Colourful Dreamer

There is a lot happening today. First, happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. May you know God’s joy and goodness this and every day. And for those for whom this is not a good day, may you know God’s peace. I wonder how our experiences of either being a mother, or of our mothers, help us reflect more deeply on the motherhood of God and how we live out God’s love each day? The theme for this Sunday is being on the edge of big change. Thursday was Ascension Day, the day we mark the Ascension of the crucified and risen Christ to the Godhead. Too easily we forget it. We often don’t know what to do with it. And yet it invites us to have our minds blown by the fully human, crucified, and risen Jesus, in all his full, created, creaturely, humanity, ascending into the full presence of the Godhead. Our humanity mingles with the divine, just as God’s divinity mingled with our humanity in the Incarnation. That leads to big changes for those disciples in how they lived God’s love. It offers hope in ...

We are still in Easter, a time to have our minds blown by, and have our imaginations run wild with, the possibilities of what the reign of God might look like. Hold that thought. This morning’s readings from both John’s letter and John’s gospel are all about love. On Tuesday I was asked what is love, or where do we find love defined. How would you answer that? For the gospel writers love is embodied by Jesus. Jesus teaches love, lives love, receives love, dies for love, and rises in love. It’s big! Mind blowingly big. And we are invited to let our imaginations run wild with the possibilities of that love. Mostly we want to define it and limit it and keep it manageable. The Spirit of God in Acts is having none of that, just like last week. Barriers are broken, all that separates is set aside, and new communities based on love are born. John says God is love. Not loving. Love! Jesus abides in this love. He invites us to remain in this love, branches of the love vine. Jesus continue...

As I have said, Lent is inspired by the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness wrestling with and being tested in his identity. Who was he as the “beloved son of God”? How would he live that out? What would he trade it in for?   Lent is our time to ask what it means for us to be beloved children of God. (Or as the writer to the Ephesians says, God’s works of art). Asking whose we are using the four words we used to describe Jesus – how to they describe God? Who are we – how do those words apply to us? What is ours to do – how do we live them out? And what gets in the way of knowing and living all that? How do this Sunday’s readings help us in this work? There are many who find our gospel reading (John 3:14-21) condemning and difficult. Your safe if you believe, otherwise eternal damnation!   But I don’t think that fits with what John is saying in this Gospel. His focus was God’s active love of this world and God’s commitment to redeem and restore it. So let’s put this passa...

 You can listen to this sermon here   Gate Pa – Year B - 4 th Sunday of Advent, 2023 Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26                                                     First Reading                 2 Sam 7:1-11, 16                     Second Reading          Rom 16:25-27                  ...