Advent faith believes in the possibility of surprise, and that our tragic and repetitive history has a punch-line which will overturn everything that we have been taught to expect.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Luke (Page 11)
In baptism, we have passed from the preoccupations of the present to the a life shaped by God’s future, and though the completion of that transformation may be painful, it is nevertheless the fulfilling of our deepest longings.
Advent is a time of deep paradox, a season that speaks to the reality of our world and calls us to be awake.
The experience of resurrection results in joy and mission.
By preparing ourselves to die with Christ, we are raised and transfigured, new people with a new vocation.
God is always acting, but often in surprising and paradoxical ways. The ways of God often reverse human expectations.
The resurrection of Jesus is about the in-breaking of something which is so new, so different, so unheard of, that it changes things so entirely that we will never again become captive to all that is predictable, or ‘necessary,’ or ‘fated’.
When the world falls apart, God recognises the pain, the despair, and the anger, and gifts us with faith, with an assurance that God’s power of love will yet prevail, that God will accomplish the justice and the peace we long for.
Even those whose actions are morally indefensible usually have attributes that challenge our own failings.
Destructive evil is all around us and within us, but God has not given up on us.
In the economy of God, there are no boundaries to the welcome we, all of us, receive by the unconditional gift of God’s grace.
God calls us to detach, to empty ourselves of desire, to die with Christ, so that we may truly welcome Christ when he returns to his appointed home in our hearts and souls.
God has ordained that the work of God should flow from a deep and abiding being with God, from a baptism in the love which holds all things together in Christ.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son may really be intended by Jesus as the Parable of the Loving Father and the Angry Brother.
The beatitudes proclaim God’s preferential love for the poor and challenge us to rethink our own dependence on financial security.
Although the coming Christ is brings our deepest hopes to fulfillment, the transition will be traumatic and we still fear his coming because of our unhealthy investments in the present.
Encounters with the risen Christ open our minds rather than narrow our theology.
The values Christ calls us to live by can (for most people) only be lived in community with the saints, past and present.
Christian discipleship is about fully living the faith you have, and it is a basic human duty, not a cause for special commendation.
The search for meaning and fullness of life without cost, risk or struggle is futile, but the Kingdom is still a free gift, given by God, to all who will accept it.