The desire for a fair universe is real and grief-filled – but Jesus steps outside that framework entirely, and invites us into something better.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on John
Context changes everything. Where, when and how we encounter life changes what we seek and long for from God and faith. Adaptive faith allows for the constancy of God in our ever-changing lives. It also requires us to be fluid – like water!
A church discerns its new name while remembering that identity is not possession, but a journey of love shaped by God’s call to be a blessing.
Salvation – reconciliation with God and with one another – is relational rather than transactional, and it begins with a willingness to see, listen and learn.
At New Year we are called to see God’s grand vision of fullness and abundance for all the world, and reset our sense of mission accordingly.
The Church born when God poured out the Holy Spirit, is one in which barriers of ethnicity, language, sex, age, and social status are transcended and all are equal in Christ.
Jesus wants to heal us from all that would diminish us, and he also wants us to cooperate with that by really wanting it and envisioning ourselves free.
True forgiveness, which we encounter most fully in the risen Christ, does not gloss over the past but revisits it fully and carefully that we may be fully set free from it.
Knowing Jesus intimately is the most important thing of all, but many of our otherwise good gifts and concerns are constantly getting in the way.
All-in commitment is unfashionable, but it is often what God needs from us to allow the richest blessings to flow.
What difference does it make for us and in the world that The Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us?
In the nativity we see the light of living grace, in all its vulnerability, shining into the darkness of the world’s violence and divisiveness.
Serving Christ as king challenges our use of power and politics and questions where our ultimate loyalty and security lie.
Christ’s grief gathers up our griefs and achieves the promise of a day when tears will be no more.
When misunderstood, being “the chosen” can mutate into a toxic culture of entitlement that produces horrific criminal behaviour, and Jesus calls us to join him in challenging that culture.
Living water is for all of us that would like to try it. When we try it, our lives change and instead of being thirsty we become a spring. As a result, our neighbours can try it too.
In order for men to step up and end the scourge of domestic violence, they need to experience themselves as loved and valued, liberating them to love others.
The image of Jesus as the good shepherd can speak of tough life-on-the-line love, not just cuddling lambs.
The forgiveness we experience in the risen Christ is dauntingly radical and we are called to share it.
We all learn our desires from others, but most of them are destructive, and law tries to control them. The pathway to freedom and life is to follow Jesus and learn to desire as he desires.