Tag Archives: forgiveness
Sermon: The Ten Words
And if we struggle to believe that in God’s sight we are ‘precious and lovely’, then be assured: the day will come when ‘we shall really understand what [God] means in these sweet words where he says, “All shall be well, and you shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well.”’ Continue reading
Sermon: No peace without forgiveness
But, as always when I preach about forgiveness, I want to warn about forgiveness that is offered too easily. We know only too well that throughout history the church has demanded that victims forgive their abusers, even if those abusers continue to abuse. Continue reading
Sermon: Social and Physical Health
This is one reason that I think Reverend Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre is such a bad clergyperson. How could he possibly have read the gospels and concluded that caring for people’s bodies would starve their immortal souls? How could he ignore the many examples of Jesus feeding the hungry and healing physical illness by fabricating a Bible verse, ‘if ye suffer hunger or thirst for my sake, happy are ye’? God created us as embodied beings; of course God cares about our bodies! Continue reading
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
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