Weekly reflections

Dear Friends, Last Sunday’s bulletin included a knitting pattern! It was a new pattern for the Common Grace Climate Change Scarf, a scarf with a stripe representing the average global temperature for each year across the last 100 years. The new pattern has come about because 2023 marked the hottest year on record. Global temperatures were broken by what has been described as a ‘blistering margin’. So, a new colour has been added – dark purple – to show the Read more

Dear Friends, I went to the David Hunter Memorial Lecture last night and was thinking – as we drove away – that the word I would use the describe the evening was ‘feisty’. But I’m embarrassed now I chose that word. Calling the evening’s speakers ‘feisty’ minimises the depth and intensity of what they expressed. The word I should have chosen is ‘angry’. We heard angry speakers on Tuesday night. People who are angry because they see injustice. People who Read more

Dear Friends, We had a wonderful celebration on Sunday of 95 years of loving and serving God, God’s people and God’s world here in Canberra! Here is the picture John Clark took on Sunday – replicating the black and white image of people gathered around the church on our commencement day 95 years ago. If you have not had a chance to listen to Scott Pilgrim’s message on “Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.” (Psalm 85:10) Read more

Dear Friends, I keep thinking about the icon of the Transfiguration that Megan included in her contribution on Sunday 11th Feb – the image of foot-in-mouth Peter and James and John tumbling down the mountain, but still clothed in the same light, the same halos of light, as Megan said, as Jesus, Elijah and Moses. It is incredibly encouraging – and humbling – to think that God wants us to be part of what God is doing in our world Read more

Its ‘dirt on the face’ day! That’s how I heard Ash Wednesday described (courtesy of Lucy Gledhill’s nephews) this morning – ‘dirt on the face’ day. I think it is a very appropriate description! In case you are wondering what I am talking about, Ash Wednesday is the day that marks the beginning of Lent, the period of reflection on Jesus’ giving his life for us, in the lead-up to Easter. And in the Catholic church (and Anglican and Presbyterian Read more

Dear Friends, As we thought about Jesus taking Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifting her up on Sunday, and as we saw all those people – children, teenagers, and adults – lifting each other up, I was reminded of the words attributed to St Therese of Avila (and the beautiful song that our choir sing). Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.Yours are the eyes with which he lookscompassion on this world.Yours Read more

Dear Friends,Reading the start of Mark’s gospel (as we have been doing so far in 2024) it is clear that, for Jesus, proclaiming the good news of God went hand in hand with casting out demons. It seems you cannot proclaim a life-changing message and not see lives changed! All this talk of demons and casting out (dare I mention ‘exorcisms’) is challenging for us as twenty-first century, and Western, Christians. We want to turn references to demon possession into Read more

I was tempted to take a picture of the Australia Day offerings in my local Coles this week. That whole brouhaha seemed a seriously flawed response to an ongoing discussion in our nation. Australian test captain, Pat Cummins, did a far better job, in my view, of speaking into this discussion. “I absolutely love Australia. It is the best country in the world by a mile,” Cummins said. “We should have an Australia Day, but we can probably find a Read more

Dear Friends, It was fascinating to delve into the history of ‘How great thou art’ last week. Several people have commented on that part of Sunday’s sermon. It’s amazing that a hymn that looks so seamless took nearly 70 years to craft into its current form! (Carl Boberg wrote the original Swedish hymn in 1885 and Stuart Hine finalised his English version in 1949.) And I know one or two people who have continued to add to ‘How great thou Read more

Dear Friends, I was remiss last Sunday! I forgot to pass on a special invitation from a friend of Lyle Hingley’s, at the Baha’i Community, to come together to pray for peace for our world. As I mentioned last Sunday in the sermon, according to data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, there are 56 violent conflicts taking place in the world right now – the greatest number of violent conflicts since WW2. As International Relations expert Paul Poast explains, “We Read more