St Michael and All Angels: Recent Episodes
St Michael and All Angels
Rebecca shares about how we should keep the main thing the main thing - avoid distractions!
I don’t think there’s anything that rattles me more than realising I don’t have enough to get me through what’s looming in front of me - whether it’s time, money, resources, or energy. That moment before pay day, or when you’re exhausted, or stretched too thin and feeling like there’s nothing left to…
Kia manakohia ngā kupu a tōku māngai; me ngā whakaaro o tōku ngākau i tōu aroaro, e Ihowā, e tōku kāmaka, e tōku kaihoko. Amine. Months ago, when we were first planning this service, I looked at the lectionary readings and thought “wow, what a gift!” - particularly the Jeremiah reading that speaks so…
So, who is wise and understanding among you? That’s rhetorical question, of course, but’s a tough one. Let’s clear it up a bit - how would you define what wisdom is? The dictionary definition in Mirriam-Webster reads: 1 a ability to discern inner qualities and relationship (insight) b good sense (judgement)…
Jesus travels as far north as possible and still be in the “Holy” Land of Israel. The area of Caesarea-Philippi, about 40Km north of Lake Galilee. It is far away from the temple and the priests and Pharisees in Jerusalem. It is outside Herod Aggripa’s Tetrarchy of Galilee, is however in his half brother…
Today we’re bringing to a close on our series looking at different spiritual rules or practices to draw us closer to Jesus. We’ve covered three so far - the practice of slowing down, or ruthlessly eliminating hurry, finding prayer rhythms that help us to glow in the dark, and last week looked at radical…
Today we’re continuing our sermon series looking at different spiritual disciplines or practices that help to draw us closer to King Jesus in a world that can so easily draw us further away from him. Last week was all about prayer and finding practices to bring Jesus to the forefront of our minds - so…
I made a rookie mistake this week. At my small group on Monday night I made the bold assertion that I would be preaching on prayer and proclamation as a spiritual discipline - praying, and sharing the good news. And at that point it was true - months ago when Rebecca and I planned this teaching series…
Last week Richard got us thinking about what being a disciple of Jesus looked like for those first disciples, and what that might mean for us now. The phrase ‘may we be covered with the dust of our teacher / rabbi Jesus’ has stuck with me all week. We need to be people who live so closely with Jesus…
Read practicing the way pages 2-3 We’re so familiar with this reading that it’s easy to miss just how strange it is. What would make Simon step away from his life - his work, his family, his friends, and follow Jesus into unknown territory just like that? Let’s go back a couple of steps. Jesus was a…
We’ve had such a lot of fun over the last four weeks digging deep into the story of Jonah. I ’ve learnt so much – thanks Richard – and have loved all the word play and hyperlinks as we see the story of the Bible all connecting together in one small book. This week we take a huge step back – and we’re…
We’re in for a wild ride today! Have you been enjoying all of the little hyperlinks we’ve been finding over the way so far? I have! Today is going to be an absolute cacophony of hyperlinks, as just about the entire Hebrew bible explodes all over these 11 verses. But there are going to be lots of little…
Jonah is reborn! He’s experienced a miracle firsthand! He’s been baptised! He’s a new man! Or is he? How will he respond to this new revelation from God? Let’s get cracking! I’ll need your help for this one - can you all read the words in bold? Seems appropriate that we share the words of the Lord together…
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,…
Many of you will have hit our gospel passage recently as part of our Lent Studies. You should have a copy of the text in front of you. Here we have Jesus sharing his last great teaching with his disciples. They’re words that are so familiar for those of us who have been around the Bible or Church for…
I thought about taking the easier route this morning and digging in to the Gospel reading for my sermon today, but the story of the Ethiophian eunuch is just too tempting to pass up - and suspect you’ve heard more sermons on abiding in the vine than you have about the Ethiopian eunuch! I’ve got a terrible…
Kia ora e te whanau I bring you a combo job of Co-Criest in Charge report and chance to look forward, as well as taking a peek at the gospel reading. And this gospel reading is such an encouragement for where we are as a parish at the moment: Jesus appears to his friends, he proves he really is alive.…
I’m not normally one to read poetry. But, I was flicking through a magazine the other day (not woman’s weekly - another illustrious magazine called ‘Journal for Preachers’, and the opening sentence of the first article declared that “Preachers should read more poems and fewer commentaries. A great poem…
Close your eyes. Mine are closed too. Who here, if they’re honest, carries some level of hang-up around sharing who Jesus is to them? Keep your eyes closed and put your hand up if that’s you. Put your hands down, and open your eyes. I can imagine the scene in this moment from today’s story. Jesus is…
Well, this seems like a pretty straightforward, out of the ordinary, gospel passage. A leper comes to Jesus, asks for healing, Jesus does it. A nice moral story. Jesus cares for the outcast, so should we. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Trouble is, once you start looking at it a bit more deeply it raises all…
God’s got my attention in two ways this week. One way has to do with power; and the other with what it means to take hands, to be in relationship with one another. First up, power. I have this thing that I’ve noticed which I think might be one of the way God gets my attention. I’ll often have songs in…
Chad Bird, in the foreword to a Lutheran devotional I love - the Sinner / Saint Devotional: Advent and Christmas, sums up my own feelings about Advent beautifully: “Advent is, in my opinion, the most wonderful time of the year. A month pregnant with hope. A month that whispers, amidst the guffaws and…
At the risk of starting this with a whinge, today I feel like I’ve drawn the short straw. I quite like most of Jesus’ parables but this is not a favourite. I don’t find it easy to understand and I don’t love thinking about Jesus as judge. I thought long and hard about finding another reading for this…
Well, I’ve got another passage that preachers LOVE to get. So many different strands to go down, but as I was preparing this sermon I had to keep reminding myself of the challenge God laid down to me last week - “don’t overcomplicate my promises with your ‘educated’ mind. But this week, you’ll be delighted…
This week we come to the end of our three part exploration of Matthew 18 , looking at how we live together as a community of faith. In the first week I talked about how God views the way we treat each other, and the importance of dealing with our own sins and character flaws not just for our own sake,…
Having spent time digging in to the Old Testament and looking at the lives of Jacob, Esau, Joseph and baby Moses, we’re now moving in to exploring the Gospel of Matthew. We’re going to start right at the beginning of chapter 18, which for some reason is not included in the lectionary readings. It’s most…
Read Exodus 1:8-2.10 We finish up our Joseph story today and move on in a sneak peak into the book of Exodus. I had a lot to say about Joseph and the end of Exodus and I’d done so much reading around it but somehow as I was writing my talk I just felt I wanted to share from the heart, so this is my offering…
Our old housemate Grahame taught us a really fun game. It’s called Wikipedia Race. Each of us have a device, and all start with one completely random page, like Chinese Bao Buns. We each have to race each other, only using the links provided from the starting page, to a final page, such as basketballer…
This is a spin-off movie – where the main character, Jacob, is lying low. Joseph’s not one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Israel. Continuation from Jacob story – the narrative of the people of Israel. An explanation of why the Israelites ended up in Egypt. Three weeks to divide up the story. Many of us…
Looking back and grounding in scripture When we had our AGM last year Rebecca and I were fresh into things and didn’t have a lot to report. It feels like we’ve been really active as a parish since then, punching well above our weight. But before we pat ourselves on the back, let’s draw back to scripture.…
I’m going to start today with a question, not to answer out loud, but just to ponder internally: are you hungry? Not physically hungry I’m sure – you’re probably stuffed full of chocolate egg like me. But are you hungry for more of Jesus? On some level each of us are here, continue to be here in this…
“So why did Jesus have to die ? Couldn’t God and Jesus just have a nice meal together and call it even? Dr Jessica Hendy, University of York. Over the last three weeks we’ve been exploring just who this Jesus guy is anyway. Last week we had fun with Richard exploring where we find Jesus. We’ve also explored…
Stories and metaphors about shepherds crop up all the way through the Bible - and in the Jeremiah reading we’ve just heard we’ve got quite a few references. So… when you think of shepherds what comes to mind? (OPEN QUESTION) In Israel’s traditions ‘the shepherd’ was a metaphor for a King (which is quite…
I seem to be getting all of the curly Gospel readings recently! Hating your family a few weeks ago, and now the parable of the shrewd manager. When I began opening commentaries to prepare for this sermon nearly every single one had a comment like: “It is no exaggeration to say that the parable’s meaning…
Logos / Rhema Two greek words in NT to describe the word of God - logos and rhema. LOGOS - refers to God’s living Word in Jesus, and God’s written word in the bible. This is what we’ve been looking at so far in our ‘how to hear God’ series - last week Shirley did a brilliant job working through hearing…
In 2018 a member of the Cathedral small group Richard and I led suffered a sudden brain aneurysm when she was out visiting a friend. She was fit and healthy, with two young adult children. We had prayed for our small group members to deepen in intimacy with Jesus and our friend was growing in faith.…