Colourful Dreamer

 This sermon can be listened to here Gate Pa – Year B   2 nd Sunday in Lent, 2021 Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 22:23-31                                                                                  First Reading:                   Genesis 17:1-7,15-16                      Second Reading :              Romans 4:13-25                                Gospel:                              Mark 8:29-38                                      What I want to say: Explore how liturgy shapes our identity, the flow of liturgy, and how we gather What I want to happen: People to reflect on we gather and how we might engage with that more intentionally. Mark 8:27-38 Common English Bible 27 Jesus and his disciples went into the villages near Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 They told him, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “And what abo

To understand the gospel reading for this week we need to put it back in the story. Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, and then who they say he is. Peter is quick with the messiah.When Peter (in Mark 8:29) names Jesus as the Christ he and his other disciples thought they understood what that meant. But immediately Jesus teaches them about the way of the cross. They way of God was through the cross. And as his disciples then they too must follow this path. And to be honest they don’t get it. And mostly, I am not sure we get it either, 2,000 years later. William Loader [1] says of our gospel reading, “Clearly we are being offered an alternative model of being. It is for our gain, in our interests, to consider it. That is the appeal.… Instead of thinking only of ourselves and believing that it is to our good to gain wealth and avoid any path which leads to suffering, we are being challenged to be generous, giving of ourselves, even when it may mean suffering. The first image

 The sermon can be listened to here Gate Pa – Year B   1 st   Sunday of Lent 2021 Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 25:1-10                                                              First Reading :              Genesis 9:8-17               Second Reading :         1 Peter 3:18-22        Gospel :                         Mark 1:9-15                            What I want to say: Lent is a time to take stock of what shapes our identity. It was time of being shaped in a new identity before baptism. In it we remember that in the wilderness Jesus’ identity was based on being “the beloved Son”. That echoes Israel’s wilderness experience where their identity was shaped by living in presence of God who, in an outrageous act of love, had liberated them from slavery. What shapes our identity as people of God, and what tempts or tests us away? Then explore how our communal worship is primary means (within Anglicanism) we are shaped and moulded as people of God