations refused. In Luke’s version, Jesus is telling the story at ‘the house of a leader of the Pharisees’. In this version, when those invited refuse to come because of their many cares and distractions, the host tells his slave to ‘go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame’. When these guests do not fill the host’s house, he tells the slave to again ‘go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner’. (Luke 14:15-24) Luke’s story has Jesus showing his usual preference for society’s excluded and outcast over those who thought that they were insiders. And no one in Luke’s version ends up dead. Continue reading →

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