Colourful Dreamer

Life is not a straight line from childhood to adulthood. Life has bumps and curves; obstacles and detours; desert times and tsunamis; celebrations and sorrows. Life can go from glorious to calamitous in just a moment. How do Christian saints navigate the complexities of life? William W. How wrote the hymn we always sing on this day: For all the Saints. He served in the Church of England in the 1800s, and became known as the "poor man's bishop" and "the children's bishop," for his work among the destitute in the London slums and the factory workers in west Yorkshire. He describes all that God can be for a faithful person in vs 2;  Thou wast their rock, their refuge, and their might,  Thou, Christ, the hope that put their fears to flight;  ’mid gloom and doubt, their true and shining light. Alleluia, alleluia! Today we remember the saints who have been part of our lives and say, “Alleluia, alleluia!"  You can listen to her sermon here

This can be listened to here Gate Pa – Year B, 30 th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2021 Readings: Psalm                         Psalm 34:1-8 First Reading :               Job 42:1-6, 10-17                                Second Reading :          Hebrews 7:23-28                                Gospel :                          Mark 10:46-52      What I want to say: John continues to explore what God was up to with Jesus. One way of answering that is that Jesus is like God and God is like Jesus – what does that do to your thinking about the life of faith. Job invites us to hold lightly all that we think we know about God and to find comfort in the uncertainty. And then to live in hope. Reminds me of Mark 1:15 – let your mind be blown Bartimaeus comes at end of central section turns the story towards Jerusalem and highlights disciples’ blindness Their minds have not been blown yet, they have not been re-oriented by Jesus and are still trying to use their old formulas to

Last week I asked, “what do we think God was up to in Jesus?” and “what does that say about God?”   These are the questions at the heart of each of the gospels, and the whole New Testament really. This week our readings remind us that we often need to let go of our old answers before we can begin to grasp what is really being offered. Too often our old answers get in the way. They got in the way of Job and his friends. Job knew God to be righteous, and as such rewarded the upright and punished the sinner. And Job was as upright as they came! And yet calamity had come upon him. His friends came to comfort him and ended up trying to fix his theology and pleading with him to confess his obviously many sins to end the calamity. Not great pastoral practice by the way. Job wanted none of it and demanded his time in court with God; and got it. But instead of being the prosecutor, he found himself on the end of God’s questions about creation and the meaning of life. He could not answer – he

You can listen to this sermon here Gate Pa – Year B   29 th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2021 Readings: Psalm                               Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c                                  First Reading :              Job 38:1-7, 34-41                                Second Reading :          Hebrews 5:1-10                                   Gospel :                        Mark 10:35-45                                                       What I want to say: John explores the stories we use to make sense of life and God, and the invitation to let them go. What I want to happen: what ideas about God do we need to be freed of?   The Sermon        1.      Introduction: Poor old James and John They thought they understood what was happening. They thought they understood what God was doing in this person Jesus. They thought they knew what God was up to with Jesus. They thought they understood God. Jesus was the holy one from God. He had healed many of