This Sunday is Sunday of the Word of God (celebrated in Australia on the first Sunday in February), where Pope Francis invites the whole Church to encounter God and get to know Jesus through reading the Word. The Bible is not an easy read. It contains many different styles, including narrative/story, poetry and discourse. It…

One year ago today, there were more news stories coming out about this strange new coronavirus that originated in a large Chinese city that I hadn’t even heard of – Wuhan. On 25 Jan the first 4 cases were reported in Australia. By 30 Jan the virus had spread to 20 countries. First cases were…

Last Sunday we heard the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of John “what are you looking for?” Such a powerful question that continues to haunt us. Today we hear the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the GOOD NEWS, saying: “The…

For many Christians, our faith is as people of the book. This is especially true as a result of the Protestant reformation. Yet the bible can sometimes serve to muzzle the active and dynamic relational quality of life with God. Many people relate to the opening line of 1 Samuel 3:1 – that the ‘word…

O come to the water, all you who are thirsty!Though you have no silver, come, eat, and be satisfied! This is the invitation that God so longs for us to hear. A constant longing for us to hear the invitation to be in relationship with God. To have nothing hold us back from being with…

Do you know that I am weird? There is also a more than fair chance that I’m not the only weird person here today! Statistically, we talk about people who are most likely going to be surveyed by researchers. Unfortunately, most of them share something in common: they are weird. WEIRD is an acronym –…

I must confess a certain dis-ease in celebrating the feast of the holy family each year. Although it is a wonderful thing to do, there is a certain degree of disconnect and contrast between the seemingly perfect example of the Holy Family and the lived reality of most people. When you zoom back out from…

The church tonight – only half the number of people who had booked & many others would come. Glass of water: is it half full or half empty? Those who say the glass is half empty, we call a pessimist; those who say half-full we characterise as an optimist. As a follower of Jesus, should…

When Paul wanted to convey his most developed and longest letter to the half-dozen or so house churches in the city of Rome, he needed to find someone who understood exactly what he wanted to say, who perhaps was able to memorise the letter word-for-word and who knew how to interpret the letter and perform…

Do you remember what it was like to learn English? The experience will be very different depending on whether it was your first language learnt as an infant, or much later in life. In any language, there are at least 4 main components: learning to hear and understand what is said, learning to speak the…

Comfort my people, comfort them. Like the other 3 gospels, the one that we read from today – which we announce is “according to mark” is anonymous. The tradition that has named the author as Mark, or John Mark, dates to the second century. From the third century, it was believed that Matthew wrote his…

We transition today into a new liturgical year. What is unusual about this new season of Advent is that the themes of the readings that we have been hearing during the last few weeks continue as we move from ordinary time into the new season. It is the only time during the liturgical year that…

We have been on a pilgrimage with the Gospel of Matthew this year & arrive at this scene marking the conclusion of the public ministry of Jesus. We are presented with Jesus the king announcing a final blessing upon all of those who have been a blessing for others throughout their life. They receive the…

“The parable of the Talents” Talent is just a Greek word, that the English translators fluffed, by writing it in English letters. Another translation is the master gave his servants 5/2/1 bags of gold. A talent is first a measure of weight – but there is much debate as to how much it is worth….

When we arrive in November, we know that there will be a change in the energy and movement of the liturgical year. Geared to the seasons in the northern hemisphere, there is increasing darkness and an apocalyptic turn as we hear the final passages of Jesus during the final week of his public ministry. It…

9 Beatitudes. Blessings. Jesus on a mountain proclaiming all these blessings on the crowd. Beatitude. Nice enough. Beginning of the most famous sermon of all time. On the surface it all seems simple enough – until you start to go below the surface. Who is being blessed? What does it mean? A question to keep asking…

Anger is a difficult emotion that perhaps gets a bad reputation from our experience as children and being told that it is wrong to feel angry. Yet in our first reading from Exodus 22:20-26 we hear about the kinds of things that make God angry – when the widows, the orphans, the strangers, the foreigners,…

We continue to read from the Gospel of Matthew (22:15-21) as we accompany Jesus during his final days in Jerusalem. He has made his triumphant entry into the city with a crowd of pilgrims, then he pulled the stunt in the temple, overthrowing the tables of the money changers. There was a question about his…

Weeping and grinding of teeth. Many are called but few are chosen. This is certainly a strange parable (or is it two parables?) of Jesus. It is told, like the two other parables that we have heard the last two weeks, not to the disciples or followers of Jesus, but to the Jewish religious leaders…

At the beginning of Matthew 21, Jesus and his disciples arrived in Jerusalem making their triumphant entry – in the event that we commemorate each year on Palm Sunday. He makes his way to the temple and when he sees that this House of Prayer for all the nations has become a marketplace, he sets…

“A Father had two sons…” It is such an evocative line. We will all know and have experience of the natural conflict that exists within families. The line probably activates the Parable in Luke 15:11-32 of the Merciful Father / Prodigal Son. It may also remind us of some of the ‘great’ sons and their…

The story that Jesus tells today is challenging (Matthew 20:1-16). It disturbs us, especially as children of capitalism and the sense of justice that we have developed. Surely the workers who were out in the vineyard all day long (and a 12-hour day is described) deserve to be paid more than the workers who only…

Today we conclude the 18th chapter of Matthew. This fourth block of teaching centres around life in the community. It began with the question of who is the greatest in this new covenant community and culminates in this over-the-top story of abundant grace and mercy. Peter the impetuous again provides the fodder for the teaching…

When we arrive at our Gospel today, we have jumped over a chapter and a half of the story from where we left it last week. We haven’t moved far geographically (from the northern reaches of Israel in Caesarea Philippi to the northern side of the lake), but we continue on this inexorable journey to…

The Gospel today continues directly on from the one we listened to last week. The setting is still the very north of Israel – although the population was now much more pagan and gentile than Jewish. Jesus has taken the disciples away from the crowds to prepare them for the final journey to Jerusalem. He…

But you – who do you say I am? To make sense of any passage in scripture it is necessary not only to read the actual text closely and carefully, we also need to read and pray the text within its context. Where does the passage fit within the flow of the narrative – as…

Wow. This is a strange Gospel. A challenging Gospel. We can be left with the question – what the? Why does Jesus respond to this woman who acknowledges him as the Lord and Son of David with such indifference and hostility? How would you feel if you brought a loved-one before Jesus who you knew…

When we read or hear this Gospel scene from Matthew 14:22-33, it can be tempting to focus only on the mighty sign of both Jesus and then Peter walking on the water. This miracle has become almost a trope and a mere meme. The Netflix series from earlier this year, Messiah reaches something of a…

To fully appreciate the story of Zacchaeus you do need to understand how despised he would have been within the society of Jericho – itself already on the outside of acceptable Jewish society, given its reputation as a city of sin and its history of standing opposed to the kingdom of God. There were three…

The parable that lies at the heart of our Gospel this week, from Luke chapter 18, seems at first glance to be describing a religious event. In reality, like the parable that begins chapter 18 which we heard last Sunday – the one about the widow and the corrupt judge – this parable also is…