Tag Archives: Year of Mark
Sermon: Success and Failure
We may think that we can only be sure that God is with us if we are growing greater and greater, like David. But the gospel according to Mark tells us that God is with us even if people take offence at us and we can do no deeds of power. 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
Reflection: Chaos and Creation
As Australians watching, we need to celebrate those striving for justice and condemn those fighting to overturn a democratic election. And we need to ensure that in our own country, we do the same; that as part of the Australian community we are on the side of love and justice. Because that is the side of God. Continue reading
Sermon: Aren’t there times when you just want to punch Hitler?
I can remember the shock and fear I felt watching an ABC documentary that screened in 2000, so well within my adult life, about the bashing of gay men in Townsville. One young man said, ‘I’m a Catholic. It’s meant to be a woman with a man, not a man with a man. That’s sick. That’s hitting material’. Continue reading
Sermon: Scarcity, Abundance, and ‘Enoughness’
We are not God, we are not called to be God, and so just as we are, we are good enough, perfect enough, powerful enough, strong enough, extraordinary enough. Continue reading
Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, has many symbolic and spiritual meanings, but it is also always about feeding the world’s hungry. Continue reading
Sermon: So, you want to have a king …
In the same way that we can be certain that the author of Samuel was wrong to attribute a desire for genocide to God, we can be certain that there are things that we believe about God today that will later be revealed to be wrong – because we are human and, as the Apostle Paul wrote, we currently only ‘see in a mirror, dimly’. Continue reading
Sermon: Jesus (mis)reads the scriptures
The Pharisees are shocked at Jesus’ apparently cavalier attitude to the laws governing the Sabbath. Modern Christians are shocked at Jesus’ apparently cavalier attitude to biblical interpretation. Continue reading
Sermon: Clericalism is wrong
The proposed legal change is a sign that the world is changing, and it seems that Australian society will no longer allow churches to be treated differently from other institutions. And that’s good! Continue reading
Sermon: Love and Solidarity
In Jesus God is acting in solidarity with humanity, and so be watching what Jesus does we can see what we are called to do; what it means to be human beings living in relationship with God. Continue reading
