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Sunday Sermon 27th June 2021

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  MARK 5:21-43 I am sure you are by now used to hearing about my favourite stories in the Gospels: today we have another one: I love the stories of the woman with the issue of blood, and Jairus the desperate father, because it speaks of people who have tried everything and now have nowhere else to turn, and it speaks of Jesus power.  We can really sympathise both with Jairus and the sick woman with the haemorrhage; these people are hanging on to life by a thread. And they both teach us about how to approach God. It is also written in a favourite technique of Mark’s Gospel: he begins to tell one story, then inserts another story and then resumes his original story. So we have Jairus and his sick daughter, then we switch to the woman with the haemorrhage, and then we switch back to Jairus and his daughter. To Biblical scholars, this is known as a Markan sandwich: a story within a story. In Mark’s Gospel, we read about Jesus healing Peter’s mother in law, a paralyzed man saved by the fait
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Sunday Sermon 20th June 2021

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Mark 4: 35-41 Today’s Gospel continues the story of Jesus busy day: he has appointed the twelve, been accused of being out of his mind, given the parable of the sower, the lamp on the stand and the mustard seed, and now we find him in a boat with the disciples crossing to the other side of the lake. We know that most of the disciples were fishermen, so we can assume that they were used to stormy seas, but this storm seems to have unnerved even them.   They are panicked and yet Jesus is asleep in the boat, not even noticing the storm.   The disciples wake him and immediately he calms the storm, rebuking the wind and the waves.   For Mark, Jesus power over nature was a sign that God was with him, and that Jesus’s power stretched from miraculous healings to overcoming nature.   Jesus had gone from speaking about God’s power, to demonstrating it. The demonstration of Jesus power is just too confronting for the disciples, and takes them out of their comfort zones.   It shows them anot
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Sunday Sermon 13th June 2021

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Mark Chapter 4:26-36 I read an article recently which advised how you know that you have reached middle-age. One of the signs of middle age is talking to electrical equipment. So if you rant at your computer when it doesn’t understand what you want it to do, or have an argument with your radio whilst listening to talkback programmes, things are not looking good.   Driving back from Busselton some time ago, I found another sign of middle age - talking to road signs.  You know, when it says “Mandurah 75kms”, and then after what seems an age, the sign says “Mandurah 70 kms”.  I found myself say:” you’ve got to be joking; I have driven farther than 5kms since the last sign”. I think that there is also another sign of reaching maturity – you finally learn what you can do and what you have no chance of understanding.  I admit to being geographically challenged – I spend a lot of time searching for the homes of people I visit.  I use a map, but somewhere between reading the directions and dri
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Sunday Sermon 2nd May 2021

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John 15: 1               Today is Easter 5 and the readings for the Easter season have always struck me as a little odd.   Five weeks ago we read of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and now we return to the eve of Jesus death, and the occasion of the sharing of the last supper with his disciples. In scripture, there are over 200 names given to Jesus: “the bread of life, the good shepherd, the prince of peace etc.”   And today we look at another one – the vine.   Jesus said “I am the vine”, which is the last of seven “I am” declarations in John’s gospel, and he shared this with those friends who were closest to him. Whenever I read of Jesus’s conversations with people, I am always impressed by how well Jesus understands his audience. When he speaks with Nicodemus and the Pharisees, he speaks of deep theological matters.   When he meets a rich young man, he tells him to rethink his priorities.   And when he first meets Simon Peter, he speaks of fishing for men.   And now, three y
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Sunday Sermon 11th April 2021

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 John 20: 19 ccm When people ask me what are my favourite Bible passages, I have to say John chapter 20 is right up there. John 20 is the chapter I go to when I need to be reminded of Jesus, the passage I go to when I need to be comforted, and the passage which made the confusing business of faith come together for me. I can remember being asked to prove the existence of God, by someone who was determined to prove that God couldn’t possible exist – it just wasn’t logical, it wasn’t rational and there was no scientific evidence. My defence was to read to him John chapter 20. Because John 20 is the story of how very vulnerable, confused and emotional people came to a real relationship with the resurrected Jesus and to experience their own personal Easter resurrection. It is my story and I suspect it is the same for many of you here this morning. It is the story of Mary Magdalene, of some bewildered disciples, and of Thomas, the disciple who couldn’t believe his friends. This is the story
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Sunday Sermon 21st March 2021

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JOHN 12:20-33 21 march ccm I may have shared with you before about the very first funeral service I was asked to conduct; I was a very new deacon.   I had been caring for a lady in the parish with Parkinson’s disease, and when she died her family asked me to conduct the service. I think you can imagine how nervous I was; I so wanted to get things right for this family.   After the service, one of their friends came to me and said “the funeral for a Christian is always a celebration”.   I must admit, I was quite shocked and I thought he was nuts.   I couldn’t see any reason to celebrate. But I have learned that he was right – he was right and at the time I just didn’t get it.   Any priest will tell you that there really is a distinct difference between the funeral service for a Christian and for those who have no faith. And the difference is because of Easter.   As believers, we might not understand everything about Easter, we may have trouble getting our heads around the behaviour
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Sunday Sermon 7th March 2021

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 John 2:13-22 7 MARCH 2021 As we reach the halfway point of Lent, things are beginning to take a more serious turn. Jesus is in Jerusalem, and as we read John chapter 2, Jesus begins to be noticed, but for all the wrong reasons. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke have the Temple clearing taking place just days before the crucifixion, but John has Jesus clearing the temple during the first of 3 Passovers he mentions in his Gospel. Jesus certainly had an audience. Every Jewish male was expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the week-long festival of unleavened bread, during which the Passover was celebrated. So at this time The Temple was crowded with visitors, and the temple authorities crowded it even more by allowing money changers and merchants to set up their stalls in the outer Court of the Gentiles. We might wonder what made Jesus so angry: it certainly wasn’t his first visit to the Temple and he had surely seen all this before. It wasn’t just that the merchants crow
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