On Tuesday I attended the funeral of the last of my grandparents, my paternal grandmother, Nancy Evelyn Jones (known as Evelyn, never Nancy). She was 95 years old and we had a conversation last year in which she told me that she was ready to die, so her death was the opposite of untimely. It was expected; wanted, even. So I’ve been surprised at how much it has affected me.
Paul Walton has preached a wonderful ANZAC sermon. So many of us struggle with honouring those who fought and those who lost loved ones without in any way glorifying wars.
Readings
1 John 3.16–24
John 10.11–18
I hate militarism. I loathe nationalism. But I honour those who serve.
Sam Neill
How do we speak on a day like this? At this very time one hundred years ago, the Anzac forces—and, let’s face it, the Turkish soldiers too—were going through hell.
Soon we’ll sing the 23rd Psalm; some of the Anzacs will have been reminding themselves of the words of that psalm. Later we’ll say the Lord’s Prayer; many will have been saying that prayer too. They must have been praying above all for it to stop, so they could go home to their sweethearts and wives. After all it was General Douglas MacArthur who said:
The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
We know of course that these scars are not just obvious…
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Williamstown Uniting Church – Electra St
April 18, 2015 – ANZAC Day Service
You’ll notice on the Order of Service for today that this is a ‘reflection’, rather than a ‘sermon’. And it’s going to be a very short reflection, because in this centenary year of the landing at Gallipoli I think that ministers like me have to be very, very careful about what we say. Continue reading
I have twelve bookcases in my two-bedroom flat. I live surrounded by several thousand books – and as long I don’t leave a lighted candle too close to any of them this isn’t a problem.
But I also live surrounded by piles of books that haven’t made it into bookcases – because I’ve bought them or been given them, and haven’t yet read them. And that’s more of a problem.
Wonderful, fabulous books, that I want to read, but never get round to, because I am constantly adding to their number. There are over 100 of them at most recent count.
This must stop! Continue reading
Sermon for Williamstown
Easter Sunday, 5th of April, 2015
Mark 16:1-8
Did you feel there was something missing in today’s gospel reading? Were you expecting the reader to read a little further on? Surely the story can’t end with: “So the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” It’s no great shout of joy and triumph. The other gospels all end with tales of meetings between the risen Jesus and the disciples: the great commissioning on the mountain in the gospel according to Matthew; the meeting on the road to Emmaus in the gospel according to Luke; the miraculous catch of fish and breakfast on the beach in the gospel according to John. I imagine that in the back of all our minds we think of Jesus’ resurrection as including all those things, in the same way that we imagine both shepherds and magi at his birth. The Gospel according to Mark, however, doesn’t tell us of any such meetings. This abrupt conclusion has been such a problem for the church that scribes later added two further endings to the gospel: and they’re in most versions of the Bible: called the shorter ending and the longer ending of Mark. But they aren’t the way Mark originally ended his gospel, and we need to ask why. Why does the gospel according to Mark end with a whimper rather than a bang? Continue reading
Sermon for Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Williamstown
Palm Sunday Combined Service, 29th of March 2015
Mark 11:1-11
I can remember when Palm Sunday first began to mean something to me. It was in the late nineties, and I was in my mid-twenties. I grew up in the church, so by then I would have celebrated fifteen to twenty Palm Sundays, and I had undoubtedly enjoyed walking in processions and waving palms, but Palm Sunday hadn’t struck me as important. For one thing, it was the last Sunday before Easter, and so it seemed insignificant in comparison.
But one Palm Sunday the Reverend Professor Doug Fullerton, now seven years’ dead, preached a sermon that changed everything for me.
Williamstown Uniting Church
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent
8th of March, 2015
John 2:13-22
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
‘God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’ In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul contrasts human wisdom and divine foolishness. Paul, of course, is not suggesting that there’s no room for our intellect in our faith. After all, Jesus tells us to love God with all our mind, as well as with all our heart, soul and strength. (Mark 12:30) What Paul is writing about is the difference between living a life of human wisdom, a safe, careful and prosperous life; and a life of divine foolishness, a dangerous life ultimately based on a scandalous, degrading and cruel execution. Continue reading
Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
1st of March, 2015
Mark 8:31-38
Today’s reading comes from a pivotal moment in the Gospel of Mark. Brendan Byrne, who taught me the Gospel of Mark, says that there are three stories in the gospel. Story One asks the question who Jesus is. We know, because we’ve read the opening line of the gospel: ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ But the disciples and the crowds don’t, and through the first half of the gospel they are asking who this person with power and authority could be. The answer is that he’s the Messiah. Story Two then asks what sort of Messiah Jesus will be. The second half of the gospel shows Jesus teaching his disciples that as Messiah he must suffer, be rejected, be put to death, and on the third day rise again. For the disciples this second story, about suffering and death, conflicts with the first. The two stories clash on the cross, when Jesus is taunted by the crowds who call: ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ These two apparently contradictory stories are resolved in the third story, which sees Jesus, the crucified messiah, as the Son of Man who returns in glory. Continue reading
Sermon for Williamstown
The First Sunday of Lent, 22nd of February 2015
Genesis 9:8-17
Mark 1:9-15
I’ve mentioned before that the Gospel according to Mark is a short, quick, intense gospel. Today this is a huge benefit for us, because in six verses Mark gives us Jesus’ baptism; his temptation in the wilderness; and the beginning of his ministry; one after another; bam, bam, bam. And this is wonderful, because the three, baptism, temptation, ministry, go together – for us as well as for Jesus. We should thank the author of the Gospel of Mark for never taking a breath. Continue reading
This is another recycled sermon. I decided to reuse it partly because in the week before I preached it I’d had a funeral that took a lot of physical, emotional and spiritual energy; partly because it’s a sermon that I find I actually quite like when rereading it; and partly because when I preached it I was absolutely in the valley and I needed to be reminded that while there’s more to life than valleys, they are themselves a normal part of life.
Sermon for Williamstown
Transfiguration, 15th of February 2015
2 Kings 2:1-12; Mark 9:2-9
Today we celebrate the Transfiguration, the revelation of God in Jesus. It is, literally, a mountaintop experience, in which the separation of earth from heaven is overcome by the presence of Jesus. We know that we’re on the border of heaven because we’re on a mountain, the traditional site of revelations of God; because Jesus’ clothes have become dazzling white, the colour of light itself; and because Elijah and Moses, representing the prophets and the law, are present. God spoke to both Elijah and Moses on a mountain (Exodus 24:17, 1 Kings 19:11-13); their presence here confirms for Peter, James and John that on this mountain they’re seeing God. Moses had to veil his face after speaking to God, but in Jesus the veil that normally hides God from human sight has been removed. Today we celebrate that theophany, that revelation of God, standing with Peter, James and John on the mountaintop.
But I’ve preached on Transfiguration’s amazing theophany for the past two years, and so today I want to focus instead on the valleys. Because there are no mountains without valleys; there are no mountain-top experiences without hard times. Continue reading
Rev Doc Geek 