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To speak of joy while keeping company with imprisoned John the Baptiser seems too great a stretch of the heart (and very un-Christmas like!) and yet this is where the season of Advent and faith leads us! (Advent Three. Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11) For if joy is more than holiday happiness (nothing wrong with happiness but it is very fleeting!) then joy is also for those who are limping from exile to home, and those who are reflecting on their life in prison. Sentence: “An

At this moment in history, as many times before, we can identify with the yearning and hope for a world of justice and mercy. The words of Isaiah, the psalmist, and St Paul all stir that longing for a world that lives as creatures of the Living God. And we also quicken with recognition of the need for the prophet John the Baptists words that cut through whatever disguise and distraction we may have colluded with! Sentence: “This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke whe

Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of Emmanuel, God with us, in which we prepare our hearts to both receive the Christ and to birth God in our own time and situation. In Year A of the lectionary we explore the story of the coming of the Christ Child according to the gospel of Matthew.  In the busyness of our world, especially in the lead up to Christmas, it can be very hard to enter into the spacious uncertainty, the yearning and desperate need for a saviour, and

The challenge to awaken sounds both inviting and alarming – depending where we are in our lives and our part of the world. Many spiritual traditions have the theme of awakening as part of the path of faithfulness and the getting of wisdom. And so, in some ways, we can understand it to be part of the perennial path. However, given the focus on salvation in the Christian tradition some may be shocked to hear St Paul tell those who are already believers that they/we need to awak

At this, and many disturbing moments in human and personal history, many of us long for Jesus the Christ to come down and reign over our...

“Be awake therefore as you do not know the hour or the day.” (Matthew 25:1-13. Twenty Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 27 [32]) It...

“They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the lamb at the centre of the...

The two great commandments are a summary of the whole law and the goal of our striving and growing; it is the central tenant of the...

This week we have one of those moments I wish I’d witnessed in person – this ancient text, many times translated, still sings and stings...

We come to the troubling images and themes in the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 21:1-14. Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost....

This week we have a love song for a vineyard and another parable about a vineyard (Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 22 [27] ...

This parable challenges us to honestly acknowledge the “No” that reflects our tiredness, our fearfulness, our resistance to God’s world...