Colourful Dreamer

Gate Pa – Pentecost 12 (22 nd Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A) Readings: Psalm:                         Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26,45c                                 Psalm Response:  Glory to God – Creator, Word and Spirit As God always was, is now, and will be forever.  Amen. First Reading :             Exodus 3:1-15                                                              Second Reading :        Romans 12:9-21                                                Gospe l:                       Matthew 16:21-28                                                      What I want to say: Use the three readings to explore the big question – who are we. From there I want to ask 3 questions – what seismic shifts are we invited into ourselves? What is our vocation in this place? What is my role in that vocation? What I want to happen: People to reflect on these questions and begin to live it out. The Sermon       1.      Introduction: Dominant images

T he lectionary presents us with a fascinating triplet of readings this week, all of which demand that we focus just on them. And in other weeks we might have been able to do just that. But not this week. This week we need to pay attention to all three. The first reading is the call of Moses in Exodus. Last week if we had had the lectionary readings we would have heard the story of Moses the baby being saved from Pharaoh, and ironically growing up with Pharaoh. This week we have skipped over the account of his stepping in on behalf of a slave and killing an Egyptian, and we find him way up north at Mount Horeb, looking after his father in law’s sheep. On Mount Horeb, the sacred mountain, he encounters the burning bush which is not consumed. He stands on holy ground and he is given his vocation for the rest of his life. He is invited, well, more dragged kicking and screaming, to reimagine himself not as shepherd, but of leader of God’s people, and spokesperson for the God of those

Gate Pa – 17 August 2013 Readings: Psalm:                                                 Psalm: 133                                                      First Reading :                                       Genesis 45:1-15      Second Reading                         Romans 11:1-2, 29-32        Gospe l:                                       Matthew 15: (10-20) 21-28  What I want to say: I want to explore three different ways of reading this passage today. The first is that Jesus is just rude. The second that here we see both Jesus and the early Christian community struggling with the universal implications for what Jesus was teaching and living out. To read it in this way people need to keep in mind some information about how the New Testament came to be, Thirdly I want to place this story with the what Jesus is talking about before it, and to suggest this is used by Matthew as an example of what Jesus is saying, that it is not obedience to the law that makes one