Sermon: Jesus the refugee and the tragedy of Bethlehem

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Avril Hannah-Jones


Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church

Epiphany, January 4 2015

Matthew 2:1-12

For the past month or so the soundtrack of my life has been Christmas carols. I’ve heard them whenever I’ve been shopping; I’ve played them while driving in my car; I’ve thought about them while I’ve been preparing Christmas services; I’ve found myself humming them as I’ve walked; and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I joined in with you in singing them – until halfway through the Christmas morning service when my voice decided that it had had enough. Given my recent visit to the Holy Land, it’s been an interesting experience. Take “The First Nowell”, which we just sang. Singing “in fields where they lay keeping their sheep” instantly takes me back to Beit Sahour, to memories of standing in the Shepherds Fields and looking across to Bethlehem on the hill. It’s lovely. But then the chorus of that carol, “born is the king of Israel,” shocks me out of any carol-induced feelings of Christmas joy, as I remember the modern state of Israel, which does not want a king, and if it did most certainly wouldn’t choose Jesus. What do the modern people of Israel think about Australian Christians blithely singing about a king of Israel at Christmas?Beit Sahour - Shepherd's Fields (2)

Continue reading →

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Sermon: How can we celebrate Advent in a world without Peace

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown
The Second Sunday of Advent, December 7, 2014

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

Advent: a time of thoughtful, yet joyful, preparation. As you’ll remember from last week’s video, (from Busted Halo, thanks!) Advent is a time to slow down, to ponder, to reflect on the astounding eruption of God into our lives. It’s a time to rejoice in God’s love for us, and to put time with God at the top of our agendas.

Well, maybe not. Despite all the wise words from last week’s video, most of us who celebrate Christmas have huge ‘to-do’ lists that involve buying presents, decorating trees and houses, and preparing food. Given all this, even for those of us who really, really do want to do Advent well, it can be more a season of distraction than of focus.

As well as this somewhat trivial contradiction between the thoughtful preparations for the Second Coming that Advent is meant to be, and the frantic preparation for Christmas that this time of year turns into, there’s the more profound contradiction between what we celebrate at Advent and the actual state of the world. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Confronting. Uncompromising. Comforting?

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown
30th of November 2014

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

Happy New Year!

Today, the first Sunday in Advent, the church begins a new liturgical year. I hope you noticed that today we started to read a new gospel; we’re now in the year of Mark, rather than the year of Matthew. We’ve also changed liturgical colours. Today and for two of the following three Sundays, the Sundays of Advent, our liturgical colour is purple. Except on the Third Sunday of Advent, when it’s pink – and unlike the last time I preached a sermon on the first Sunday of Advent, this year I can proudly say that I do have a pink stole which I will be wearing on Gaudete Sunday. As I said last year, the only other time we use purple is in Lent, and this gives us a clue as to what Advent is about. Both Advent and Lent, our purple seasons, are times of preparation.

See Avril's Pink Stole Continue reading →

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Sermon: God is NOT “a harsh man”

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown

16th of November, 2014

Matthew 25:14-30

One of the things that I discovered as I researched today’s parable is that it’s one of John Howard’s favourite Bible passages. Way back in 2007, when he was speaking to the Hillsong Church, the then Prime Minister said: ‘The Parable of the Talents, to me has always been, has always seemed to me to be 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 shouldn’t look to politicians for biblical exegesis. Continue reading →

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We are all Gaza

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Andrew F Dutney's avatarAndrew F Dutney

While I’m very grateful for the experiences of the last couple of weeks, I certainly don’t think I’ve suddenly become an expert on Palestine or the Middle East. In any case, as Sami El Yousef said to us in his briefing on Gaza (and this senior Catholic aid and development worker is referred to constantly as “the expert on Gaza”), “There are no experts. We are surprised every day.” (He did not mean “surprised” in a nice way.)

But although while I’m still mostly baffled and troubled by the situation in Israel and Palestine, I’ve been listening as carefully as I can to what our sisters and brothers in the Palestinian Christian community have been saying to us – about their social and political situation, and especially about their experience of participating in the mission of God in their very conflicted region. Listening, and thinking about what they are teaching…

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Reflection: Very, very initial and tentative thoughts on Palestine and Israel

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

I spent two weeks in Palestine and Israel. They were an amazing, wonderful, challenging, life-changing two weeks, but they were still only two weeks. I’m nervous about saying anything about the situation given how little time I spent in the two countries, or one country and one territory, but I also spoke with many, many Palestinian Christians who asked me to share their situation with my congregation and other Australians and I promised that I would. So here I am sitting in a Spa in Pertisau, Austria, trying to put some thoughts together. Continue reading →

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A Wedding Sermon for Susan and Daniel

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Song of Solomon 2:10-13, 8:6-7
1 John 4:7-10
Matthew 5:1-10

Friends, we have gathered here today to witness and celebrate the marriage of Susan and Daniel, and I am absolutely ecstatic. I was almost tempted to limit this part of the service to me repeating a few times that today is awesome and we’re all very happy, and leaving it at that. But Susan and Daniel have chosen three cracking Bible readings to be read at this service, and I do want to say something, very briefly!, about each of them. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Learning from Jesus

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

  Williamstown Uniting Church
17 of August, 2014

Matthew 15:21-28

A few years’ ago I took my nephew and niece to see a film called To the Arctic at IMAX. The stars of the film were a polar bear mother and her twin seven-month-old cubs who travelled across the huge icebergs together in order to find food and stay alive. At one point, the little family was menaced by a male polar bear. The mother, like many mothers, human and animal, was willing to sacrifice her life for her children. She acted as a decoy to lead the male polar bear away from her cubs. Fortunately, she and the cubs all survived. I suspect that if they hadn’t the movie would have been given a much higher classification.

My nephew was absolutely stunned by this self-sacrifice. That was all he could talk about for the rest of the day, and the first thing he told his parents about when I dropped him home. “The polar bear mother loved her cubs so much that she was willing to die for them!” he said over and over again. His own mother was a little bothered by how impressed my nephew was. After all, as she pointed out to him, as his mother she herself was quite prepared to die to save him, her son, if the situation arose. Come to that, it was extremely likely that his granny and his auntie Avril would also throw themselves between him and an angry male polar bear if necessary. It’s not just polar bear mothers who are willing to die for their young. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Avril talks about “boat people” – again

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church

August 10, 2014; Ordinary 19

From Christmas Island

Matthew 14:22-33

Listening to today’s gospel reading is one of those times when our twenty-first century Australian mindset can create a problem. Most Australians are happy coastal dwellers, much more apprehensive about Australia’s vast inland than about its oceans. In contrast, the people of Ancient Israel did not like the sea. The Book of Revelation actually offers a vision of paradise where the sea will be no more, (Rev 21:1) which isn’t a vision of paradise that works for me. For the people of Israel the sea was traditionally the source of deep and threatening power, a place of danger and terror. So when the disciples, in today’s reading, are in a boat, battered by the waves and far from land, they feel not only the immediate fear caused by their situation, but the primeval fear of chaos and the abyss inherited from their ancestors. Continue reading →

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Sermon: God is not safe

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown

3rd of August, 2014

Genesis 32:22-31

Today’s story from the Hebrew Scriptures is one of my favourites, and Jacob is one of the biblical characters with whom I most empathise. That may seem strange; I hope it seems strange, given the story of Jacob’s life. We’ve heard some of it in the readings in preceding weeks, but we haven’t heard all of it, and it’s a story worth retelling. In fact, in order to understand today’s reading we need to know this story. So, here are some edited highlights from the life of Jacob, son of Isaac.

Isaac’s wife Rebekah was barren, until Isaac prayed for her and God granted his prayer. Rebekah conceived not one baby, but two, and the twins struggled in her womb until she asked: “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” The Lord answered her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” When the two children were born, the younger came out gripping his brother’s heel, so they called him Jacob, which means “He takes by the heel” or “He supplants”. Jacob was a trickster and a troublemaker from his conception. Continue reading →

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