Some Recent Sermons
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Hi all,
If you’d like to stay up to date with recent sermons, you can read them over on the Forest Kirk Uniting Church’s website. Updated (basically) weekly.
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The Sounds of Christ's Passion (Good Friday reflections)
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Six short Good Friday reflections on the sounds that punctuate Christ's Passion (based on John 18 and 19).
1) The sound of a voice shot through with eternity
2) The sound of a new day sung into being
3) The sound of the first ‘Barabbas’
4) The sound of no response
5) The sound of new body
6) The sound of an attended body
Read MoreA Neighbourhood of Memory (a reflection for Maundy Thursday)
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The mighty acts of God lead us not to haughtiness but humility, not grandiosity but generosity, not isolation but interconnectedness. The mighty acts of God – however accurately they might be characterised as a rescue – do not pull us out of the community, out of neighbourhoods, out of humanity but draw us in gratitude, enmesh us is in reliance, and ground us in love. Remembering the mighty acts of God’s liberating salvation told stirringly across the gamut of Scripture open our hearts and homes to one another, they make of us neighbours. The gifts of God cannot be hoarded, cannot be tucked away for safekeeping, they pour out and are shared or they are burned up at dawn.
Read MoreThe Trinity and the End
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This is the third in a series on The Trinity and the Christian Life. Exploring how thinking and speaking of God as Triune impacts the way we approach central aspects of the Christian life. In this post, The End.
Read MoreWhile employing a range of visual imagery and literary form, our readings share similarities in the overarching nature of the end they await. Each, in their way, stresses the intimacy and fullness with which we will be swept up in the life of God. Whether it is resting in the very house of God, living in a city in which God is its light, temple, and fellow resident who we will see face-to-face, or the promise that God will in some way be fully in all things – all these texts point to an intimate experience with the full, unveiled Triune God. They point to life with (even in) God.
The Trinity and Mission
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This is the second in a series on The Trinity and the Christian Life. Exploring how thinking and speaking of God as Triune impacts the way we approach central aspects of the Christian life. In this post, Mission.
Read MoreRevelation reflects God’s missionary nature - it has a purposive and reconciling quality - revealing God’s turn toward us, God’s being for and with humanity. God is the one who reveals, and in doing so reveals Godself as being committed to the establishment of a people and the flourishing of the world. The Trinity is a missionary God.
The Trinity and Redemption
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This is the first in a series on The Trinity and the Christian Life. Exploring how thinking and speaking of God as Triune impacts the way we approach central aspects of the Christian life. In this post, Redemption.
Read MoreJust as the Triune God is known as Creator and Sustainer of all things, so the Triune God is the one who redeems. The redemptive activity of God is part of who God is, as Triune. So rather than salvation being solely the activity of the Son at Calvary – Scripture testifies to the ongoing redemptive work of God expressed as companionship, deliverance from evil, restoration, forgiveness of sins, and the establishment of a new community in which the work of God continues.
Her feet were drenched from the dew... (Words for Easter Sunday)
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A reflection on John 20 for a church dispersed.
Read MoreFor a split second she had a glimmer of hope, perhaps Jesus’ body just had been laid elsewhere, she asks the gardener if he moved her Lord, if so she will tend to the body. It is such a small request, surely if this man has any heart he will grant her this mercy.
“Mary.”
She hears her name. She hears his voice. He has risen. In the calling of her name the voice reaches out to touch her heart, and it is explodes with joy. Where she had asked for the smallest of mercies she has received the greatest of gifts: an encounter with her friend, her hope, her Messiah, her “Rabbouni!”
Look to the Work! Sermon on John 9
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A sermon on John 9. Image: Christ Healing the Blind Man, Sebastiano Ricci.
Read MoreTalking about sin is important, being able to - as a community - name and resist those forces, actions, and attitudes that alienate individuals and communities from the love of God, which obscure our standing before God (either over-elevating or denigrating people) is a proper work of the church. But that is a far cry from what is happening here (and what happens too often in our churches). What is happening here is that “sin”, as a label, is wielded like a sledgehammer to determine who is in and who is out, who deserves blame and who acclaim, who is heard and who is silenced, who are loved and who are spurned - this use of sin and blame resembles far more the divisive activity of the enemy than the works of God which seek to make and keep human life human.
Ash Wednesday
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“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. These are challenging words, not least in a society that seems decreasingly inclined to face the reality of death, and increasingly motivated to hold off that reality through money, influence, nostalgia, fashion, and fads. And while the Christian message teaches that we may rightly laugh at death - for it has been robbed of its sting - we should take our mortality and finitude with deathly seriousness. Notably, this reminder of our mortality does not solely water a fruitful religious life, it is also of great benefit to a society built on the denial of our most inherent vulnerability.
Read MoreGrounding Lent on the Mountaintop
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Transfiguration serves as a fitting climax of Epiphany and grounding for Lent/Ash Wednesday.
Read MoreIt takes bravery to look so squarely at our own fragility, our deaths, at our shortcomings and false steps as disciples of Jesus. It is not an easy road to walk, and if started on the wrong foot can either lead to an unhelpful defensiveness or to an unhealthy self-flagellation. But the image and words of the Transfiguration establish us on the right ground to begin the walk to the cross. The Transfiguration points our eyes to the glory of Christ; the one to whom we are turning in repentance, the one to whom we ask for mercy; and by turning our eyes to his glory we are reminded that we are safe. We are held. We are enveloped in the dependable love of the heart of creation and Lord of time. We are met at the moment we are starkly reminded of our mortality, by the one who lifts our fallen heads and tenderly says, “do not be afraid.”
Learning Sabbath
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God acts to release people from bondage. But this is not some abstracted releasing, the word implies another actor is in play. Pharaoh held Israel in bondage, the Accuser held this woman in bondage - God’s liberative acts are acts for us and against another. Sabbath, then, is a time where we take stock of our lives, our communities, our world and seek to see that which is out of line with God’s will, that which is in opposition to God’s creative, liberative, and restorative work. When we come to such a state of awareness we draw near to God so we may be better postured for what God has released us for: participation in the making right of all that is wrong, every day of the week.
Sabbath is about learning what it is that God demands. We must learn to rest: it is not all up to us, and our worth is not found in our productivity, or busy-ness (This is why it can be helpful to think of days beginning at night, with rest, than in the morning, with work. Rest is not something we earn from our labour, it is a gift given to us, just because we are human, and it is from that place that we then turn to our labour). We must learn to organise our communities in a way that lets others rest - especially those who work jobs with less security, or those who have to work multiple jobs just to meet basic needs (this is why I am passionate about the campaign to keep Boxing Day a public holiday - the combination of Christmas and Boxing Day serve as the only time of the year in which people could be guaranteed two consecutive days off - those at most risk of losing that are the vulnerable). We must learn to let the earth rest - to let fields and fuels rest by being ready to relinquish the privilege of “everything now” (my daughter has eaten watermelon almost every day of her life, and while I am thankful for the option when all else is failing, it is also concerning that we have structured our society in such a way that a seasonal fruit is available all year round). Learning Sabbath is also bout learning Jubilee; Sabbath is about the justice and equality that comes through the redistribution of land, the setting free of slaves, the wiping clean of debt so that people will not be stuck in cycles of poverty, so that disparity in wealth, health, and opportunity will not be enshrined and past on across the generations. Sabbath is about learning to be a people whose lives are shaped by God and God’s reign - where the lowly are lifted up and mighty cast down, the last are first and first are last, where the poor are blessed and so too the peacemakers, and where the banquet halls will be filled with those who are never on anyone’s guest list.
Image credit: Barbara Schwarz OP, 2014
Read MoreTeach us how to see (on Mary at the feet of Christ)
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Mary stands in as symbol of all who sit at the feet of the Lord, all who follow as his disciples - all who seek to look to Christ for the one thing needed. All of us are invited to see much more than appears - all of us are encouraged to wait expectantly for something to burst forth from our Messiah, shedding new light on the landscape. And so we all look to Christ to see into the depths of reality, to glimpse the light and life of the world, to experience the fullness of God dwelling in man, to see the Lord of time who bridges the past into the now and makes possible our future, to see the one who at the consummation of the age will bring all out of their graves and wipe away all the tears of old as we enter the new heaven and new earth. By being present (attentive and expectant) in our relationship with Christ, we find ourselves where he is: in the depths of the non-intermittent, dependable, loving relationship of the Triune God; “the heart of discipleship is bound up with the life of the Trinity” (Williams).
But we also find ourselves where Jesus is in another way. By looking to the face of Christ we are also taught to become aware of where and who he is with. The attentiveness we pay to Jesus, like Mary sitting at his feet, is not just a kind of aesthetic attitude while the important work takes place in the backrooms. Like walking out of a gallery we will be moved to find ourselves in the corners and circles of the world where Christ is pleased to be Emmanuel. Looking to Jesus teaches us to see him in our world today - sitting on street corners asking for change, stranded on Manus waiting on mercy, frightened in a youth detention centre isolated and abused.
He Couldn't Wait to Meet Them (an Easter Sunday sermon)
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Why does Jesus show up to the women on the road? After all they were just told to meet him in Galilee…
Here’s my favourite theory: Jesus just couldn’t wait to see them! The resurrected Christ is still the fully human Jesus of Nazareth - who made friends, shared meals with his followers, and invited them to share in his relationship with God. One of the most important truths of Christianity is that the resurrection can never be detached from the crucifixion - Jesus, though resurrected is still marked by the experience of the cross - as John records, he still bears its scars (and those scars are physical and emotional), and so Jesus must feel gratitude to these women who prepared him for this most humiliating and painful of experiences, must feel gratitude and love for these women who kept watch over him as he died, who stood by him when so many others turned away, who stayed to watch him be laid in a tomb and who showed up again at that tomb as soon as they could. I mean if you had friends like that, how would you feel?
Read MoreAll the Way Down (a Good Friday sermon)
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This is no performance; these are the real feelings of a man gripped by grief and fear. And, surprisingly, this is where we find the good news. The crucifixion of Christ, including Jesus’ own cry of dereliction, show that the Incarnation goes the whole way down; down to the very depths of the human experience. Jesus lives and dies in solidarity with all who are in desolation and dereliction, all who are abandoned and alone, all who have felt the sting of betrayal, all who have wondered if God cares about them at all. Jesus is a victim alongside all the world’s victims. And that is good news because Jesus is also the eternal Son, Jesus is the one who conquers the powers of Sin and Death, and is still present with us today. And because of that we can proclaim this word of comfort with full confidence.
Image: Käthe Kollwitz, Mothers (1919)
Read MoreAnd the Fragrance Filled the House
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“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”
This is a household that new the stench of death, a family that had experienced death’s cruel sting. Just one chapter earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus comes to Martha and Mary too late – Lazarus has died, he had laid buried four days in his tomb, we hear that the stench of death and decay emanated from it. At that time, when Mary threw herself at Jesus’ feet it was to weep and protest that if he came sooner their brother would be alive. Jesus himself, moved by the mourning, by the loss, and by the sting of death; Jesus wept. The stench of death and decay, the pain of death and loss, fills the town, the homes, and the hearts of all present at the tomb of their dearly loved Lazarus. Jesus, however, in the final sign of his ministry, shows that he is the resurrection and the life, and calls Lazarus out of his tomb – o death, where is your sting.
And so here we are, Jesus and Lazarus recline at table, Martha serves, and Mary once again throws herself at Jesus’ feet – though this time there are no tears of bitterness, no confrontation and disappointment instead there is an outpouring of lavish care and tenderness. Taking a posture of humility she anoints Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume and dries it with her hair, the smell fills the house – this is not the smell of decay, nor of death, this is the smell of abundance, of beauty, of life.
But why has Mary performed this act?
(Image: The Anointing at Bethany by Daniel F. Gerhartz)
Read MoreA Locating Prayer
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What is the point of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples?
What will be achieved in Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension is here proclaimed and passed on to us as unconquerable truth, we have been put on common and holy ground with the Son, “The Messiah has made us insiders”; not to a club, but to the very life of the Triune God - to the loving heartbeat of the source of all that is!
We aren’t taught to pray to Jesus’ Father, but to “our Father” signifying our relocation. This sermon was delivered at Warnervale Uniting Church on Feb 03, 2019.
Read MoreTemptation
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In facing temptation Jesus shares in this most universal, though most unfortunate aspect of the human condition. The deep solidarity of the Incarnation goes this far, indeed further; because Jesus is the one able to resist temptation even to his death.
This sermon explores why scenes of temptation have so long captured the artistic imagination, and asks why Matthew crafted his temptation narrative to mirror his Passion account, and how that communicates the good news of deliverance from the powers of sin and death.
Read MoreJoseph, Jesus, and staying open to a Resurrection
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On rehearsing arguments in the shower and a God whose business is resurrection.
Read MoreJoseph has remained open to seeing and experiencing the love and hope and presence of God in all things - even the darkness of the gallows. He held fast to his belief that God can bring life out of death, that what others meant for harm God was able to turn to good.
Joseph theologically interprets his story – what you had meant for evil God worked for good – Joseph stays open to the fact that God can bring life out of death; that God can pull off a resurrection. Now it is important to note that Joseph did this work for himself. He does the work to see God in the twists and turns of his own painful journey. It is not for us to impose this kind of reading over another’s life, lest we end up like Job’s friends, chased off by the hurricane of God.
Hope in Judgment (Advent 1)
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Advent calls us to look forward. Place not your trust in the deception of human progress but the coming judgment and righteousness of God. This sermon was delivered at Leichhardt Uniting Church on the first Sunday of Advent 2018. “O my God, in you I trust”
Read MoreTending Bodies Marked For Death
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The story of Rizpah and the anointing at Bethany demonstrate how our care for the bodies of the dead, those approaching death, or those burdened by the existential deaths our society deals in, is a way of reflecting the careful attention paid to our bodies by a God who formed the human body out of the clay of the earth, who knits us together in our mother’s womb, and who will raise us bodily in the resurrection. (image: Rizpah by George Becker)
Read MoreAmidst all the political drama of the story of David, it is this act of grit, performed by a grieving mother, that is commended as moving the heart of God.