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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

Many of us are uncomfortable with the title of "King" for Jesus, for myriad reasons, hence the festival of Christ the King can seem problematic. Some of us are a little more comfortable with the naming of our festival as the Reign of Christ. I encourage you to read what I wrote previously on these set texts (The Reign of Christ. Jeremiah 23:1-6; Song of Zechariah; Colossians 1:11-20; and Luke 23: 33-43. ) as background. This year I want to explore what it might mean if the

What terribly confronting readings this week which for many of us seem to describe the times we are living in, or at least witnessing! These readings (Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 28 (33). Luke 21:5-19; Isaiah 65:17-25; Isaiah 12; and 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.) not only describes the fearful situation of the first century world in which the disciples would find themselves in but also describes the brokenness of our world! And the prophet Isaiah still speaks to ou