Sermon: Complaining to God; doing justice

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
2nd of November 2025

Habakkuk 1:1–4; 2:1–4
Luke 19:1-10

‘Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.’

Today we hear our only reading from the Book of Habakkuk in the entire Revised Common Lectionary, and we only hear today’s reading because of its very last words: ‘the righteous shall live by faith’. If that sounds familiar to you, it is because the Apostle Paul quoted it to the church in Rome to argue that Gentile Christians had been saved by faith and not by following the Jewish Law. (Romans 1:16-17) But when Paul quoted Habakkuk to make that point, he was doing what he so often did; he was proof-texting, wrenching a Bible verse out of its original context. What is the original context? Continue reading →

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Sermon: Do not choose trauma

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church

12th of October 2025

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

This week I received a fundraising circular from Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders. It began by saying, ‘Trauma doesn’t end when a crisis is over.’ This is undoubtedly true. People do not recover from war or disaster overnight. But how long does trauma last? Generations? Centuries? Millennia? Throughout this series on the prophecies of Jeremiah, I have been discussing the Book of Jeremiah as ‘trauma literature’, a way in which a traumatised community comes to terms with the loss of its political and religious institutions, territorial integrity, and unquestioned national identity. But how long is the community to remain traumatised? Will a time come when trauma and loss will not be central to their identity? Continue reading →

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Sermon: No one deserves this

Posted on October 5, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church

5th of October, 2025

Content Warning: This Reflection talks about situations of exile, sexual assault, siege, starvation, and death.

Lamentations 1:1-6

The Kingdom of Judah has fallen. Its capital, Jerusalem, has been destroyed. Like its sister-nation, Israel, it is being punished for its sins. It will never again be an independent nation. While Israel was punished for trampling on the needy, and bringing to ruin the poor of the land, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat (Amos 8:1-12), for sacrificing to the Baals and offering incense to idols (Hosea 11:1-11); Judah is being punished for not ceasing to do evil, learning to do good; seeking justice, rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan, pleading for the widow. (Isaiah 1:1, 10-20) The prophets warned the people of Judah what was to come, and they failed to heed the warnings. They have brought this destruction on themselves. ‘How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.’ Continue reading →

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Sermon: Crazy brave hope

Posted on September 28, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
28th of September, 2025

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Finally, finally, at long last, the Prophet Jeremiah is offering us a word of hope: ‘For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.’ It has only taken six weeks of lectionary readings, but here we are, in a time of peace and prosperity, at least for those who can afford to buy houses and fields and vineyards. Continue reading →

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Sermon: “Stop all the clocks …”

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
14th of September, 2025

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Have any of you read Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series? If not, I highly recommend them. The books follow Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim, who live in a luxury retirement community and use their long life experience to solve mysteries. The latest book, The Last Devil to Die, is the saddest – spoiler alert – because in it Stephen, the husband of Elizabeth, dies after living with worsening dementia through the previous three books. Stephen is such a lovely character, and Elizabeth is shown as loving him so much that I got a wee bit weepy at his death, despite him being imaginary.

Richard Osman gives us a moment when Elizabeth is on her way to Stephen’s funeral that describes one of the common experiences of grief:

Elizabeth looked out of the window of the car at one point, and saw a mother pick up a soft toy her child had dropped out of its pram. Elizabeth almost burst into laughter, that life was daring to continue. Didn’t they know? Hadn’t they heard? Everything has changed, everything. And yet nothing has changed. Nothing. The day carries on as it would. An old man at a traffic light takes off his hat as the hearse passes, but, other than that, the high street is the same. How can these two realities possibly coexist?[1]

Continue reading →

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Resolution on non-violent anti-genocide action

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

At the eighteenth meeting of the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Rev. Alex Sangster and I presented a proposal condemning antisemitic acts in Australia, while pointing out that protesting genocide is not antisemitic and encouraging members of the Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania to do so. The proposal was passed without amendment. This is the text of that proposal, the rationale for it, and the words of the speech I made presenting it.

Non-Violent Anti-Genocide Action

The Synod resolved:

Noting that groups including Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Defence for Children International, International Federation for Human Rights, Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have all described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide:

  1. To condemn antisemitic acts against the Jewish community in Australia, including the arson attacks on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea and the City Shul in Melbourne;
  2. To condemn the mischaracterisation of non-violent anti-genocide action as antisemitic;
  3. To encourage Uniting Church members in Victoria and Tasmania to engage in non-violent anti-genocide action, and
  4. To write to the Prime Minister, the federal Leader of the Opposition, and the Premiers and Leaders of the Opposition in Victoria and Tasmania, informing them of this resolution.

Continue reading →

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Sermon: The jeremiads of Jeremiah

Posted on August 24, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
24th of August, 2025

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Over the past few weeks, we have been hearing from a series of Jewish prophets as they have watched the destruction of the nations of Israel and Judah. First, we heard from the prophets Amos and Hosea, who warned the northern kingdom of Israel that the Assyrians were coming to destroy it. The prophets were right: Israel fell to the Assyrians around 720 BCE, and the Assyrians sent some of the Israelite population into exile, and settled others from the Assyrian Empire into the land where they intermarried with the remnant. Their descendants became the Samaritans. Then we heard prophecies from Isaiah of Jerusalem, made after the fall of Israel, about the dangers facing the southern kingdom of Judah. At the very end of First Isaiah’s career, in 701 BCE, Assyria invaded Judah, causing widespread destruction, leaving only the city of Jerusalem intact. Continue reading →

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Sermon: My great-grandfather’s “true Jewishness”

Posted on August 10, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
10th of August, 2025

Isaiah 1:1 10-20

I have mentioned before that part of my heritage is Jewish; that when I recently took a genetic test I found that I am made up of Scottish, English, and Ashkenazi genes. What I do not think that I have said before is that as a Christian I am committed to imitating the Judaism that is one branch of my multifaith family tree. In about 1935, my great-grandfather, Ernest Jones, wrote of his religion:

There is only one true Jewishness which would have been approved by the prophets of old. You may observe a hundred ceremonies and yet, in the prophets’ sense, you may show no Jewishness. For them, there was only one true Jewishness, a righteous and holy life, a love of God which forbids every shady impulse and impels to all honourable and loving deeds. That was, and that still is, the true Jewishness. Other sorts are cheap and spurious.

I wonder if Ernest had been reading the prophecies of Isaiah when he wrote that. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Collective responsibility, if not collective punishment

Posted on August 3, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, 3rd of August 2025

Hosea 11:1-11

A few weeks ago, the lectionary gave us part of the Book of Amos, in which Amos revealed that God had determined to end his people, Israel, because of the oppression of the poor by the rich. I said then that the God Amos spoke for seemed to be a frightening God, willing to destroy the whole nation, both rich and poor, for the crimes of the rich against the poor. What Amos foresaw eventually came true; half a century after Amos spoke, the Assyrian Empire invaded Israel, took many of its people into exile, and settled others from the Empire into the land where they intermarried with the remnant left behind. Today, we hear from the Prophet Hosea, whose prophetic ministry follows that of Amos, and who warns of the same forthcoming catastrophe. Unlike Amos, Hosea is a native of the northern kingdom. This does not mean that his prophecies are any kinder to it. Hosea is still certain that Israel is going to fall, that God will sow destruction for Israel without pity, because Israel no longer belongs to God. (Hosea 1:2-10) That, at least, is the message of most of the Book of Hosea. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Give Gazans their necessary bread!

Posted on July 27, 2025 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, 27th of July 2025

Luke 11:1-13

The prayer that we call the Lord’s is the most important and familiar prayer of the Christian faith. We use it here every week; many Christians pray it every day; and from the earliest centuries, the entire church through time and space has prayed the version in the Gospel according to Matthew. We Protestants add a doxology or words of praise to the end of that biblical prayer: ‘For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen.’ If you have ever said the Lord’s Prayer in a Catholic church, you will undoubtedly have found yourself still praying when the rest of the congregation is silent. Continue reading →

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