Jesus offers life in all its fullness, but many would rather settle for the odd snack rather than the full banquet.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Fullness of Life
Paul’s word play on drunkenness is both a useful contrast and a useful comparison for Christian living.
The recognition that in Jesus we see the exact likeness of the Father rescues us from fear and slavery and invites us to live as the beloved children of God.
The things we have we are to hold with open hands, looking with a generous eye for the oppotunities to share our resources in ways that make a difference.
Jesus leads the way towards a new experience of life that is so utterly alive that death is powerless to threaten, limit or constrain it.
When God calls us to invest in the places we live, it is a call to active agents of positive change, not compliant patriots.
I want to look today at the story Jesus told in today’s gospel reading. It’s a story set on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, and apart from the usual interpretations we bring to it, it is for me a story about chance encounters and being open to what happens. I’d like to start by…
There is nothing wrong with an eager desire for a special closeness to Jesus. Jesus is eager to fulfil such desires, but warns us of the cost of sticking with him.
When we commit ourselves to following Jesus, we surrender all our personal aspirations and our share in the aspirations of our nation, in order that we might receive the life of Christ.
Sexual Intimacy is an exquisitely beautiful gift from God, but attempts to control and repress it frequently distort it into a hypocritical and malevolent force.
Jesus calls us to choose between the old bread of hostility and death and the new bread of compassion and life.
By lifting us out our enthralment to evil and death, Jesus sets us free from all that corrupts us and opens us to share real life with him.
Jesus wants to lift us beyond the deadening conformity that seeks to silence us and confine us to a stunted life.
God promises the best for us if we follow the way of Jesus, and faith is actively trusting that that pathway will indeed be the way of life.
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.
God has become flesh so that we might know God and realise our own destiny in God in the world.
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.
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.
Jesus is the door through which we pass to receive life – life in his name – a life of authenticity, a life of freedom, a life of purpose.
God’s mission is much bigger than us, and to play our part in it, we need to live freely and fearlessly and maintain a humble and faithful connection with the traditions and wisdom of the wider Church.