Being a disciple of Jesus is not about changing behaviour, it’s about changing life! It’s about being changed at our very core so that our inner motivations and attitudes are transformed.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Matthew (Page 2)
The world finds the message of Jesus almost incomprehensible because it seems too simplistic and unrealistic to be taken seriously.
In the encounter with Jesus, we realise how radically different the world is and how completely we need to change.
In baptism we surrender to God’s claim on us and enter a vowed relationship and life which will have its ups and its downs but in which God is forever faithful.
In Jesus, the truth about God’s ways and means is brought to light and we are called to so reflect that light that all might be drawn to it.
In the Christ-child we encounter God responding to our suffering and leading us into the promised land of new life.
The particularity of Jesus’s identity scandalises our tribal sensibilities, but our attempts to erase such details in favour of a more “universal” truth inevitably fail to convey the good news of God with us.
God comes to us in unexpected ways, and the break with conventional religious respectability is even more earth-shattering than the break with conventional reproductive biology.
Jesus asks us to assess the legitimacy of any ministry by its transforming and liberating outcomes for the world and its peoples.
Our sure hope of a new future brought to fulfilment in the coming Christ inspires and empowers us to live now in ways which resist the despair and selfishness of our age and anticipate the peace and righteousness of the coming age.
The Advent break in of God in Christ is underway, bringing disruption of a status quo that our world needs to be free of, and liberation from the imprisonment of sin.
The journey of a faithful life is about risk, about uncertainty, about careful, solitary reflection, and about community and conversation.
Like the Magi and generations of pilgrims, our COVID generation has had to adapt and find ways to pursue sincere worship amidst challenging circumstances.
God has hung a star in our sky, and called us to follow it to the Christ child, who will receive the gifts that we bring and we will return changed to our homes.
In a world dominated by arrogant and exploitative leaders, Jesus models a gentle shepherding leadership that prioritises the reintegration of the broken over the drive for “success” and “efficiency”.
Those who have too strong a belief in their own goodness to engage in the real, flesh and blood work of building community in the here and now, can end up struggling to accept God’s grace.
Jesus preached a vision of the Kingdom of God that re-orders our lives and communities, and finds an honoured place for those often excluded for not conforming to the pervasive norms of marriage and family.
Jesus shows us that even though there might be many things that don’t seem right to us, we would be wise to let many of them go and only fight the battles that really matter.
Self-interested leaders will frequently manufacture frightening images of an angry dangerous God to silence opposition and maintain their grip on power, but Jesus opens our eyes to these abuses and to the reality of a God of incorruptible love.
We are often afraid to face what must be faced in order to enter the new world God has promised, but God continues to promise an abundance of blessings when we overcome our fears and obey.