Colourful Dreamer

You can listen to this sermon here   Gate Pa – Year B   1 st   Sunday of Lent 2024 Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 25:1-10                                                              First Reading :             Genesis 9:8-17               Second Reading :         1 Peter 3:18-22        Gospel :         ...

Lent has begun! And like every year our gospel reading is Jesus being tested in the wilderness. Mark’s version is brief. Jesus is baptised. He hears a voice declaring him to be God’s son, the Beloved. The heavens are ripped open and the Spirit descends like a divebombing dove and possesses hm, casting him out into the wilderness. Here the Satan tests him. What kind of “son of god” will Jesus be? Like King David, or the emperor Tiberius? Both are sons of god. Or maybe something else. That is what this time in the wilderness is about for Jesus. A test of identity that will shape how he lives out that call for the rest of the Gospel. What of the Divine nature will be revealed in what he says and does? Lent is offered as a similar time for us. A time in the wilderness to begin again living into being beloved children of God. Last week we used 4 words to describe Jesus and talked about what they revealed about God for us. Now we are asked “What of the divine nature is revealed in us?” How...

This sermon can be listened to here Gate Pa – 1st Sunday in Lent - Year A - 2023 Readings: Psalm - Psalm: 32 First Reading - Genesis 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7 Second Reading - Romans 5: 12-19 Gospel - Matthew 4: 1-11 What I want to say: Jesus invites us both into the wilderness, and to know he is with us in our wilderness. Being in the wilderness tested Jesus in his sense of who he was as beloved Son of God, and how he might live that out. Normally Lent is a time for us to reflect on those same questions - who we are as beloved children of God, how we forget that, and how we might live that out. But this year ongoing weather events are leaving many people in a wilderness of loss and grief, for themselves and others. What does this story offer us in the face of this? Talk about Dorothy Day as someone who grew into what it meant to be a be...

As this Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent, we hear again of Jesus testing time in the wilderness. Because we are in the year of Matthew, we get his version. Jesus is baptised and is declared to be the God’s Beloved Son. The Spirit then takes Jesus into the wilderness to face the big questions. What kind of beloved son will he be? How will he live that out? The wilderness is a harsh place where there is no hiding. Here he fasts and prepares. He is anchored in God. And at the end the Satan tests this identity.    How will he respond? Will be put his own needs first or trust that God will provide? Will he succumb to the dramatic and lure of fame, or will he trust God and meet the needs of those who encounter him on the way? Will he seek power and fortune, or seek nothing for himself and live in response to God’s compassion and justice? The Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount come out of this experience. They are who Jesus is. We too are beloved children. But too often, like A...