Have you ever noticed how much conflict there is the Bible? I don’t mean so much those horrible stories of war and sanctified violence. I mean conflict between people of faith over issues of understanding God and how to live in this world. Take the writings of St Luke for instance, not least the Acts of the Apostles. If we think we have some lively debates today - over such issues as the valuing of lesbian, gay and gender variant people - that is actually quite in line with the conflicts in the early Church which Luke writes about. It seems that, spiritually speaking, Christians have always had differences about how to relate the eternal truth of Christ to time-bound cultural issues of philosophy and morality. Luke however assures that this is not something to worry about but rather it is an opportunity to be grasped...
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What do you think of when you hear the word ‘jihad’ I wonder? For many people the word ‘jihad’ conjures up images of conflagration, disturbance and violence, doesn’t it? Across the world today, there is certainly a very small minority of Muslims who not only think in that way but who actively seek to inflict such images on others and use them to oppress and destroy. The consequence is appalling violence in many places. Of course, that is a hideous betrayal of what mainstream Islam has always understood ‘jihad’ to be. Yes, it has meant active struggle, even active violent struggle, if absolutely necessary, for truth and justice. Yet above all, it means ‘struggling, striving, applying oneself, persevering’ in the way of God. This may mean active, outer, physical struggle (usually nonviolently), but the ‘greater jihad’, as it is has been termed, is the inner, spiritual, struggle of human beings to live in relationship with God. In which case, this, to some degree, is not so far from Christian ideas of what we call ‘discipleship’ or ‘the way of Jesus’. For ‘discipleship’, or ‘the way of following Jesus’ is also a way of struggle: an inner, spiritual, struggle to grow in relationship to God, and an outer, active, struggle to help realise God’s truth and justice in the world. If we see that, then we may be able to understand the challenging words of Jesus in today’s Gospel as a call not to destructive conflict, but to a ‘jihad’, or sacred struggle, for compassion and ultimate healing of our broken lives and world… Come as you are; that’s how I love you;
Come as you are, trust me again. Nothing can change the love that I bear you; all will be well, just come as you are. - the words of our opening song today express the heart of our God and our Faith: that love is what truly matters, for this is the heart of God, and true Faith; not law, or conventional morality, nor who we are, or what we have, nor who or what we know, nor what we have done, or not done, nor what race, face, space, colour, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, politics, taste in music, ability to sing and dance, food allergies, beauty, quirks, height, width, shoe size, dress size, hat size, nor anything else we may have. Honestly! It really does not matter to God: the God of Jesus, the God of inexhaustible and unconditional love. Just ‘Come as you are; that’s how I love you.’ Do we believe that? Do we really believe that? For it makes all the difference, to us and to others, whether we really do. In fact, I would go so far as to say, that the very future of our church and our world depends on whether we do. Will we shape our lives, our church and world on this amazing grace of God’s hospitality? Or will we settle for loving ourselves and others in ways which do not reflect God’s love for us and for all of God’s Creation?... Mothers Day – what do we make of it? In some ways is a strange, and very modern, development. Indeed, if we ever needed an example of how culture shapes an idea in different ways, then Mothers Day is it. Originally it was a revolutionary rallying call to mothers to take action to save their children and stop war. Yet today it is a much tamer and commercialised affair: a largely domesticated call to do something for mothers, however small. Instead of mothers themselves organising campaigns for peace and justice, as they did when it began, Mothers Day today is mainly an opportunity for mothers to be pampered by their nearest and dearest, at least for one day. So where does God’s love fit in all of that? Is there anything Christian faith might have to say to affirm, deepen, and expand our meaning of Mothers Day? Well, yes: especially on this particular Mothers Day, which is also the feast day of the medieval saint Mother Julian of Norwich, and the first day of this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Both of those events help us see and use Mothers Day more fully, as an opportunity to share the mothering love of God more abundantly: not only by rightly valuing that love in our own mothers, but by renewing that love in our own selves, and by extending that love to others, different to us and further afield… address by The Revd Dr Jon Inkpin and the Revd Penny Jones to Toowoomba Marriage Equality meeting, 17 April 2016 It is sometimes said that ‘you are either part of the problem or part of the solution’. In our case we are very much connected to part of that which indeed is often the problem, but we also hope we can be part of the solution. For we have been married to each other for 30 years, presided at marriage ceremonies for about 60 years between us, and shared both amazing joys, and, sadly, many tears with many LGBTI friends and family members for so much unnecessary pain, abuse, and rejection. So, above all, want to affirm three things which we feel are at the heart of this issue, and at the heart of Christian faith - namely: love, valuing everyone as part of God’s image, and being and growing family. We feel we need to say something briefly about two things which some misuse to hold us back: Christian tradition and the Bible. And we want to suggest three key areas of resistance. In doing so, we hope and pray for a speedy end to so much unnecessary suffering and look forward to many more tears of joy as marriage is extended and grown. We would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Jarowair and Giabal peoples, their elders past and present. And we do so, because this helps us nurture respect, deepen relationship, and find renewal for us all – which, of course, is what marriage equality is also about at its best. For from a Christian point of view, marriage is about sharing in the ultimate mystery of love. We only have to go to the opening words of scripture from our Anglican marriage service to see that: ‘God is love’, we say, ‘and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them’ (1 John 4.16). For Christians, that is the heart of the matter: where is love in all of this? In the end, what would Jesus do?... I wonder how you like the postcard our sisters and brothers at St Mark’s Buderim give out. On one side, it has this little picture of part of a little time-keeper, with sand trickling through it. The main words are from a Spanish proverb, and they say: ‘How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.’ Do you like that? At the bottom, there are then a few more words, which say: ‘Do nothing and change your life, at St Mark’s Anglican Church, Buderim.’ Not quite the usual advertisement for a Church, is it? It certainly makes us think, and it challenges many of our assumptions. Yet I think it is right on the money, especially for this season of Lent. The question is: how will you and I respond?… If we were police detectives trying to work out why someone had died, we would try to retrace that person’s last steps, wouldn't we? We would work out where they had been, what they were doing, and, crucially, who they were with. For this would, very likely, help give us a picture of why that person had died. Yes? So what happens, do you think, if we look at the last steps of Jesus? Where was Jesus in his last days? What was he doing? And with whom was he associating? The answers are illuminating. In Mark’s Gospel particularly, they are all connected with justice…
On the Humanity Sunday in the Season of Creation, it seems appropriate to talk about People. In talking about People, I also want to talk today about Place and Purpose - all three of which items are central to our Carnival theme: 'to be a pilgrim'...
For many centuries there has been a common understanding of the church as a ship - the later version of Noah's ark, carrying us to safety. I want to use this idea today as we look at the story of the stilling of the storm from the perspective of our current stewardship program.
It is very clear that these are difficult days for the Church in the western world. Changes in the patterns of family life and work, competing demands on a Sunday, arguments over matters theological, moral and scientific, developments in technology and social media, the scourge of sexual abuse and a host of other factors have all taken their toll on traditional congregations. In terms of today's story, they represent the 'storm' through which the ship of the church is presently making its way. It is not surprising in these circumstances that as disciples we sometimes feel not just buffeted but fearful for the well being of the ship and of ourselves. It is not surprising if we are inclined sometimes to question God and ask like those first disciples 'do you not care that we are perishing?'. Yet as the story makes very clear to do so is to miss the point... How many of us know Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? It is a fabulous story, both for children, and adults. Indeed, apart from being a delightful work of imagination, it is, the scholars say, full of social satire. Today we will struggle to identify all the political and religious connections, but some are still relevant. Consider for instance the words of the White Queen, when Alice asserts that she can’t believe in impossible things. "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." The author, Lewis Carroll, who was himself a clergyman, may perhaps be satirising the Church at this point. Sometimes, he seems to being saying, the Church can imply that Christian Faith involves trying to believe, and digest, a whole number of strange things. Isn’t that a truth of how the Church has sometimes carried on? Poor old Galileo, Darwin, and other great scientists, have, for example, sometimes got it in the neck when the Church has closed its mind to reason and insisted on impossible things – like the idea of the sun orbiting the earth, rather than vice versa, or insisting on theories of special creation rather than evolution. Well, the Christian Faith does involve far more than we can touch and measure. Yet it does not require us to swallow impossible things. Faith and Reason, spirit and mind, are supposed to be critical friends, not implacable enemies. Much more importantly, as our Gospel reading tells us today, whilst vital, neither Faith nor Reason are the heart of things. Only love – the love we see in Jesus – is the be all and end all…
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sermons and reflections from Penny Jones & Josephine Inkpin, a same gender married Anglican clergy couple serving with the Uniting Church in Sydney Archives
April 2024
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