The cross of Jesus can teach us to recognise the innocence of suffering, and so enable us to recognise our own dependence on God’s mercy and to stop digging our own hells.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Luke (Page 2)
Jesus’s parables always shock us, and few things shock us more than the outrageous graciousness that God shows us and calls for from us.
Jesus calls all who are worn out from maintaining appearances as hosts to relax into the humility of being guests.
Adversity, violence, and suffering can come as a consequence of not just sin, but of radical love, but with love it can strengthen and sharpen us for fullness of life.
The Lord’s Prayer is a manifesto for a whole new way of relating to God and the world.
Inviting Christ into your dwelling means being renovated from the inside out.
Those who are insiders in the life of God are characterised by their love and compassion for all, especially those deemed unworthy of it, and by the humility to be schooled by outsiders.
Being missioners needs to be patterned on Jesus if it is to have any integrity at all, and so it will be characterised by intentional engagement, genuine curiosity, deep listening, allowing others to be a blessing to us, and trusting ourselves to God.
The resurrection of Jesus opens a path and calls us to follow into a life that is no longer dominated by the crucifying powers that destroy some of us and dehumanise others.
In Christ, God has made an agreement with us, offering us everything and demanding nothing, but if we offer nothing we will be at risk of squandering it all.
If we can hold on to the visions of glory, while resisting the urge to nail them down, we can step into a world of suffering knowing that there is light.
The temptations faced by Jesus reveal common patterns in the demonic temptations that we face in our own lives.
God’s generosity provides the context for our worship and the model for our living, especially when we are faced with hostility.
All that matters about God, about sin and forgiveness, and about living with integrity and freedom, flows from the human encounter with the crucified and risen Jesus.
A close encounter with God in Christ can make us paralysingly aware of our own sin and failure, but the experience of grace can transform that into a solidarity and gratitude that empowers us.
The only measure of our progress in Christian faith is our love for others, including those we are least inclined to love.
The promise of baptism with fire may surprisingly lead us to a loving suffering messiah.
We can’t take it for granted that Jesus will be where we want to go, for his ways often go contrary to ours and our business is to follow him.
The visitation story is a powerful introduction to the gospel of God’s lavish and overwhelming love for us, and to God’s hospitality as we see it in Jesus.
The joyous message of Christmas demands a response from us all year round.