Jesus calls us to turn away from pathways of judgement and condemnation and to follow him on the harder path of love and new life.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Faithfulness (Page 5)
Lent is a time to walk knowingly into the wilderness, to face the Accuser and the wild beasts that emerge when we live out our identity as God’s children.
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.
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.
We are invited to work towards visions of God’s reign, knowing we will never be entirely successful, but sustained by imagining the possibilities.
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.
A reflection on the Good Friday story of the crucifixion from the perspective of the disciple Joanna.
Although the Church and our nation might be stronger if they were more inclusive, the real call to inclusion is simply part of the call to faithfully reflect Christ.
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.
The resurrection of Jesus is the most confronting and terrifying news imaginable, and all we can do (after trying to run) is surrender ourselves to his grace.
As difficult as it is to imagine, God is shockingly present with us in Jesus.
Faithful witness to the Coming Christ is not expressed by trying to force the world into our concepts of righteousness, but by joyously, prayerfully, and thankfully cooperating with the liberating work of the Spirit, even in the face of violent opposition.
God’s action in the world and in our lives is constant and faithful, but rarely flamboyant or unambiguous. Discerning God’s activity is therefore a learned skill.
Staying true to the disciplines of ordinary faithfulness is part of our calling as we follow the way of Jesus Christ; and engaging in them eases our burdens considerably.
It often feels as though faithfulness is going to cost us everything, but God is a God of wonderful surprises.
When fidelity to Christ’s call is failing to bear the expected fruit, but is bearing good fruit, however humble, the call may be to persevere in hope.
The life Christ call us to is not found by seeking to recover the past or escape from the past, but by opening ourselves to the new things God will do.
A growing incidence of cataclysmic violence is not a sign of God’s activity, but it does call us to hold on to our hope and look for God’s action in small signs of life coming from death.
When things are desperate, God calls us only to be faithful and committed, because the outcomes are in God’s hands, not ours.