Tag Archives: Hope
Sermon: Crazy brave hope
It could be argued that Australia as we know it, and our presence here today, is at least partly a result of the biblical narratives of the Exodus and the Babylonian Exile; that, like modern Israel and modern Palestine, modern Australia is a product of the Hebrew Scriptures. Continue reading
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
Sermon: Street marches
Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church Palm Sunday, 24th of March 2023 Psalm 118:1-2 19-29 Mark 11:1-11 After hearing today’s gospel story, of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem the week before his death, I am a little surprised that the Roman powers … 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: It’s not the Rapture
I have wondered whether it makes sense to preach hope and a God of love in such a world. But then I remember that the world has always been like this, and that the church not merely can but must preach hope and a God of love through every crisis. Continue reading
Sermon: Death and Life
The funeral service used to contain the reminder that ‘in the midst of life we are in death,’ which apparently comes from a battle song by tenth-century monk Notker the Stammerer and, while that might strike our twenty-first-century ears as morbid, it is simply a fact. If we accept that, today’s reading can offer us comfort. Continue reading
Sermon: The Peaceable Kingdom
How can we look at everything that is happening around us, the homes and livelihoods destroyed by what is usually God’s good gift of water, the thousands of people who have died of covid19 in Australia and the millions who have died around the world, and say that God cares about creation? The author that we know as ‘Third’ Isaiah, from whom today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures comes, had the same challenge. The description of God’s holy mountain as a place where all creation is renewed seems completely unrealistic. But there was nothing fanciful in what Isaiah was doing. Continue reading
Sermon: God’s priorities, according to the Prophet Jeremiah
It would take a great deal of faith to hold on to that hope while sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem, or while in exile in Babylon, just as much faith as it takes us to hold on to the hope of God’s justice when we look at the world around us. It is much easier to hold on to this hope in community than to try to do it alone and here in Australia, despite anything politicians or the media might say, we do have the great privilege of being able to meet together for worship and to share the words of God with each other. So let us encourage each other in our persistence, as we pray without losing heart. Amen. 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: Life and death and Lazarus
It is a story about death and darkness and mourning; about life and light and rejoicing; and so it is an almost uncannily suitable story for us to hear during this pandemic, as the world faces the prospect of thousands upon thousands of deaths from COVID19. Continue reading
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