New Kid on the Blog

I spoke Tuesday at the Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria 12-Step Recovery Service, and as I am unlikely to share this elsewhere thought I would come back to this blog and leave it here... Based on Psalm 96 and Matthew 18:12-14 Judgement I got to indulge my overacting ability last week when I was asked to come in and play John the Baptist in a school assembly here in the Cathedral for the school next door. After shocking a few of the tots by shouting ‘Repent – the kingdom of God is at hand’ as I walked in wearing a hairy poncho of some kind, I was asked questions by the children which I was asked by the teacher to answer as if I was in character. One of those questions was a very astute one – is God angry at us? It comes from John’s quote to the pharisees in the book of Matthew ‘you hypocrites, who told you could flee from the wrath to come.’. And it’s not a bad question. It certainly seems that in some streams of what is broadly called the Christian tradition that God seem...

So today, again, I was presiding at the Eucharist for Recovery - 12 Step Communion at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria . It's always a welcome space for reflection and prayer and the opportunity for a short 'mini-sermon' gives me the chance to touch on a subject and, hopefully, begin the process of engaging with a subject rather than trying to give too many answers.  The thoughts below are my reflections on the reading set for today - John Chapter 11 verses 1-10 The Glory of God How do you picture glory? Lots of bling? Lots of bright light? Big ancient buildings full of beauty and art and tradition? Huge skyscrapers or outstanding buildings? Is it the wonder of nature, mountains and cliffs? Or is it the pinnacles of human achievement, in sport , or business, or entertainment, or music, or art? We often associate glory with ‘big and impressive’.  Or outstanding beauty.  When we talk of the glory of God we think in terms of a God who is great and powerful and ...

Once every month or so I get the great privilege of presiding and preaching at the Tuesday Afternoon 12-Step Recovery Eucharist at our Cathedral: Christ Church Victoria .  It's a quiet, healing, thoughtful Eucharist at which I normally offer a few thoughts... I'm sure I speak more than most visitors, but I've never really got the hang of 'reflection' - I seem to be much better at 'chatter'. So here's my thinkings from last week... Psalm 71.1-14 John 12.20-36 Yelling at God In this Holy Week – leading up to Good Friday and finally to Easter, we are confronted with the stark reality of human suffering. We see suffering in the last hours of Jesus (traditionally known as ‘The Passion’ – which comes from the Latin Passio, meaning suffering, or enduring) but we also get a glimpse, as in today’s Psalm, of the suffering that all of us go through, which is also a part of the reflection of this Holy Week. In today’s Psalm the writer, we don...