Seasons
The book of genesis of Matthew
24 December 2015
All the Gospels are anonymous. But when early Christians began collecting them in the second century, they needed a way to distinguish each one from the others. So they gave them titles. The title “According to Matthew” is affixed to this Gospel because church tradition had credited it to Matthew, one of the twelve. It is fitting that…
The law of four – part 4 (The Infancy Narratives)
20 December 2015
Advent, Seasons, Series, Teaching
As we have wandered through the stories behind the stories of the gospels and their composition and connection to the church, life and our own histories, it seemed appropriate to think about how the stories that are told about the birth of Jesus would fit within this new understanding. So considering the writings of the…
The law of four – part 3
13 December 2015
Advent, Seasons, Series, Teaching
We saw in the first week of this series that one of the places that we see the law of four is in every great story ever told as well as in the story of our own lives – the pattern of (1) Hearing the summons; (2) Enduring the obstacles; (3) Receiving the prize/favour and finally (4) Returning…
The law of four – part 2
8 December 2015
Advent, Seasons, Series, Teaching
This week in our Law of Four series, we looked in more detail at the four Gospels, and particularly the connection and relation of the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) – why we call them the Synoptic Gospels, and how over the last 150 years we have developed a better understanding of the…
The law of four – part 1
29 November 2015
Advent, Season of Growth, Seasons, Series, Teaching, Year C
The new parish logo has been inspired by a much larger and more ancient reality. Looking at the nature of church and our involvement within it, as well as the structure of the liturgical year and the arrangement of the readings from the Gospels is part of what we will be considering over the next…
Pentecost as promise of a new life
24 May 2015
To fully appreciate the significance of the celebration of Pentecost you need to remember the origins of the Jewish festival of Shavu’ot. Although according to the Book of Leviticus the festival celebrated a week of weeks after Passover (the fifty days) was a Harvest festival where the first fruits of the seven kinds of grain…
Ascended to be present
17 May 2015
When Jesus is described by the scriptures as ascending into heaven and clouds cover him to hide him from the eyes of the apostles who are standing and watching this spectacle dumbfounded, we are left clinging to a whole series of unhelpful categories to try to deal with this. So much of this is as…
Called and chosen to love
10 May 2015
We often struggle with some very basic questions – like who are we? When we meet people for the first time, conversations invariably begin with a process of classification – so, what do you do? Where do you live? The Gospel today takes us to a much deeper place in our relationship with God. It…
Connected to Life
3 May 2015
Today we hear the final of the seven “I am” declarations that punctuate the Gospel of John – “I am the true vine.” This declaration is also unusual because it is the first time one that is explicitly relational: I am the vine; you are the branches. We should be in no doubt after hearing this declaration…
Called to go on exodus to the others
26 April 2015
Discipleship, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is one that has endured across the centuries of the Christian Church. The image of the young Jesus as the shepherd bringing home the stray or wounded lamb has been found on the walls of the catacombs, and a statue of the Good Shepherd has also been…
Living with a great soul – making sense of repentance
19 April 2015
Discipleship, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
“In the name of Jesus, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations.” The readings this week again invite us to reflect on sin and repentance so that our hearts may burn with love. Jesus the just one, is the sacrifice that takes our sins away – not only ours,…
Believing not unbelieving
12 April 2015
Have you ever been asked to do something that was so totally beyond you that couldn’t even believe you would be capable of doing the task? That is exactly how we should feel after hearing the gospel today. When Jesus speaks to the disciples gathered in the upper room, it is only right to feel…
Celebrating the Easter Experience
7 April 2015
Entering into the experience of Easter is always a profoundly moving event. I found this year to be no different – even though it was the first time that I have had the chance to lead the liturgies in a parish that I am responsible for which added its own stresses. The liturgies and encounters that…
Which son of the Father?
29 March 2015
The passion narratives that we are presented with each Palm Sunday are so rich, that is a great shame that the imperative of keeping Mass within the hour time limit precludes a suitable reflection. This year I decided that it seemed best once Jesus had died in the story and I knelt down, that it…
God proposes a new covenant
22 March 2015
“Then, I will be your God. You will be my people.” This line from the declaration in Jeremiah today is so easily passed over – and yet this covenant declaration lies at the heart of the Hebrew scriptures. Our Lenten journey has been examining the idea of covenant – its achievements and its failures -…
A God who is rich in mercy
15 March 2015
Beginnings and endings are always significant. How you start a story – and how you end a story create so much of the impact of the whole story. We know well how the Bible begins – “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…” (Gen 1:1) We might even know how the…
A covenant people at Sinai
8 March 2015
One of the great problems with a passage like the Ten Commandments is that we tend to read them with little sense of the context or the who or where of what is happening. Until we do this work, then these commandments, like the rest of the 613 mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) that you find…
Abraham and the bound sacrifice of Isaac
1 March 2015
Our first reading from Genesis 22 is often regarded as one of the finest examples of a short story in all or Western literature. In 19 short verses, the reader is taken on a terrible and shocking journey along with Abraham and Isaac – your only son, the son that you love – for three…
Wilderness now redeemed
22 February 2015
As we move into the new season of Lent accompanied by the Gospel of Mark, the starkness of the presentation of the testing in the wilderness in Mark becomes quickly apparent. Whereas the other synoptic Gospels offer us more detailed descriptions including the fasting, the nature of the testing and the dialogue that occurs between…
Epiphany – the nativity in the Gospel of Matthew
4 January 2015
So we arrive at the feast of the Epiphany and the customary three wise men make their way from their hiding place elsewhere on the sanctuary or in the sacristy to their appointed places in the manger nativity scene, joining the shepherds, angels and animals in adoration beside the holy family. All very standard and…
The doubt and faith of Abraham
28 December 2014
As we reflect on the place of family this Sunday, the liturgy offers us the example of four very different yet faithful people in the Gospel of Luke in Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna. The other readings provide us with the foundational example of faith in Abram and Sarai – who were called to leave…
God has drawn near in love
27 December 2014
Christmas, Seasons, Teaching, Technology
I love technology. I love the fact that Google Maps is able to navigate you around traffic snarls – often allowing you to take the exit just before all the traffic has built up on the motorway. So cool! I was in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago for a wedding, and stayed with…
Mary and Gabriel
21 December 2014
The scene that is presented in the Gospel today is one of my favourites. We read from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 26-38. The angel Gabriel appears to announce the birth of a child and follows the pattern established in the Hebrew Scriptures: the angel says, ‘do not be afraid’; the recipient is…
Rejoice always and pray constantly
14 December 2014
When you learn a new language one of the things that you need to become familiar with are the rules of grammar and syntax. But the degree to which you have to continue to remember each of the rules in turn is an indication that you haven’t yet become fluent in the new language. Once…
Beginning of good news in the desert
7 December 2014
As we enter the second Sunday in the season of Advent, we come to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. The opening line of his Gospel is somewhat curious – it isn’t immediately obvious if it is meant to be a heading or simply the first line. It richly evokes a number of scripture…
The longing of Advent
30 November 2014
As we begin this new liturgical year and return in Year B to the Gospel of Mark, it is a little odd that we don’t begin with the opening lines of the Gospel. Surely we should be reading from the Infancy Narratives in Mark. Oh wait – there aren’t any. Yes, that’s right, you can…
Encountering the Living God
22 June 2014
When you think about God and how God offers a relationship with him, it seems to me that the word encounter is one of the more helpful ways of describing this relationship. Yet, when you look up the word encounter, you discover that it comes into the English language via the Old French word encontre,…
Trinity as Community and Relationship
15 June 2014
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year A
When it comes time to celebrate Trinity Sunday it can be tempting to settle in for another discussion on this abstract and irrelevant theological idea. Yet the readings that are offered for this Year A cycle give the clear basis for why the divine dance of love that describes the relationship between the Father, Son and…
Pentecost – renewing the face of the earth
9 June 2014
When I was a kid it was uncommon for my parents to come and visit the school; in part this was because we lived on a farm and caught the bus to and from school almost every day; the exception was on Tuesdays which was mum’s shopping day and we could go home with her…
The Ascension, Jesus and Heaven in Western thought
1 June 2014
When we come to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus all manner of things can tend to get in the way. For a start, many people can overstate the literal details in the first reading today, from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, what with all the information of Jesus being lifted up into…