Tag Archives: Advent
Sermon: Joy Sunday
Today, I am not suggesting that those of us who struggle to find the joy in Christmas should pretend that everything in our lives is perfect. I suspect that our lives would be better were we able to say honestly that Christmas is a difficult time for us. Continue reading
Sermon: Peace Sunday
I suspect that the people of Israel heard this prophecy as true for the same reason that we are hearing it in church two thousand years after the birth of the one we Christians believe is the Messiah. Prophecies of the peaceable kingdom speak to our deepest longings. They describe what we believe, in the core of our hearts and our guts, God’s good creation should be. 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
Sermon: The faith and generosity of Hannah
Both Hannah’s and Mary’s songs are deeply political songs about the way God wants the world to be; a world in which the hungry are ‘filled with good things’ (Luke 1:53), in fact the ‘hungry are fat with spoil’ (1 Samuel 2:5); a world in which God lifts the needy from the ash heap to sit with princes (1 Samuel 2:8) while the proud are brought down from their thrones. (Luke 1:52) Both Hannah and Mary sing of a world overturned. Continue reading
Reflection: Rejoice!
One hundred and six years earlier Charles Dickens wrote of the reborn Scrooge, who had become ‘as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew,’ that ‘it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge’. Keeping Christmas well does not just mean rejoicing ourselves, as the prophet Isaiah reminds us. Continue reading
Reflection: Called to make peace
Perhaps this year, 2020, is the year when comfortable middle-class Australians like me are most aware that the grass withers and the flowers fade and that we, human beings, are grass. 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: Love Sunday
In Jesus’ birth, as in Jesus’ death and resurrection, God is defeating death and hopelessness. Continue reading
Sermon: Joy Sunday
God is not well-behaved! Continue reading
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