Tag Archives: Advent 1
Sermon: Stand up and raise your heads, justice and righteousness will come.
Every year people like me moan and complain that the outside world has started preparing for Christmas too early. The Council puts up decorations, the shops start trying to sell us things, butchers and fishmongers tell us to order now for Christmas feasts, and all this before December had even started. Rather than being quite so Scrooge-like, grumpy people like me should perhaps look at the time and effort the secular world puts into preparing for Christmas, and put the same time and effort into preparing for the Parousia. That is, after all, what today’s Bible readings advise. Continue reading
Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church Advent One, 3rd of December 2023 Isaiah 64:1-9 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:24-37 Happy New Year! Today, the first Sunday of Advent, the church is beginning both a new church year and a time … Continue reading
Sermon: Jesus’ female ancestors
I lived through a ‘think of the children’ scare campaign as a young gay woman; I do not appreciate politicians, political candidates, and neo-Nazis replaying it with trans people today. Continue reading
Sermon: Hope in a time of pandemic
As we realise our vulnerability, we are offered reassurance. When we are tempted to despair, we are given hope. Continue reading
Reflection: Hope at the End of the World
Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting ChurchAdvent One, 29th of November 2020 Isaiah 64:1-9Mark 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 … Continue reading
Sermon: Hope Sunday
The creation story speaks of light and order and life not because it is ignoring the reality of darkness and chaos and death but in response to it. Continue reading
Sermon: Confronting. Uncompromising. Comforting?
The coming of the Lord sounds terrifying for both the Lord’s adversaries and for the Lord’s faithful people. If this is what the coming of the Lord, the focus of Advent, is like, is it really something to look forward to? Continue reading
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