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Tag Archives: Julian of Norwich
Sermon: Advice from Julian of Norwich
I have been struggling so much with the evil of the world over the past six months. It is always possible to find things in the world that seem to challenge any faith we might have in a good God, but there have been times over the past few months when I have had to turn off the television news because what is happening around the world and in Australia has so enraged me that I have felt physically sick. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged Mothers' Day, Easter 7, anger, Julian of Norwich, God's Universalism, Farewell Discourse, John 17:6-19, universal salvation, Judas
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Sermon: Being whole and seeing wholeness
We are not saints, and the world’s light and dark call forth in us now our light, now our dark. We struggle to see the wholeness of God’s love behind the fragments of the world that confront us. Sometimes the world shatters us into fragments. But the prophets, and the apostles, and the saints, and the mystics, and Jesus himself, speak with one voice and tell us that God created the universe out of love, and so the world is holy, even if we struggle to see it that way. And God created us out of that same love, and so we are holy, too, even if we struggle to see ourselves that way. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Sermons
Tagged bronze serpent, crucifixion, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ephesians 2:1-10, Frederick Buechner, John 3:14-21, Julian of Norwich, love, Moses, Year of Mark
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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
Posted in Sermons
Tagged C. S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Exodus 20:1-20, forgiveness, Freedom, Julian of Norwich, Lent, Lent 3, Psalm 19, sin, Ten Commandments, Walter Brueggemann, Year of Mark
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Reflection for Mothers Day
On this day when some of us are mourning the loving mothers we once had who have died, others are regretting the mothers who were unable to love us as they should, and yet others are grieving their own inability to become parents, it may comfort us to remember that in Jesus we have a Mother who is always with us and who will always love us. So on this Mothers’ Day let us celebrate and give thanks for the God who is our Mother as well as our Father. Amen. Continue reading
Posted in Reflection
Tagged God as Mother, images of God, Jesus as Mother, Julian of Norwich, love, motherhood, Mothers' Day
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Sermon: “All shall be well”
As we lament over the pain of the world, and pray for its healing, as well as doing our own small part towards caring for the vulnerable, we can hold on to the reassurance offered to us by a fourteenth-century mystic. Because we know that at the core of the universe is love, we believe that ‘all will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well’. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged Abraham, comfort, Genesis 15:1-18, Julian of Norwich, Lent, Lent 2, love, Luke 13:31-35, Year of Luke
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Sermon: In which Avril rabbits on about love yet again, because it IS all about love
And if God is love, as our faith tells us God is, then even our smallest loving actions will contribute to filling the universe with love and so with God. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
Tagged 1 John 5:1-6, Desert Fathers, First Letter of John, friendship, Gospel according to John, John 15:9-17, Julian of Norwich, love
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Sermon: God’s motherly love
In times of difficulty, post-Royal Commission, during congregational change, grieving the Christchurch massacre, as we walk with Jesus on the road to his death during Lent, we can rely on the God who loves us as a mother and protects us as a hen protects her chicks Continue reading