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Be Ready to Wait - Some Thoughts on Matthew 25.

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Are you ready to join the party? That is the question our gospel asks us for the next few weeks. Of course, other questions go with that—like what kind of party is it, and when is it? When the early church began, they expected Jesus back tomorrow. And after the Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed, they thought that meant today. But maybe ten years later they were struggling to hold hope in the face of persecution and disappointment. These remain big questions today. When is this party kicking off, and what kind of party is it? In Matthew, Jesus’ last block of teaching is all about these questions, finishing with four parables: the wicked servants, the bridesmaids, the outrageous lumps of money (talents), and the sheep and the goats. Jesus’s parables are not nice stories with neat meanings; they provoked, shocked, disturbed and left room for multiple interpretations. These four are no exception and should be read together, bouncing off each other toward a climax. Together, ...
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Some Thoughts for All Saints/All Souls Days and the Beatitudes

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This Sunday, All Saints Day , we gather with Christians globally to light candles and remember loved ones who have died over the past year. For at least 12 centuries November 1st has been the day Christians have honoured the saints,   firstly all those who died as martyrs, and then all those great people of faith the rest of us look up to and are inspired by. Who are your favourite saints and what do they offer you as you seek to live the gospel. Complementing this is All Souls’ Day on November 2nd, established in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries to remember all people of faith, particularly those we personally grieve. Today we look back on all those who have paved the way for us - especially those we have loved and who loved us, and those who inspire us. As we honour their memory and give thanks for the ways they have blessed us over our lifetimes, we take another step in letting them go, trusting that they now rest in God, as they have always. We do this considering some...
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“Show us your credentials part five." Some thoughts for the readings for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Greatest Commandment

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Our reading from Deuteronomy about Moses’s death on Mount Nebo offers us a delightful image of the intimate relationship between God and Moses, and through Moses to the people of God. God takes Moses’s body and buries him—a level of care usually reserved for closest loved ones. While that intimacy was once held by Moses on behalf of the nation, today we are invited into that same closeness as God’s community, knowing we are deeply loved and held in the hardest times. Our gospel reading from Matthew is so familiar might even miss the point. Jesus is still in the temple. Jewish leaders and the Judaean wealthy elite are still trying to undermine his standing. They have one more play. Jesus was not the first rabbi to offer this “new” way of understanding Torah. But it was innovative and is central to his teaching. By bringing together Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, he makes them equally important and the basis for reading the whole of Torah (Law). Many people, then and now, under...
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“Show us your credentials part four." Some thoughts for the readings for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time with some more interesting stories.

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There are some big theological themes at play into today’s readings. They should give us cause to pause and wonder at their implications as we approach election time. The gospel reading is a well-known story that has led Christians over the centuries to declare that religion and politics do not mix. So let’s put it back and take a look. We are still in the temple, but now the long, tense, conversation between Jesus and the privileged Jerusalem Temple elite is on pause. It began when they asked by what authority Jesus did ALL these things: teaching in the temple, healing, forgiving sins, eating with sinners etc…, overturning money changers tables – and more. Now the Pharisees and Herodians, very strange bed fellows, are working together to trap him. Their question, veiled in flattery, is a good question. Jesus will be in serious trouble however he answers, either with the crowd who hate the Romans and their taxes, or with the Romans themselves. Jesus’ response seems simple and clever,...
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“Show us your credentials part three." Some thoughts for the readings for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time with some interesting stories.

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In our Gospel reading, Jesus keeps poking the bear and ramping up the tension with the privileged, landowning Jerusalem Temple elite. This tense conversation started when they demanded to know who gave him the authority to do all these things—teaching, healing, forgiving sins, and flipping over the money changers' tables. Jesus links his authority back to John the Baptist and then launches into a few stories about sons and vineyard tenants who don’t pay rent – they know what to do with them. And now an utterly absurd parable about a king and a wedding feast. Seriously, who turns down a weeklong party with the best food and wine? To get what's going on here, we have to keep the Sermon on the Mount in mind, along with the parables of the lost sheep and the vineyard workers. The Kingdom of Heaven is for the poor and vulnerable. Jesus is genuinely angry at leaders who use their religious authority to line their own pockets while completely neglecting their duties as stewards of ...
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“Show us your credentials part two." Some thoughts for the readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Season of Creation

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This Sunday marks the final day of this year’s Season of Creation, and we read this well-known and deeply troubling gospel story (Matthew 21:33-46). Bad tenants doing bad things to the landowner’s slaves who came for the rent. And then they kill the son. All a great metaphor for what was about to happen to Jesus and the Jews. All the bad people get what they deserve in the end. Stories like this have left us   “Gentile Christians” feeling smug and have been used to justify horrendous violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters. Maybe we need to put the story back and ask where we are in the story. Jesus came to Jerusalem and caused a stir in the Temple. The next day he returns, cursing a non-fruit bearing fig tree on the way. The Chief Priests and leading Pharisees ask, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to teach here?” These are the Judean elite who are profiting from their alliance with Rome. This is the third part of Jesus’ response. Talking to these absentee l...
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“Show us your credentials." Some thoughts for the readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Season of Creation

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  “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to teach here? Who gave you permission to cause this ruckus” Big questions that keep coming up. Moses faced it in the wilderness. Paul faced it repeatedly due to his radical ideas. He claimed his authority came from the risen Christ. Jesus pointed to his faithfulness to God, whose own authority rests on the covenants to restore humanity and renew creation. True authority is found in actions. Matthews’s gospel as a whole and this week’s reading in particular is all about these questions. In telling this story Matthew wanted to show both where Jesus’ authority came from and the nature of that authority. To put this week’s reading back, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem and has already tipped over tables. Next day he is back in the temple, having grumpily dried up a non-fruit bearing fig tree. He is at once confronted by the wealthy, entitled elite religious leaders who used religion to justify their wealth while abandoning their responsi...
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