Colourful Dreamer

This Lent we continue reflecting on whose are we using or four words, who are we as people marked by those four words, and what is ours to do in light of all that. This week we are given the Decalogue - the 10 words or 10 commandments from Exodus - We too easily read these as legalistic or moralistic which need to be obeyed to earn something. Howard Wallace says they “were given so that people may live fully together and before God. They were not given so that people may be worthy to come into God’s presence. On the contrary … they are given after God liberated his people from Egypt and led them in the wilderness. Law or torah in the Old Testament, is always a way to live in the presence of the gracious God who first comes to us in our despair and need. They are also a reminder that living in the presence of this God brings responsibility toward God and toward all God’s creation.” 1 The 10 words are the way God shape the people of God to live out God’s graciousness and generosity fo...

This sermon can be listened to here                    Gate Pa – Year C  2nd Sunday in Lent, 2022 Readings: Psalm                            Psalm: 27                                                First Reading                Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18                      Second Reading           Phil 3:17-4:1                           ...

What an interesting collection of readings this week. Take Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18. A gruesome story that makes little sense to us. It is easy to get hung up on the brutality of the sacrifice and miss the significance of the moment. This is an ancient way of promising that what is being promised will happen, or the person promising will end up like the animals whose remains they walk between. Or in other words, God will be faithful to this covenant or God will die. God makes this promise even while Abram sleeps. God’s faithfulness does not depend on our response. God just is faithful. And God fulfilled the promise. Abram and Sarai did have a son, and through that son they had many descendants. God remained faithful to those many descendants. They were blessed, so that they might be a blessing for all creation and all life. For the gospel writers and for Paul, Jesus is how God fulfils the ultimate promise of this moment. Humanity would be restored, and creation renewed. Through Jesus,...