Category: sermons

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Christianity Faith Religion sermons

Do Not Be Afraid

Imagine yourself a tourist in New York City on the 8th of November, 2001. You’ve gotten up early in the morning to take in the sights, and you find yourself gazing up at the enormous glass and steel man made mountains that were the World Trade Centre….. If even something as permanent seeming and invulnerable as the Twin Towers can come down, glinting in the sun one moment and a nightmare of ash and collapsed building materials the next – then what can you trust? What can you have confidence in?

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Christianity Faith sermons

The Book of Revelation and All Saints Day

What does the festival of All Saints have to do with understanding the Book of Revelation? Surely in this world come of age the time has come to turn our backs on such highly coloured images from our ancient past?

Or has it?

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Faith Philosophy Religion sermons

What do you want?

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Jesus asked James and John: “What do you want me to do for you?”

It’s a hard question – As the psychologist Abraham Maslow said: “It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.”

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Christianity Faith Religion sermons Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary Suffering Uncategorized

Job: Suffering and Transformation

There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Job 1:1 So begins the book of Job. It’s a kind of fairy story really. Job is an archetype of the good man. He has no […]

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sermons Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary Suffering

Grains of Wheat and Suffering

This is a complex passage, with a lot going on. Greeks want to see Jesus. But instead they go and talk to one of his disciples, who then finds another disciple, and then go to Jesus (with the Greeks?) Jesus then, instead of saying yes or no, makes the declaration that his hour has now […]

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sermons

John the Baptizer and Salvation History

The opening line of the gospel spells out our theme for today: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” This week we remember Jesus’ place in salvation history – the actual event of his coming into the world, in the context of the story of God’s dealings with the […]

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sermons Uncategorized Underappreciated and Uncool Culture

Jesus, Independence Day and Countercultural Hope

What can the film Independence Day and 911 teach us about Jesus’ mysterious, not to say alarming, apocalyptic language in his prediction of the fall of the Temple? Is there anything more countercultural than hope?

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Christianity Culture and Society Kingdom of God sermons

Jesus, The Dude, and Darth Vader

What is the Gospel? This is a harder question to answer than you might think. Especially when you’re put on the spot. And especially when you have been studying theology for most of the last ten years like I have. It’s actually not a question that comes up much in one’s life in such a […]

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Christianity Kingdom of God sermons Spirituality in the Ordinary

The Parable of the Talents

A sermon I preached at Glen Iris Road Uniting Church on 19/11/2017 on the Parable of the talents – Matthew 25:14-30 The video I just showed is a trailer for one of my favourite comedy series – the Detectorists. It’s a gentle, wry comedy about friendship and love and the deep desire for buried treasure. […]

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Christianity Faith sermons

What is Church For? A Pentecost Sermon

What is the church for? As you can imagine, this question often comes to me as I work my way through my three years of ministerial formation. There seem to be a lot of committees – and I don’t think renaming them “councils” makes them any more glamorous, a lot of OH&S, a lot of […]