God is most likely and able to work through those who accept their own weakness and don’t try to forcefully assert their own power and influence.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Weakness
Though the experience of grief often feels like an absence of God, it is a deep experience of the heart of God, and is symbolised as such in the brokenness of the Eucharist.
Those who faithfully follow Jesus and proclaim his message are flawed human beings who will not often appear successful or impressive.
Being born of water and Spirit involves becoming as vulnerable and dependent on God as a newborn baby.
God will walk with us in suffering and work redemptively within it, but God is not powerful enough to just remove it.
It is in our woundedness, this woundedness we try to avoid and would rather not acknowledge, that we find our identity as the body of Christ, our identity as the church.
God is most likely and able to work through those who accept their own weakness and don’t try to forcefully assert their own power and influence.
Despite our often minimal vision for ourselves, and our feeling of not being important to God, Jesus Christ is committed to bringing us to the fullness of life and wholeness.
While faith is a gift, blessings come to those who are prepared to wrestle with their faith.
Jesus honours, commends and models a set of attitudes, or stances toward the world, which can and will change the world, but embracing them is no small challenge.
Like the disciples, we stumble, but we too can pick ourselves up and re-orient ourselves to the transformed landscape that Jesus is slowly mapping out for us.
On our own we are powerless to deal with many of the things that confront us, but when we recognise that and make ourselves available for whatever God wants to do, all kinds of scary things may actually be possible.
Jesus offers himself to the world from a vulnerable place on the margins, and he calls us to trust the Holy Spirit and do likewise.
God comes to us, in seemingly insignificant places and borne by easily overlooked people.
When things are desperate, God calls us only to be faithful and committed, because the outcomes are in God’s hands, not ours.
God offers to make us his children, a position that may not appeal to our autonomous ambitions, but which offers honour and security.
The Christian life is often lived against overwhelming odds, but the presence of Christ and some basic godly resources make it a good bet.
God will do great things with us, but will not impose them on us, so we have to relinquish control before God brings about the growth we crave.
Being born of water and Spirit involves becoming as vulnerable and dependent on God as a newborn baby is on its parents.
Rediscovering the mission of Jesus is one pathway through which we might re-enter the experience of dependence on God.