Tag Archives: healing
Sermon: Proclaiming the good news
The church is meant to be a place in which differences are respected and divisions are healed, because greater than all that divides us is the gospel. The relationship between Christians is meant to be a sign to the world of the reconciliation that Christ brought. To both Jews and Gentiles, weak and strong, Paul promotes a freedom that enables people to identify with their opponents. Continue reading
Sermon: Trauma and Liberation
It makes sense to me that symptoms that the medieval church saw as evidence of witchcraft and demonic possession: eating disorders; uncontrollable emotional outbursts; the inability to behave ‘properly’ as one’s community expects, were the result of trauma. I am sure those who were accused of witchcraft or demonic possession had experienced a lot of trauma before those accusations were first made. 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
Reflection: Gender Equality in Jesus’ healings
You may have noticed my tendency to talk about the way that Jesus treated women, the way he welcomed them as equals in a patriarchal society. That is not just because gender equality is a personal obsession of mine; it is because this equality is a characteristic of the new community that Jesus created, the body of Christ. Continue reading
Sermon: Putting one foot in front of the other
Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church 7th of February 2021 Isaiah 40:21-31 Psalm 147 Mark 1:29-39 We woke up on Thursday morning to a new case of community transmission in Victoria. The covid19 journey is truly a wild rollercoaster of … Continue reading
Sermon: It’s more than just a miracle
Sermon for Williamstown The Second Sunday after Pentecost June 2, 2013 Luke 7:1-10 On first hearing, today’s story from the Gospel according to Luke sounds simple. Someone is sick, to the point that he’s about to die, and Jesus, the … Continue reading
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