Over the next few weeks leading up to November the 16th, with our patronal festival we will be thinking about stewarding our parish. There are lots and lots of ways to steward, and today I thought we would take a look at stewarding our values: Love and Compassion, Belonging, and Discipleship.

I want to make sure you walk away with two points today: first, all ten people with leprosy were healed. They all had faith, they all obeyed Jesus’ directions and were healed. Secondly, our correct response to goodness is to praise God, through Jesus.

We’re looking at two gifts of the church, this week:

1. The gift of lament, and

2. The necessity of forgiveness. 

I’ve read many commentaries on this parable and none of them agree on the main points.

Here is what they do agree on:

1.     The parable ends at verse 8a, with the “rich man” praising the shrewdness of the manager, and

2.     That this is the most difficult parable that Jesus told, and that it contains the most difficult verse in the whole of the New Testament, verse 8.

This Mother’s Day I notice a connection with the roles of shepherd and the traditional roles of mothering. We spend a lot of time thinking about God as father, today we are going to think about God as mother and imbue that role with some divinity.

This sermon is part testimony, part theology.

Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf,
for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
- Jeremiah 29.7

We always start with a little apocalypse, that’s what we’ve just read.  So, I’m wondering, what’s the scariest apocalypse you can imagine? Is it zombies? Vampires? That’s what’s in the pop culture at the moment; lots of movies and TV series about the end of the world being brought about by vampires or a virus that creates the undead. For some of us it might be world domination by a foreign power. Something like Russia, North Korea, or the USA – I find that just as terrifying.

As far as we know, Catherine of Alexandria is not a historical person. Some scholars believe that her story is a combination of lots of young women from the time which have been put together to create one great hero of the faith from whom we can draw inspiration and encouragement.

Catherine is the patron saint of:

• Scholars

• Young women

• People who work with wheels

• The St Catherine’s United Football Club

• This Parish!

What comes to mind when one speaks of a widow?

Savvy?

Young?

Courageous?

So faithful that they entrust the whole of their life to God?

There are many stories of widows in the bible and they are often epic!

Tears are a theme this week, as we engage with the celebration of All Saints’ Day. In Isaiah and Revelation we are told that “tears will be wiped away,” and “be no more.” In John, though, we see many tears. There are Mary’s tears, the tears of the people who had come to mourn with Mary and Martha, and of course, the tears of Jesus.

As I was reading it over and over during the week the themes of empathy and compassion’s role in action, and the power of love to overcome barriers, are what kept niggling at me.

When we see protest, how do we respond? By telling the person to, “Shut up?” Or by calling them to us and asking, “What do you want me to do?”

This is the third time that Jesus foretells his death and resurrection in the gospel of Mark. We’ve already heard the first two this year, and each time disciples really don’t want the bar of it. The first time that Jesus foretells his death and resurrection they are in Caesarea Philippi. Peter has just correctly said who Jesus is, the Messiah. Jesus then predicts his death and resurrection and Peter says, “No! Stop saying that you can’t say that!” And Jesus says, “Get behind Satan. Because you have your mind set on human things not on Godly things.”

Is Jesus wise?

This week’s readings, all of them, tell us what a life lived in wisdom looks like.

Pastor Jeremiah Steepek transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning’s service. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service. Only three people out of the 10,000 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food….NO ONE in the church gave him change...

I’m currently readings Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. And I am noticing similarities and differences between the creation story in Frankenstein and the creation story of our Judeo-Christian tradition.

In our tradition, God creates out of delight and because it is what Love does.
Frankenstein creates because he becomes obsessed with scientific power, his need to understand creation, and his own prowess

We are on our last Sunday for the Season of Bread. For five weeks we have been travelling through John chapter 6. At the beginning I said that John is telling us who Jesus is. That’s the purpose of this chapter, who is Jesus? Five times he uses the term I am. Which recalls to us the name that God gave Moses at the burning bush. I am who I am (or I will be who I will be, in the Hebrew).  John tells us what we must do. We must eat we must drink. Gnaw on the body of Christ. And why? What is Jesus’ mission?

Last week we sat with fresh bread and honey and meditated on what it might be like to be starving in the desert having just fled slavery. The fresh bread smelled amazing, and the drizzle of honey activated our brains and we were alerted to something that gives us pleasure as well as a short burst of energy. Drawing from the meditation, we have a little sense of what it is like to wake from a moment of hopelessness and desperation to be provided a loaf of fresh bread and a jug of sweet, fresh water.

Today you are invited to take a piece of fresh bread, with a little honey drizzled on top, and join me in a meditation.

Trinity is a deep part of my faith and yet it is always difficult to talk about because it is so counter to our lived experience with our time and space bound bodies. So, I’m going to tell you a couple of stories; one to illustrate the Trinity and one to illustrate the importance of that mystical truth.

What do we do when weird things happen in our lives?
How many coincidences does it take to equal the Holy Spirit?
And how do we know we aren’t just going mad but are being called into something?
These are questions that sit with me on a day like today.