Sermon for Sunday 13 December

Sermon for Sunday 13 December

In Advent we jump all around the scriptures. The appointed readings are all tied together by common Advent themes, but sometimes it’s hard to work out how they all mesh together.

Today we have another account of John the Baptiser, this time from the gospel of John (hey are two different Johns). John’s gospel was written late in the first century or early in the second century – so 70-80 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. To put that in context, it helps to imagine the differences between, say, 2005 and 1935. In 1935, most houses in Perth didn’t have electricity. There was no TV in 1935. In 1935, ABC radio was three years old. The difference between 1935 and 2005 was the difference between when Jesus was crucified to when the Gospel of John was written down. The technological advancement wasn’t quite as fast, but the world had changed a heck of a lot.

Sermon for 6 December

Sermon for 6 December

This Advent, I’m preaching a sermon series with the cheery title ‘Getting Ready for the End of the World’. Last week I talked about how Christians have approached our beliefs about the end times and the return of Christ. I think where I got to (though honestly, who can say?) was that the way we think about the end of the world affects how we live our lives in the here and now. If we believe that the culmination of ‘all this’ is love and justice, then that is going to shape how we live in the moment right now.

Sermon for 29 November

Sermon for 29 November

Advent is a jolly time of year. The decorations go up on the tree and around the house. There’s a party every other day for some group or another. There’s all the fun of shopping for presents. Advent Calendars are particularly jolly. Every day there’s another chocolate, or, more recently, a small bottle of gin to get you in the Advent spirit.

So in that jolly spirit I have decided to preach a sermon series entitled ‘Getting Ready for the End of the World’.

Sermon for Sunday 29 November

Sermon for Sunday 29 November

This week, after years of investigation, the Brereton report was released. It outlined credible information that 19 Australian soldiers had ‘illegally killed’ 39 people in Afghanistan and ‘cruelly treated’ another 2.

‘Illegally killed’ means murdered.

‘Cruelly treated’ means tortured.

These were not unfortunate, inevitable deaths in the heat of battle, though even that kind of death haunts the nightmares of soldiers. These were cold-blooded executions of prisoners who were already restrained. Some soldiers carried ‘throwdowns’ – evidence that could be planted on a victim to suggest that they were dangerous. Some soldiers, particularly junior soldiers, were pressured by their superiors to shoot prisoners in order to get their ‘first kill’ in a practice known as ‘blooding’.

Sermon for Sunday 15 November

Sermon for Sunday 15 November

Last Saturday, footage began to circulate of Trump supporters in Philadelphia waving Trump flags and dancing to Killing in the Name, the iconic song by rock band Rage Against the Machine. For those who are not across music that was hip with the kids 27 years ago, Rage Against The Machine stands in the long tradition of protest music. Killing in the Name is their protest against racism in police forces and the military-industrial complex. It was inspired by the murder of Rodney King in Los Angeles. ‘Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses’ they sang in protest . When he saw the footage of the Trump Supporters dancing to the song, guitarist Tom Morello had a characteristically terse response: ‘Not exactly what we had in mind’.

Sermon for All Saints Day

Sermon for All Saints Day

Do you know what code-switching is? It’s when you change your communication style depending on the context. Kids learn how to code-switch early on – they know (usually) to speak to the School Principal in a calm and polite way, which is quite different to the way they talk to their friends in the playground, and completely different to the way they talk to their parents. Nurses in the break room speak differently to nurses on the ward, and anyone who deals with customers knows that you put on a different voice and manner for customers than when you’re out the back or at home. People who belong to minority groups find themselves code-switching all the time. Sometimes it’s to do with the language they’re speaking, or else speaking more loudly or softly or making more or less eye contact or using more or fewer hand movements.

Sermon Sunday 11 October 2020

Sermon Sunday 11 October 2020

Today’s parable from Matthew’s gospel is the continuation of Jesus’ ‘teach-in’ in the temple precincts on (what we would call) Monday before Good Friday. But before we dive too deeply into that, we need to remind ourselves of what the text doesn’t say.

The text doesn’t say that some bloke had a feast. That’s the version of the story in Luke’s gospel. Matthew’s account is explicitly a King giving a wedding banquet for his son.

Sermon Sunday 4 October

Sermon Sunday 4 October

There’s a great sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look where David Mitchell and Robert Webb are playing SS officers from World War II. ‘Haz, I’ve just noticed something’ says Mitchell ‘the badges on our caps, have you looked at them? They’ve got skulls on them. Have you looked at our caps recently. The badges on our caps, have you looked at them? They’ve got skulls on them. Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them… are we the baddies?’

Sermon Sunday 27 September 2020

Sermon Sunday 27 September 2020

In the world of social media, there are two ways to show people something new. The first way is to pay for it. There’s advertising everywhere, some of it quite subtle. You can pay for people who like poodles and live in Cunderdin to see your Cunderdin Poodle-grooming business page. You can pay for small business owners who don’t follow the social media account of one political party to see an ad for another political party. But this costs money. So the holy grail when it comes to disseminating a message is ‘organic reach’. That’s when you create content – maybe an image or some words or a short video – that people like so much, they want to share it around. Sometimes it’s blatantly an ad for fizzy drink, but it’s funny or sexy so people share it with their friends. Sometimes it’s inspirational. Sometimes it is something nefarious, designed to influence people’s perceptions and the way they vote. These bits of content which are shared organically are called ‘memes’. The definition of a meme is a small piece of information that self-replicates.

Sermon Sunday 13 September

Sermon Sunday 13 September

There’s an iconic moment in The Devil Wears Prada, where Meryl Streep (playing a leading fashion critic) explains to Andy (her new assistant) how the fashion industry works.

I love that little interchange between Meryl and Anne Hathaway, because it kind of crystallises how little thought we give to how we got to where we are. There are countless things around us – whether clothing or household items or art or laws or customs that we just accept without considering how they came to be.

Sermon Sunday 6 September

Sermon Sunday 6 September

Back in the dim distant path, I used to drive out from Dubbo into the West of New South Wales to take Sunday services in small communities. Sometimes I would drive three hours to celebrate the Eucharist for a handful of people, and sometimes this was a bit demoralising. Inevitably, someone would say ‘ah, but where two or three are gathered in my name…’ and they would nod knowingly, because there is a language system in Christianity. Whenever we are concerned that not many people have shown up to something, we refer to Matthew 18:20 ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’. It’s a gentle way of saying that it doesn’t matter how many of us there are, what matters is that God in Christ is present, even if there’s only two people at morning prayer or the Deanery Christmas party or whatever.

Sermon Sunday 30 August

Sermon Sunday 30 August

This week, the Christchurch terrorist was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In line with the wishes of the families of survivors, I will not say his name. But we are all aware that he is an Australian from the north coast of NSW, and that he held ultra-nationalist views, radicalised by the alt-right movement. This person became convinced that violent slaughter of innocent people was necessary for the advancement of white nationalism and the protection of white people. This is not a new or isolated concept. The conviction that peace and safety can be achieved through war and violence has infected humanity for as long as recorded history. Humans rationalise cruelty and murder with the misguided belief that some good will come of it. Whether it’s drone strikes on villages in Afghanistan or the removal of children from Noongar families – it’s astounding what vile actions humans can undertake in the pursuit of a purportedly lofty goal.