Colourful Dreamer

You can listen to this sermon here Gate Pa – Year A 33 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2023   Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 123                                                                   First Reading:              Judges 4:1-7 Second Reading:        1 Thessalonians 5:1-11                          Gospel:    ...

Last week we heard the story of 10 virgins/bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom. Some were street-wise and had spare oil. They were ready to wait. Some were not ready and missed out on the party. There is more to waiting than sitting around. Then Jesus tells the well-known parable of the talents. We all know that it is about being a good and faithful servant to God by using our natural abilities in the service of the Kingdom. We see the “Lord” as a kind of Jesus figure – not a very nice Jesus figure though. And to be honest most of us are not so keen on the ending with all that outer darkness and the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But we just get on with it. Like most of the stories in the Bible it helps if you put the story back: back into its place in Matthew’s gospel, and back into the world it came out of. When we do that, we find some other ways of understanding what Jesus was talking about. Some ask where this story fits with the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount. At t...

I am finding it an interesting exercise to read Paul and his letter to the divided church in Rome in this Season of Creation. It causes me to wonder if one of the ways we “live according to the flesh” is to sever our relationship with creation. Genesis reminds us that we are created from the soil in the image of the creating God to tend and care for all creation. Our wellbeing is intimately connected with that of creation. And yet so many of our prayers only talk about our need to love God, with no reference to Jesus’ repeating of the commandments to love God by loving our neighbour. And in this Season of Creation, I would include all creation and all creatures on this small common home as our neighbour. We might describe sin as being unable to find other ways of living even when we can see that our dependence on a fossil fuel economy is now altering the climate, reducing biodiversity, and choking us with pollution.   Paul invites us to know that the Spirit of God is with us in all...

You can listen to a sermon around this here This week we take time to celebrate Matariki. (You can find our more about this here)  Traditionally this followed the festivities around the harvesting of crops. With the re-emergence of the star cluster in the morning sky, Matariki was the time to remember the previous year and to begin making preparations for sowing the seeds for the new crop. Today Matariki is an opportunity to reflect on our shared history in Aotearoa and to look to the future. It is also a time of revitalisation and resurgence of te reo Māori and mātauranga (knowledge) Māori. This year we are joining, early, many others around the world, who during the month of September, celebrate the Season of Creation, adding our little trickle to this worldwide river praying and working for God’s justice and peace for all people and all creation. Central to this is the invitation to pay attention to the voice of indigenous people around the world who offer us different ways o...

You can hear this sermon here Gate Pa –31st Sunday in Ordinary Time- Year C - 2022 Readings: Psalm -                         Ps 119:137-144                                                             First Reading -             Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4                     Second Reading  -       2 Thessalonians 1:1-4,11-12          Gospel -                       Luke 19: 1-10              ...