Jesus leads us into a joyous and healthy way of living that avoids both constricting legalism and destructive libertarianism.
The feeling of distance and separation from God – which we all feel – is perception not reality… it is the fruit of our fear and our holding-back.
God has become flesh so that we might know God and realise our own destiny in God in the world.
To grow up well, children need to be anchored to a broad community with shared values, which nevertheless allows for individual differences.
We are welcoming a baby born into occupied territories to a fiercely holy young woman, and we are recognising in that baby the hope of liberation.
Joseph models a courageous willingness to be stripped of his sense of entitlement that he might become all God wanted him to be.
Preparing ourselves for the coming Lord is not a matter of rigorous rule keeping, but rules can help us learn the appropriate new way of being.
Advent is preparing us for the coming of the Lord, that already and not-yet event for which people have lived and worked and prayed for millennia.
Jesus calls us to courageously follow him through a world of apparently apocalyptic violence towards the advent of hope and peace.
In our desire to see mercy and compassion expressed for the needy, we must beware of falling into desiring the exact opposite for those who have not shown mercy and compassion.
You cannot serve two masters; for a slave will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
Our readiness to welcome and celebrate Christ is integral to his becoming present and active among us.
Jesus does not burden us with crippling moral expectations, but humbly takes our burdens on himself and frees us to relax into the life of God.
As we gather with the saints of all times to worship the crucified victim, we are immersed in a culture that is so at odds with the values of this world that those who truly embrace it just appear odd for now, but strangely and alluringly familiar too.
We are invited to work towards visions of God’s reign, knowing we will never be entirely successful, but sustained by imagining the possibilities.
There are many stories in the Bible that can appear to portray God as involved in terrorist acts, but Jesus invites us to read them in new ways.
The Ten Commandments are not about creating a system of law and punishment. They are a window into the stories and the lifestyle of the culture of God.
We pray for our neighbours to be blessed, but could we actually be being called to give a blessing?
God’s grace is so extravagant that it will offend us as long as we are measuring our worth in comparison to others.
What would happen if violence were met with bread, with blankets, with hospitals, with forgiveness of debts?