Sermon: Healed to ‘deacon’

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Avril Hannah-Jones

This week I’m cheating. In the past five days I’ve conducted three funerals and I’m tired. So this Sunday’s sermon is a recycled one. I’ve made a few minor changes to the sermon I first preached, but basically this is what I said in Romsey and Lancefield six years’ ago. Fortunately, reading it over, I find that I’m still in agreement with myself. 

Sermon for Williamstown

8th of February 2015

Rembrandt 1660 Healing of Mother-in-Law

Mark 1:29-39

Together, the gospel readings from today and last Sunday describe a complete day in the life of Jesus. If you remember, last Sunday’s reading had Jesus going to the synagogue at Capernaum on the Sabbath and teaching with authority. Then he was confronted by a man possessed, and he rebuked the demon and healed the man. Today, we hear what happened next. In Mark’s story of a day in the life of Jesus we are shown more of who Jesus is and learn more about his mission from God. We, Mark’s readers, know that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, because Mark has already told us. But the people around Jesus don’t yet know who he is, and Mark shows us their reaction to this astounding person who teaches with authority, commands the unclean spirits, and heals the sick. As we’ll see, some of these responses are models for us to follow. Some are warnings of what to avoid. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Sermon: Overcoming demonic powers

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown
Epiphany 4, 1st of February, 2015

Mark 1:21-28

Mark’s gospel is in many ways the strangest of the four canonical gospels. It’s probably the earliest; it’s definitely the shortest. It starts without any sort of birth story for Jesus; and it ends without any post-resurrection appearance. The last words of the original ending of the gospel are: ‘So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid’. (Mark 16:8) Where is the gospel, the good news, in this?

Everything in Mark happens ‘immediately’, or ‘at once’. Jesus, the disciples, and we readers race though the gospel, scarcely pausing for breath. Here we are, four weeks into ordinary time, still within the very first chapter, and already John has appeared in the wilderness baptising; Jesus has been baptised; then driven into the wilderness and tempted; has proclaimed the coming of the kingdom at Galilee; and has called his first disciples. All that in 20 verses. Now, in today’s reading, we get the beginning of what seems to be a typical, paradigmatic day of ministry for Jesus, a day of teaching and healing. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sermon: In which the Prophet Jonah pouts like a three-year-old

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown

Epiphany 3, 25th of January, 2015

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Today the lectionary gives us what I think is the only reading from the Book of Jonah that we get in the entire three year cycle. The Book of Jonah is so awesome, and so hilarious, that although we’re only given six verses in the lectionary, I’m going to take you through the entire book. So, sit back and relax.

It begins when God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and prophesy against it because of its great wickedness. Like many people called by God, Jonah is less than enthusiastic. As I said last week when we were talking about Samuel: Moses reminded God that he was a stammerer; Jeremiah said that he was only a boy; very few people called by God have Elijah’s ‘here I am, Lord, send me’ response. Unlike Moses and Jeremiah, Jonah doesn’t actually argue with God. He simply takes off in the other direction. God wants Jonah to go to Ninevah in the East; Jonah flees to Tarshish, the furthest known point in the West; for Hebrews the far end of the world. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sermon: Should the Uniting Church become Eli?

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown
The second Sunday of Epiphany, 18th of January 2015

1 Samuel 3:1-10

Eli and Samuel

Today’s lectionary readings give us two stories of God calling people. I want to focus on the story of Samuel’s call, because it’s a surprising one when compared with the other call narratives in the Hebrew Scriptures. You may remember me telling you in other sermons that in the Hebrew Scriptures, when God called someone the person so called, whether Moses, Gideon, Isaiah or Jeremiah, was less than thrilled. Jonah, whose story we’ll hear next week, responded to his call by running as far as he could in the opposite direction. Few people in the Hebrew Scriptures who are called by God seem to rejoice at their call; they instead seem do their absolute best to get out of it. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Competing Claims for Justice: Sexuality and Race at the Eighth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, 1997

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Avril Hannah-Jones

It’s now been almost 18 years since the Uniting Church in Australia’s ‘Assembly of Tears’ – the Eighth National Assembly, held in Perth. This July, the Uniting Church Assembly will return to Perth.

At the last National Assembly, in Adelaide in 2012, I realised that there were some members of the Assembly who were too young to remember that 1997 Assembly, and who had only the vaguest idea of the history of the sexuality debate in the Uniting Church. (Of course, there are people who have been members of the Uniting Church since its inception in 1977 who have only the vaguest idea of the history of the sexuality debate in the Uniting Church!) After the 2012 Assembly I made copies of my PhD thesis, Divided We Stand: The Sexuality Debate in the Uniting Church in Australia, 1977-2000 available. As we start preparing for the next Assembly to be held in Perth, it seems the right time to share the article that I wrote specifically about the previous Perth Assembly.

Shayne Blackman, National Administrator of the UAICC and John Mavor, President of the UCA.

Shayne Blackman, National Administrator of the UAICC and John Mavor, President of the UCA.

Basically, I wrote this article as a way of working through my own pain and anger at what happened in 1997. But the fact that it was published in a peer-reviewed journal shows, I hope, that it is also a conscientious piece of historical writing. And so I offer it to anyone interested in sexuality and the Uniting Church.

Continue reading →

Posted in Academic Article, Reflection | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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 →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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…

View original post 479 more words

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment