Tag Archives: forgiveness
Sermon: Forgiveness and Repentance
we cannot expect to remain the same when we joyfully climb down that sycamore tree. As we examine our lives, we may find ourselves relinquishing half of what we have, and doing four times as much right as we have previously done wrong Continue reading
Sermon: What is Jesus saying? (We don’t know!)
No one has any idea what today’s parable, the parable of the unjust steward, is about. The Church Fathers ignored it; renowned contemporary commentators have declared it to be incomprehensible; and people have suggested that the author of the Gospel according to Luke himself had no idea of its meaning, and so just added a series of morals to the end of the story in the hope that they would make sense of it. Continue reading
Sermon: Thank goodness! We’re back to love!!!
Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church 11th of September 2022 Luke 15:1-10 Oh, thank goodness! After weeks of hard sayings from Jesus, during which preachers must remind congregations that Jesus is journeying to his death and so is understandably short … Continue reading
Sermon: Thank goodness for Peter
There is a lovely line in a poem called A Vision of Piers Plowman, written in about 1400 by a man called William Langland: ‘And all the wickedness in this world that man might work or think/Is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal in the sea.’ That is what this epilogue to the Gospel according to John tells us; no human crime, sin or failing can outweigh the graciousness of God. Continue reading
Sermon: Two brothers
We often fail to live as the people God creates us to be, and then we repent that, but that doesn’t mean that we need to try to earn our Father’s forgiveness. As this parable shows us, all we need to do is come to ourselves in whichever far country we have exiled ourselves, and return home. The Father will come running to welcome us. Continue reading
Sermon: Do as you would be done by? Not necessarily
A world in which people of every faith and of none treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves would undoubtedly be an improvement on the world as it is. But that is not what Jesus is asking of us. Instead, Jesus tells his followers to treat others as they have not treated us Continue reading
Sermon: It’s all about love (I know, I know; I keep saying that. But it is!)
‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them,’ (1 John 4:16) writes the Elder, summing up in one sentence what I try to say ever single week. Continue reading
Sermon: Forgiveness
That’s the bedrock conviction of the Christian faith. There are no unforgiveable sins. There are no unforgiveable people. Continue reading
Sermon: Why I disagree with Israel Folau
It is only when we accept that God’s love is for us and for everyone that the news of the empty tomb becomes for us not simply an idle tale but the beginning of new life. Continue reading
Sermon: Forgiveness, not sacrifice
Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church ANZAC Service – 22nd of April, 2018 Have any of you seen the recent film Good-Bye Christopher Robin? It flashes forwards and backwards between the two World Wars and the period between them. It begins … Continue reading
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