Category: Treasure

welcome to the divinity reveal party

12/24/2024

past Christmas focus in St Luke, Toowoomba

Something is missing here. What do you think it is? I mean, I have been involved in these Christmas Eve gigs for a long time. I’m sure there is something I was typically aware of, on Christmas Eve, in the first years of my ministry, which we don’t see around us here…

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treasure in clay jars

6/2/2024

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The writings of Paul tend to get a bad rap in progressive Christian circles. He gets the blame for the subjugation of women, the rejection of queer people and the affirmation of slavery. He is seen as a conservatising force, taking the early church away from the radical message of Jesus and turning that message into something more palatable to conservative Roman culture and thus enabling its spread. Some of that critique is certainly appropriate to the second century writings, such as the pastoral epistles of Timothy and Titus ascribed to Paul by much later writers. However, parts of Paul’s writings reveal a radical thinker, capable of reframing the reforming Judaism of his upbringing into an entirely new faith – a faith moreover informed by his own experiences of persecution and imprisonment. Today’s passage invites Paul’s readers to a number of fresh perspectives on God, creation, and the purpose of life, that continue to challenge our own thinking today. Let’s look at some of it a little more closely...

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treasure beyond bankruptcy - an economy of hope in time of fear

8/7/2022

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photo: by Ashin K Surash on Unsplash

Today’s reading from Luke begins with the often-repeated phrase ‘don’t be afraid’. It is a phrase so often repeated that it has given me pause for thought this week. Do the Scriptures encourage us all the time not to be afraid, precisely because the people for whom they were written were in fact constantly afraid? They would have had good reason to be. As far as we can tell most early followers of Jesus were subject peoples living in occupied territory. The might of Rome was a constant threat, taxes were high, financial insecurity inevitable, and it was not as though they had the securities of modern medicine, analgesics, and antibiotics. Moreover, the expectation of Christ’s imminent return, coupled with an increasing impatience at its delay sounds an anxious apocalyptic note throughout the pages of the New Testament.

But what about ourselves? Are we also afraid? Religion has after all for centuries traded in fear – fear of God’s punishment and condemnation, sweetened by the promise of salvation for those who truly believe, (some have called that ‘pie in the sky when you die’); treasures in heaven beyond the reach of moth, rust, and thieves – and after the last few months in Sydney I’d want to add mould! So, are we also afraid? This is an important question as we enter a period of considering our mission as a congregation. If we are afraid, what are we afraid of? – remembering that fear is not all bad. It is a great motivator to action. But the encouragement of the gospel is not to be afraid, but to act from a different place – a place where we don’t have supposed ‘treasures’ to defend; a place where we are set free from the need to control and secure; a place indeed as the letter to the Hebrews calls it, of faith...

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understanding as a treasure to be given away

7/25/2020

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Jesus asks his disciples ‘Have you understood all this?’ and they answer 'Yes.” And I find myself saying, ‘really?!’ I rather think that in fact the disciples had the somewhat glazed expression that I had this week, when the NBN technician was trying to help me factory re-set my modem password! My 'yes’ really meant, actually I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, but I trust you to work it out anyway”...

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Authors

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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welcome to the divinity reveal party

treasure in clay jars

treasure beyond bankruptcy - an economy of hope in time of fear

understanding as a treasure to be given away

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