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Some thoughts for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time and Jesus' Shocking Domesticated Short Stories

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One of my favourite authors is N.T. Wright. He says rather than escaping Earth and going to heaven when we die, the ultimate goal of the biblical story is God bringing heaven and earth together in a renewed physical creation. We need to keep this in mind while we read our readings from Matthew and Romans. In our gospel reading this week from Matthew (13:31-33, 44-52) Jesus is continuing helping people grasp what he means by the “kingdom of heaven”. He is not talking about what happens when we die. This is about this life now. It is what we pray for every time we pray the Lord’s prayers “God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.” It is when all the dishonesty, rivalry, deceit, dysfunction, misogyny and injustice at work in the story of Laban, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah (Genesis 29) is replaced with God’s way of justice, hope, and generosity. As Paul writes to the Romans, when all that the Spirit of God longs for, groaning with creation in anticipation of, comes to be, and...
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Some thoughts for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time - who gets to say what is wheat and what is weed anyway?

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This week’s gospel reading from Matthew (13:24-30, 46-43) is part of what can be called "The Sermon on the Lake", one of 5 major blocks of teaching in the gospel. Here Matthew has Jesus talk about the nature of the reign of God or the reign of Heaven as he calls it. How different this is to the reign of Rome. Amy-Jill Levine reading these parables from a Jewish perspective reminds us that there is always more than one way to read them, and that Jesus uses them to shock and unsettle his listeners.   Matthew's community, like the churches in Rome, were being persecuted and in conflict. Fear of imposters and maybe some feeling holier than others is dividing his church. To this Matthew ask the same question I ask – who decides what are weeds? In “Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants”, Robin Wall Kimmerer tells of Europeans seeing the Indigenous crops of corn, beans and squash planted together as weeds and cleared them for ...
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Reading Jewish Jesus with Titles and Layers and Life

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  Ōtūmoetai – 15 th Sunday of Ordinary Time + Matariki 2026 Readings: First Reading :               Genesis 25:19-34 Psalm:                         Psalm : 119:105-112   Second Reading :         Romans 8:1-11 Gospe l:                        Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 What I want to say: explore Matthew’s reading using the titles – Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Soils, Parable of the Seeds and Fruit, weaving Rebekah and Isaac into our own experience of sliding on the continuum of soils, holding Paul’s promise of the Spirit making a home within us. Use Matariki to invite us to reflect What I want to happen: Invite us to consider as we hear ...
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Sowing Seeds of Hope at Matariki

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Mānawatia a Matariki – Let’s celebrate Matariki! This gift from Te Ao Māori invites us to remember those who have died, celebrate the present and our shared history , and plan for the future with whānau over kai (food), waiata (song), and tākaro (games). Sowing Seeds of Hope The Matariki themes of reaping and sowing beautifully mirror the parable of the extravagant and wasteful farmer in Matthew 13, who outrageously scatters the seeds of life across all types of soil. This story offers profound hope to a struggling church, asking us to reflect on what kind of soil we are and how we might cultivate our hearts and our world to receive these life-giving seeds. Grace in Our Humanity At times we are good soil; at other times, we are shallow, or even deceitful and conniving like Rebekah’s whānau in Genesis. That is simply what it means to be human. Yet, despite our flawed messiness, God relentlessly remains at work in every single kind of soil, transforming us and cultivating new g...
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Some thoughts for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Rebekah, Sin in Romans and Matthew 11

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The Sower by Vincent van Gogh The scripture readings for this Sunday focus on discernment and how we make choices that align with God’s vision for a restored world In the Genesis reading Rebekah actively chooses generous hospitality by watering both a stranger and his camels. When invited to leave her homeland to marry a man she has never met, she boldly chooses the possibility of a new life. In Romans Paul continues his discussion around Torah describing it as given to allow God’s people to be righteous – to be faithful to the ever present and eternally faithful (righteous) God working to redeem humanity and restore creation. He examines our inner, warring motivations and how we have turned Torah into a tool for self-righteousness, exclusion, and measuring personal worth, ultimately losing God and forgetting God’s covenant all of which prevents us from embracing a different life. And in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus offers a hash critique of those who oppose both John and him –...
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Gospel of Peace

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  Ōtūmoetai – 13 th Sunday in Ordinary Time- Year A – 2026 Readings: Psalm -                        Psalm: 13                                 First Reading-             Genesis 22:1-4 Second Reading -         Rom 6:12-23            Gospel -                         Matt 10:40-42           What I want to say: I want to explore -        the Akedah – a brutal story that offers a promise of God’s presence an...
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