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 AGM – Year C   1st Sunday in Lent, 2022 Readings: Psalm                         Psalm: 91: 1-2, 9-16                                                    First Reading :              Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Second Reading :         Romans 10:8-13          Gospel:                          Luke 4:1-13      What I want...

Some of us have been ashed. Lent has begun with this sign of our mortality and repentance visible. A sign of our willingness to walk the way of humility and have our minds blown by God’s shalom. In my reading for this Sunday, I came across this by Karoline Lewis from Working Preacher. “In the past, I have called into question the notion of giving up something for Lent and instead, invited a decision on something to embrace. Not something “to do” but something “to be.” Something that gives you joy, that nurtures you. It’s okay to have joy during Lent. It’s okay to think about how you will take care of yourself during Lent. It’s okay to imagine a Lent that does not have to have as its primary mood that of sacrifice. Your starting point for Lent matters. You can suffer through Lent. Or, you can choose to move through Lent from a place of wonder and gratitude: wondering where God might show up, what God might reveal in this dormant time, this time set aside so as to anticipate life, a ti...

Ash Wednesday was a surprising day this year, as we worked out how to be faithful and safe in level 2. In this year with reminders of our mortality constantly nagging away we were invited to wear the mark of the ash – a reminder that from dust we come, and to dust we shall return. I wonder what that evokes in you? For me it is a mix of responses including wonder and awe. This dust we are made of comes from stars. You and I, we are made of star dust.   And in a gesture of profound love God took this star dust, and breathed life into it to create us. Wow!   That ash cross holds a lot of meaning. In the early church Lent was the time of preparation for those to be baptised at Easter. This was more than a time to learn about the being Christian. It was a time of preparation to take on new identities as followers of Christ. It was modeled on the story we hear every first Sunday in Lent of Jesus in the wilderness. This year we hear Mark’s bare bones account of Jesus hearing God ...