Colourful Dreamer

Here we are again, Palm Sunday. Journeying with Jesus who humbly rides a donkey. Riding from Bethany and down into the Kidron Valley. Down into the shadow of Jerusalem. The ambivalent Passover crowds. The maze of streets and events. Until we reach the pain of Gethsemane. The terror of the arrest and trial. The utter despair of Golgotha and the cross. This final journey begins. Here we are again, Palm Sunday. It begins with a small crowd from the country waving branches (only John has palms) in the week before Passover. This festival celebrating God’s undeserved action freeing the Hebrew people from empire and slavery. Celebrated under the watchful eye of the new empire and their puppets. This small crowd outside the city are welcoming their “king”.. A king unlike Pilate or Herod Antipas. They too enter Jerusalem, seated on war horses, surrounded by cavalry and infantry. They come in pomp and importance, prepared for trouble. Jesus is everything they are not. He rides a donkey. The

You can listen to this sermon here   Gate Pa – Year B   2 nd Sunday in Lent, 2024 Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 22:23-31                                          First Reading:                   Genesis 17:1-7,15-16                      Second Reading :              Romans 4:13-25                                Gospel:                              Mark 8:31-38                                      What I want to say: After watching Dean Richard talk abut the wilderness, I will offer some thoughts on how Genesis 17 and Mark 8 help us in this Lenten time. The Abrahamic Covenant offered in Genesis 12 and 15, and affirmed in Genesis 17 remind us that the blessing is so that the people of God will be a blessing for all people and all creation – so that humanity is restored, and creation renewed. Jesus reaffirms this when he says “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Let that blow your minds and change your hearts and lives, and trust this good new

Two weeks ago, I invited people to think of 4 words we would use to describe Jesus, and then how these words also described God. Last week we began lent and entered with Jesus into the wilderness. I suggested that for Jesus this was a time of testing his identity as the Beloved Son of God, and how he would live that out. For us it is a time to prayerfully reflect on who are we as the people of God, the God we name using those four words. How do those four words apply to us? What might we need to let go of, fast from, to be made in the image of this God? And what might we need to take up?  The gospel writers understood Jesus – the Beloved Son, to be the way we know God and the means by which this covenant of renewal would be fulfilled. But the kingdom of God would not be established by force – that was the test of the wilderness, and is the test in Mark 8. In Caesarea Philippi  – a place build by the Greek conquerors to honour their god Pan at the source of the Jordan, and then a city b

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 :                         Mark 1:9-15                            What I want to say: It is Lent – traditionally a time to give something up, to pray and read the bible more, and to support charities. (ask) I want to explore the point of all that using my three questions – whose are we, who are we, what is ours to do? I want to suggest that it is a time to begin again joining in God’s disruptive work in the world What I want to happen: People to take the time to both give up things that hinder living as beloved children of God, and take up new practices The Sermon       1.     Introduction – On Wednesday some of us received ash crosses on our heads Began L