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the irresistible longing

3/19/2014

Lent 3A, Sunday 23 March 2014 by Penny Jones

The marvellous Celtic poet and mystic John O'Donohue described faith as 'the absolutely irresistible longing for God'. This is why Jesus in today's gospel describes himself as 'living water'. For every human being on this watery blue planet of ours has an irresistible longing for water. We literally cannot live without it. Indeed almost all of our bodies is made up of water. The longing and thirst for water is more desperate than the longing for food, or sex or companionship or home. Thirst is an elemental, irresistible longing. We need water. And not just physical water.

Moses led the people out into the wilderness and they became thirsty. There was no water for them to drink. So of course they complained. In that barren place they experienced their need, their dependence on God. And through Moses, God satisﬁed their physical need, striking water from the rock so that they could drink.

The experience of wilderness, of longing and thirst is essential to our mature spiritual growth...

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beyond the vault

3/14/2014

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Lent 2A, Sunday 16 March 2014 by Jonathan Inkpin

I had to have a chuckle the other day when I saw the words ‘The Vault’, as the name of the strip club which is coming to town. It is not a very encouraging name, is it? OK, I guess it is in an old bank building, so maybe there are connotations of riches buried within and plenty of security. Yet, even when I think of a bank vault, it doesn’t seem very exciting. It is not the first place I would think to hang out in. For a bank vault is typically dark, enclosed, and pretty lifeless. Indeed, when I first hear the words ‘The Vault’, what really comes to mind is a place with tombs. Royal and well-to-do families have had such things in the past: places where the tombs of the family dead are interred. So, being in a vault, doesn’t seem very appealing.

In a way though, I guess calling a strip club ‘The Vault’ is, in that sense, actually quite appropriate. For, leaving aside the more lurid and prurient reactions of our more wowserish brothers and sisters, I don’t think we should get too wound up about it. As Toowoomba grows, it is fairly likely that such things will come into our midst. I guess a strip club also provides a kind of a brief, cheap thrill for some. Yet it is not much of a contribution to light and life. So the name ‘The Vault’ seems quite fitting. For if I were seeking light and life, I’d be thinking about getting out into the open, into fresh air, and making real connections and relationships: not hiding away in a dark corner, furtively peeking out in a hoard of fantasies. That might work for a pile of gold or banknotes, but not for human beings. It does indeed speak of being locked away in a death-bearing tomb, rather than finding new life and resurrection. Which is the alternative option offered by Jesus in our Gospel story today…

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Thunderbirds Are Go!

3/8/2014

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Lent 1A, Sunday 9 March 2014 by Jonathan Inkpin

One of my favourite personal memories comes from a childhood Christmas. It relates to the Thunderbirds action-adventure series which was then screening on TV. Some of you may remember it. For me, as a little boy, it was a great thrill that Christmas morning to receive the gift of a Thunderbirds ‘International Rescue’ costume, complete with Thunderbirds hat, belt and sash. I recall putting the costume on in the early morning and wearing it all day, including walking in it the mile or so through our little town, all the way to church and back that morning. Such are the simple unembarrassed pleasures of childhood! Looking back however, what I most remember is the sense of freedom I felt: the freedom of being a really grown-up special agent, ready for anything. Which, in a way, is quite interesting, because, if anyone recalls much about Thunderbirds today, it is usually the astonishing woodenness of the production. How amateur it seems now, with all our modern TV and film production values. For all the Thunderbirds characters were marionettes, puppets, with very fixed expressions, and you could always see their strings. They weren’t at all free, in that sense. They were very one dimensional, and highly manipulated.

What is all that to do with the story of the temptations of Jesus in our Gospel reading, you may wonder? Well, exactly this: the story of the temptations of Jesus challenge us to freedom, the freedom of the children of God. It calls on us to be more than one dimensional people, who are highly manipulated. It requires of us to cut the strings from the things which are operating us. It asks us to become more than mere lifelike puppets, and more like the special agent of freedom I felt like as a little child: God’s special, free, agents...

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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

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the irresistible longing

beyond the vault

Thunderbirds Are Go!

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