Christ Church Mandurah Resources

MATTHEW 10  21 June Christ’s Church, Mandurah Today’s Gospel passage should be prefaced by a question: Do you want the good news first or the bad news first.  Because this passage contains both.   Let’s take the bad news first: If I were looking for a rousing Bible passage to advertise Christianity and recruit disciples, I don’t think I would select this passage.  Because it doesn’t sound like much fun does it. Jesus seems to be warning that whatever happened to him might happen to his followers.  He was called the “prince of demons” by the Pharisees.  The same would happen to his followers.  The authorities would hate and would kill Jesus.  That might happen to the followers.   If the followers wanted peace, well, it wasn’t going to happen.  If you were a first century Christian and you decided to follow Jesus, you were not in for an easy time.  You could have been thrown out of the synagogue; you could have become an outcast from society, and you had men like Saul of Tarsus

MATT 9:35-10:8 CCM 14 June I remember a while back, I woke up about 2am and for some reason couldn’t get back to sleep again. So I got up, laid on the sofa with a hot drink and switched on the TV. I don’t usually watch TV in the middle of the night, but I discovered that’s the time when the American religious broadcasts are shown. I watched 3 programmes. The first two ended with the hosts saying something like: send us money for our programmes and you will be blessed. The third ended with the host saying “buy this book for $100 and you will receive God’s blessing”. I went back to bed after that, absolutely appalled. In fact, I was so appalled my husband was very lucky that I didn’t wake him up just to complain. For the reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans makes it clear to us that receiving God’s blessing has nothing at all to do with whether we buy a particular book. If we can afford to buy an expensive book, that’s fine, and if we can afford to give generously, that’s fine too

John 7: 37 CCM TRINITY Today we celebrate the feast of Trinity,   the last Sunday before we return to what is known in the church as “Ordinary Time”, when our vestments and altar frontals return to the colour green.   When I was a school chaplain, I used to tell the students that it is in the “green time” that we grow, as we reflect on the celebrations of Easter and Pentecost. Today we give thanks for God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit (the comforter).   The triune God is fully revealed to us. Today’s Gospel reading takes place in the Temple, and as the religious leaders are plotting to arrest Jesus because so many people are beginning to believe in him.   They are just waiting for the excuse to take action against Jesus. Jesus has gone to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of booths or tabernacles, which commemorated the time when Moses and the Israelites wandered in the desert and lived in shelters.