Pen and Ink Reflections
  • Blog
  • about
  • other reflections
  • contact
  • Sunday 27 June 2021

how do we feed on scripture?

8/15/2021

0 Comments

 
Picturephoto:Priscilla du Preez. Unspash
What is there to eat in the Christian scriptures?   It can often be challenging for many people to find answers to that.  We live, after all, in very different times from those in which the books of the Bible were composed.  It is not, of course, a new question.  Decades ago, at theological college, I recall a leading biblical scholar, a Canon of Christ Church Oxford, throwing a similar testing query to myself and my fellow students.  If we were to omit books from the Bible on grounds of significant racism, anti-semitism, sexism, and other forms of violence, with how many would we be left?    Which books of the Bible would you keep?  Canon John Fenton’s immediate answer was only three: Mark's Gospel, the Letter of James, and the book of Revelation.  However, in subsequent discussion, he himself agreed that each of those scriptures also had problematic features.  As we hear again today part of the Gospel of John chapter 6, what then are we say about, and still more feed upon, in the books we call ‘holy' scriptures?...

no neat 'fit'

Is there anything really nourishing to eat in scripture?  I want to affirm a strongly positive answer to that question.  There is no doubt however that scripture remains a challenge too, with different elements arising for different people.  It is also a particular challenge with which so-called ‘progressive’ church communities must wrestle.  For, try as we may, we will never be able to reach a wholly ‘pure’, or ‘fully inclusive’, approach to scripture, any more than we will find it in any other aspect of our worship and life together.  As much as we might sometimes do our best to find appropriate translations, or to shape liturgies and reflections with care, the scriptures will always be awkward, and even, at times, disturbing for us.  Moreover, if we try to restrict our use of scripture to that which will never offend, we will miss their very point and gift.  For, like the divine mysteries of life to which, at times, it stumblingly points, the Bible continues to have spiritual power, precisely because of its awkwardness, and its problematic ‘fit’ with any set of human values, include the best of our own.  Its very otherness is a vital part part of its gift.

'cleaning' up scripture and the search for the historical Jesus

Of course there have been attempts to ‘clean up’ scripture throughout history.  Going back to the early Church, the theologian and church leader Marcion was a notable proponent.  Repelled by the angry and violent depictions of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, he was probably the first Christian to establish a canon of ‘acceptable’ scriptures.  These amounted only to ten letters of Paul and a shortened version of the Gospel of Luke.  In more modern times, there was also a dedicated attempt by many scholars, particularly in liberal Protestant circles, to find the ‘historical’ Jesus and to strip away what was felt to be additions to the Gospel, in order to reveal its supposed essential ‘kernel’.  Perhaps the Jesus Seminar was in one sense the final culmination of this interpretative trajectory, with its famous, or infamous, use of coloured beads to determine what was more or less ‘authentic’ to Jesus.  Does this actually however directly provide food to eat?  Notwithstanding the considerable fruits of much of this work, the question remains: how do we feed on scripture today?  For there is a great difference between simply identifying ingredients, tracing their provenance, and perhaps sieving them for quality, and actually cooking and eating.

John 6 and modern truth concerns

As I remarked a couple of weeks ago, John chapter 6 as a whole is a powerful and lengthy exposition of the central theme of God in Christ as the Bread of Life.   Today’s Gospel reading (John 6.51-58) is but a bite-sized chunk of it, and there will be yet another small portion next week.  It is quite likely that its origin lies in a synagogue homily but that it has been considerably re-worked and developed.  Does this matter?  As I’ve said, particularly in the liberal Protestant tradition, the answer has been a fulsome ‘yes’.  There was a great, and quite understandable, desire to identify the ingredients and assess them on the basis of acceptable tastes and how they have been cooked and served up in the past.  Arguably however, this actually runs somewhat counter to the energies behind John chapter 6 itself, and the scriptures as a whole.  

Frankly, John’s Gospel, and I would suggest Jesus too, is simply not interested in modern truth concerns such as exactitude, reflexivity, and the authenticity of provenance.  Neither the author of John’s Gospel, nor I would suggest Jesus either, are liberal Protestants, or progressives, or open spiritual seekers, or whatever it is we might too easily associate with our kinds of contemporary Christianity.  Instead, there is a stark directness of speech, affirming a gospel – a good news - of transcendent religious truth which speaks into every context, rather than merely dialoguing or reflecting upon it.   ‘Unless’ (my italics), says John’s Jesus, ‘you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’   

radical reshaping

Let us be very clear.  This is not fundamentalism either, nor even conservatism.  Here John’s Gospel is again much more deeply radical, in both means and content.  We need also to remember that this is written out of a context of persecution and threat to the Christian community.
  Whatever the specific origins of this great discourse, the writer has profoundly re-shaped the Hebrew scriptures they have inherited and they have powerfully re-centred human experience of God.  Behind today’s scriptural text is therefore an extraordinary wrestling with earlier scriptures and the experience of God to which they sought to witness.  John’s Jesus continues to refer to foundational elements in the people of Israel’s life journey.  Not least, Jesus speaks in John chapter 6 of bread, Moses, and manna in the wilderness.  Every sentence thus resonates with the crucial stories of liberation, new life, and living relationship with the living God at the heart of biblical faith.  Yet these have been dramatically transformed.

Vitally, there is also a deep wrenching here.  For this is no mere considered reflection on life.  This is existential truth: a witness to human angst and communal struggle; a proclamation of hard-won salvation through surprising grace.  In which sense, we begin to see the continuing life-giving value of the Christian scriptures – as vital aids and pathways for us too to make the same journey into religious depth; as we too are invited to wrestle with our own personal angst and communal struggles; as we too reconnect with the particular, and the larger, stories of which we are a part; as we too enter deeper into relationship with what ultimately feeds, sustains, and gives us life – the relationship with God.

relationship as key

Relationship with God: this is the ultimate key to the scriptures.  The modern reading (‘On the word God’ from Eclipse of God) from the great Jewish sage Martin Buber which I chose for today, is part of this kind of affirmation we encounter in our Gospel reading this morning.   Buber was particularly insightful and insistent on this.  If, he also said, we were to write the opening words of Genesis as ‘In the beginning there is relation’ (my emphasis), we would understand more truly.  Relation - relationship – this is at the heart of faith: not doctrine as such, not mere traditions, not unalloyed experience (if there is such a thing), nor scripture alone.  Yet they are all bound up together.

Buber’s affirmation of the word ‘God’ in his essay ‘On the word of God’ is a powerful expression of the intensity and depths of relationship to which people of faith are called.  If we choose, we can remain on the surface.  We can remain, as it were, socially distanced, from both others, and, vitally, ourselves, in the ultimate mystery human beings have called ‘God’.  We can avoid being compromised by association with others, and with the meanings which have sometimes been attached to aspects, even key features, of faith, even to God (or at least the name of ‘God’).   We can chase illusions of objectivity, and muscular, or intellectual, individuality.  Or we can enter into deeper relationship.  We can taste and eat of the bread of life.

Perhaps you may disagree, but what Buber wrote about the word ‘God’, can I think be applied to the Christian scriptures.  We can distance ourselves from them because, like the word ‘God’, they have, in Buber’s expression, become ‘so soiled, so mutilated’: or we can honour the profound struggles with life and mystery of which they speak, and re-use them in our own struggles today.  For the scriptures, like the word ‘God’, are indeed what Buber called ‘the word of appeal’ to the ultimate.  

I-Thou not I-It

Buber’s philosophy and pathway of faith was focused on nurturing what he termed the ‘I-Thou’ relationship.  This stands in direct contrast to the ‘I-It’ encounter, which is where we stand outside of one another and essentially treat one another, and the rest of creation, as objects.  The ‘I-It’ way of living (or dying!) is perhaps particularly well fostered today in late capitalist Western societies.  Yet, as today’s Gospel text proclaims, only an ‘I-Thou’ relationship can ultimately feed, sustain, and renew us.

Now I would never want to interpret any part of scripture through a single lens.  I wonder however whether Buber’s insights are one pathway to help illuminate John chapter 6 for us again.  For what we see in John’s Bread of Life discourse is a similar intense emphasis on relationship, not mere encounter.  John’s Jesus here recalls us to the ‘I-Thou’ relationship at the heart of biblical faith: to what Paul Tillich called ‘the God beyond God’ (or the mere uses of the word ‘God’).  This is the living mystery, the ground and depths of being, with which the various biblical scriptures wrestle and bear witness in different ways.  

moving beyond

Well, at this point, if some of you are not already wanting to ask questions, then I certainly am.  Whose experience and relationships, past and present, and not least in the Bible, are we then talking about?  Could we be in danger of retreating from more uncomfortable questions into too easy forms of personal mysticism?  Do we risk avoiding the specifics of power, race, sex, gender, culture and economics which shape our lived existence and which are easily sacralised by our assumed readings of scripture?   Those pertinent questions have led to more recent, and often quite exciting, perspectives on scripture.  For Buber’s existentialist approach to faith only opens up one pathway.  It also however, if we are not aware, carries with it assumptions about both the character of our own experience and that of the scriptural texts.   19th and 20th century liberal biblical scholarship created some wonderful interpretative tools and perspectives.  Yet with them came their own presuppositions, which were inevitably reflections of their own experience – as, typically, white, Western, affluent, academic, and straight, men.  There are therefore vital things for us all to build upon.  Our challenge today however is further to empower ‘other’ voices, fully listen to them, and to seek deeper, more life-giving, relationships together.   Similarly, in the scriptures themselves, which features have we unconsciously privileged, and whose eyes and voices have we seen and heard?  Who is the I?  Who is the Thou?

I wonder whether, at Pitt Street, with others in so-called ‘progressive’ theological circles, whether we are in a new stage which has yet to open up fully in Australia.  The Common Dreams movement, for example, has helped share many fruits, including enduring insights of white Western progressive males such as Borg, Crossan, Fox, Meyers, and Spong.  Yet are we fully attuned to, and participating in, the emergent insights of those who speak from today’s more radical postcolonial, First Nations, queer, womanist, feminist, dis/ableist and intersectional spaces?   Viewed with such a kaleidoscope of eyes and experiences, the scriptures come alive in very different ways.  That can be further disconcerting for those who seek simplistic answers from the Bible and to scriptural interpretation.  However, if we seek to feed upon the scriptures, they identify ingredients in fresh ways, offering new menus and means of presentation.  As I said two weeks ago, if we do not go deeper into the theological questions we now face, all our other concerns will ultimately suffer.  I hope that we will also reflect further about this particularity of experience next week, in relation to the last part of John chapter 6.  However, for the moment, attending simply to our own personal experiences, I invite us to use our scriptures as ways into authentic ‘I-Thou’ relationship, not mere ‘I-It’ encounter.

How do we use scripture?

How, to summarise, do we, as individuals, and as a faith community, regard the scriptures?  Do we see them as only problematic objects, set over against us, or as fellow subjects with whom, and in which, to dialogue?  Are we seeking an ‘I-Thou’ relationship with them, or ‘I-It’ encounters at an appropriate social distance?  As Martin Buber affirmed, the word ‘God’ is much ‘defiled and mutilated’, but to cast it off is to lose not only our bearings but also a vital pathway into depth and transcendence.  Similarly, like the word’ God’, we cannot simply ‘cleanse’ the Christian Bible and ‘make it whole’.  Yet it is a part of us, which, like ourselves, can be redeemed.  Indeed, as with our own personal stories, it is sometimes the most difficult parts which, in wrestling with the Spirit, can ultimately renew and refresh us.  After all, there is a reason why time and attention make for tastier and more enriched food.

scripture and the voice to and from the margins

Let me therefore end, where we began today, in the musical preface to our worship, with Paul Robeson.  I deliberately shared his gospel singing today because it highlights the enduring power of the Christian scriptures for many marginalised people.  That is awkward, I know, not only for secular people, particularly those on the left.  It is also sometimes a little discomforting for more liberal Christians that it is not more sophisticated theology which appeals.  Such realities bring us back to the truth of John chapter 6 and Martin Buber’s insights.  For human beings ultimately seek a God who is relationship – a personal Thou – not an abstract It.  Either scripture feeds us in our needs, as we wrestle with God in and through it, or, like those addressed by Jesus in the Gospel reading today, we have missed its point.  So, whilst everything in the scriptures, as Robeson also sang, ‘ain’t necessarily so’, they remain a vital source of our liberation, wherever and whenever we hear the voice ‘let my people go’.


by Josephine Inkpin, for Pitt Street Uniting Church, Sunday 15 August 2021
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    sermons and reflections from Penny Jones & Josephine Inkpin, a married Anglican clergy couple serving with the Uniting Church in Sydney

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

    Categories

    All
    2 Peter
    Abide
    ABM
    Aboriginal
    Abraham
    Abuse
    Active
    Acts Of The Apostles
    Adam And Eve
    Advent
    Advocacy
    Aelred
    African American
    African-American
    Aidan
    Alan Webster
    Albanian
    Albert Wendt
    Alice In Wonderland
    Alla Renee Bozarth
    Allegory
    All Saints
    American Pie
    Andrew
    Angel
    Angels
    Anger
    Anglican
    Anglican Method
    Animals
    Anna
    Annunciation
    Anoiniting
    Anselm
    Anthony Bloom
    Antioch
    ANZAC
    Apology
    Apophatic
    Archbishop Of Canterbury
    Armenian
    ARRCC
    Art
    Artist
    Ash Wednesday
    Asylum Seekers
    Atonement
    Attraversiamo
    Augustine
    Aunty Rosalie Kunoth-Monks
    Australia
    Authenticity
    Awaken
    Baby
    Baha'i
    Bakerwoman
    Baptism
    Barabbas
    Barefoot
    Barnabas
    Barnard Castle
    Barth
    Bartimaeus
    Basis Of Union
    Battle Of One Tree Hill
    Beach
    Beatitudes
    Becoming
    Bede
    Being
    Believing
    Belonging
    Beloved
    Benjamin Oh
    Berlin
    Bethleham
    Betrayal
    Bible
    Bill Bryson
    Binary
    Birmingham
    Birth
    Bishop
    B.J.Hipsher
    Black
    Blessed
    Blessing
    Blessing Of Animals
    Blessing Of The Waters
    Blood
    Boat
    Bob Dylan
    Body
    Bones
    Bonhoeffer
    Border
    Born Again
    Boudicca
    Boundaries
    Breach
    Bread
    Bread Of Life
    Breath
    Brexit
    Brian McLaren
    Bride
    Bridegroom
    Bridge
    Brigid
    Brisbane
    British
    Brixton
    Brokenness
    Bruegemann
    Buber
    Buddha
    Buddhist
    Buderim
    Bunyan
    Call
    Calvin
    Cambodia
    Campfire
    Cana
    Canaanite
    Candle
    Candlemas
    Cappadocian Fathers
    Care
    Careers
    Carefully
    Carnival
    Carol
    Carter Heyward
    Catholic
    Celtic
    Centurion
    Challenge
    Change
    Charismatic
    Charles Wesley
    Cheesemakers
    Chelsea Watego
    Chick
    Child Of God
    Children
    China
    Christ
    Christian
    Christian Aid
    Christianity
    Christmas
    Christology
    Christ The King
    Church
    Circumcision
    City
    Climate
    Climate Change
    Climbing
    Cloak
    Cloud Of Unknowing
    Coin
    Colonialism
    Colossians
    Commandment
    Common Good
    Communion
    Community
    Companion
    Compassion
    Condamine
    Confession
    Conflict
    Congregationalist
    Connect
    Contemplate
    Contemplative
    Contemporary
    Context
    Conversion
    Corinth
    Coronavirus
    Cosmology
    Cost
    Courage
    Covenant
    Covid 19
    Covid-19
    Crack
    Cranmer
    Create
    Creation
    Creed
    Creek
    Crib
    Cricket
    Criminal
    Cromwell
    Cross
    Crossan
    Crossing Over
    Crucifixion
    Csg
    C.S.Lewis
    Cuddesdon
    Culture
    Cunnamulla
    Cuthbert
    Cynthia Bourgeault
    Cyprian
    Dalai Lama
    Dance
    Darkness
    Darlughdach
    Dave-andrews
    David
    David And Elizabeth Inkpin
    David Jenkins
    David-mach
    David Steindl Rast
    David Steindl-Rast
    Day Of Mourning
    Deacon
    Dean Inge
    Death
    Delight
    Demon
    Denise Levertov
    Desert
    Desire
    Deuteronomy
    Devil
    Diarmaid McCulloch
    Difference
    Disability
    Disciple
    Discipleship
    Dispossession
    Diversity
    Docetism
    Don Cupitt
    Donkey
    Dorcas
    Dorothy McRae-McMahon
    Dorothy Soelle
    Doubt
    Dragonflies
    Dragonfly
    Dream
    Duncan Andrews
    Duns Scotus
    Durham
    Durkheim
    Earth
    Easter
    Easterfest
    Eating
    Ecology
    Ecopella
    Ecstasy
    Ecumenical
    Eden
    Education
    Egg
    Ego
    Egypt
    Elder
    Elijah
    Elisha
    Elizabeth
    Emerging
    Emmanuel
    Empire
    Empowerment
    End Times
    Environment
    Ephesians
    Epiphany
    Equality
    Eternal
    Ethics
    Ethiopian
    Etty Hillesum
    Eucharist
    Eugene Stockton
    Eunuch
    Evangelical
    Evangelism
    Evelyn Underhill
    Evil
    Exile
    Exodus
    Exorcism
    Express
    Eyes
    Ezekiel
    Failure
    Fair Trade
    Faith
    Fame
    Family
    Fast
    Father
    Fathers Day
    Fear
    Fellowship
    Feminist
    Fig Tree
    Fire
    First Nations
    Fish
    Fishers
    Flesh
    Flora And Fauna
    Flourish
    Follow
    Foolish
    Footwashing
    Forgiveness
    Fountain
    Fox
    Francis
    Franciscans
    Frederick Barker
    Freedom
    French
    Friend
    Friends
    Friendship
    Fruit
    Fruits
    Fukuyama
    Fulfilment
    Fundamentalism
    Fundamentalist
    Funeral
    Funk
    Gadigal
    Galgala
    Galilee
    Galileo
    Game
    Garden
    Garry Deverell
    Gary Deverell
    Gate
    Gateshead
    Gay
    Gaze
    Gazelle
    Gender
    Gender Variant
    Genealogy
    Generosity
    Genesis
    Gentile
    Gentleness
    George Fox
    Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Gerasene
    Ghost
    Gift
    Gil Bailie
    Glennie
    Glenn Loughrey
    Glory
    Gnosticism
    God
    Golden Rule
    Gondwana Theology
    Good Friday
    Goodness
    Good News
    Good Shepherd
    Gospel
    Grace
    Graeme Rutherford
    Graham Warren
    Grandchamp
    Grandchild
    Gratefulness
    Great Commission
    Greenham Common
    Greenness
    Gregory-of-nyssa
    Grief
    Growth
    Gungor
    Habel
    Haggai
    Happiness
    Harry Potter
    Harvest
    Headlam
    Healing
    Heart
    Heaven
    Hebrew
    Hebrews
    Hedgerows
    Helder Camara
    Hen
    Henri Nouwen
    Henry Scott Holland
    Henry Vaughan
    He Qi
    Heresy
    Herod
    Hesitation
    Hijra
    Hildegard
    History
    Holding
    Holiness
    Holy Saturday
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Trinity
    Holy Week
    Home
    Homophobia
    Honour
    Hope
    Hosea
    Hospitality
    House
    Humanity
    Humility
    I Am
    Icon
    I Corinthians
    IDAHOT
    Identity
    Ilia Delio
    Image
    Imagine
    Immanence
    Imperialism
    Incarnation
    India
    Indigenous
    Indooroopilly
    Inn
    Inspiration
    Interbeing
    Interfaith
    International Women's Day
    Interplay
    Intimacy
    Invitation
    Iona
    Isaiah
    Islam
    Israel
    I-Thou
    Jack Haas
    Jack-in-a-box
    Jacob
    Jairus
    James
    Jamie Dunk
    Jan Berry
    Janet Morley
    Jan Richardson
    Jar
    Jarel Robinson-Brown
    Jarowair And Giabal
    Jarrow
    Jeremiah
    Jerusalem
    Jester
    Jesus
    Jesus Christ
    Jewish
    Jews
    Jezebel
    Jihad
    Joan Chittister
    Joel
    John
    John Arlott
    John Bell
    John Coleman
    John Naish
    John O'Donohue
    John The Baptist
    John Wesley
    Josef Zacek
    Joseph
    Josephine Butler
    Journey
    Joy
    Judaism
    Judas
    Judgement
    Jujitsu
    Julian
    Julian Of Norwich
    Jurgen Moltmann
    Justice
    Jyllie Jackson
    Kaleidoscope
    Kataphatic
    Katherine Appleby
    Keble
    Kenosis
    KIerkegaard
    Kindness
    King
    Kingdom
    Kosuke Koyama
    Labyrinth
    Lamentations
    Land
    Language
    Lantern
    L'Arche
    Laughter
    Law
    Lazarus
    Lead
    Leadership
    Leap
    Learning
    Leaves
    Legion
    Lent
    Leonard Cohen
    Leper
    Lesbian
    Les Murray
    Levertov
    Levite
    Lewis Carroll
    LGBTI
    LGBTIQ
    Liberation
    Liberty
    Life
    Light
    Liminality
    Lincolnshire
    Lindisfarne
    Lion
    Lionel Blue
    Lismore
    Literalist
    Liturgy
    Living Dance
    Living Stones
    London
    Longing
    Lord
    Lord's Prayer
    Love
    Love Of God
    Love Your Enemies
    Luke
    Luther
    Macrina
    Macrina Wiederkehr
    Mad
    Magi
    Magnificat
    Mahatma Gandhi
    Makaratta
    Malcolm Guite
    Manchester
    Manger
    Mantle
    Maori
    Maranatha
    Maranoa
    Marcella Althaus Reid
    Marcella Althaus-Reid
    Mardi Gras
    Margaret Silf
    Marginalised
    Marianne Williamson
    Mark
    Mark Copland
    Market Rasen
    Mark Jordan
    Marriage
    Martha
    Martin Luther
    Martin Luther King
    Martyr
    Mary
    Mary Magdalene
    Mary Of Bethany
    Mary Oliver
    Mary Poppins
    Mary Sumner
    Masculinity
    Materiality
    Matthew
    Maundy Thursday
    Maya
    MCC
    Meaning
    Meditation
    Meewah
    Meister Eckhart
    Melbourne
    Melchizedek
    Memory
    Men
    Mercy
    Messiah
    Metanoia
    Methodist
    Michael Leunig
    Midnight Oil
    Midwife
    Migrant
    Milton
    Mind
    Ministry
    Minster
    Miracle
    Mirror
    Mission
    Moltmann
    Monastery
    Monk
    Morality
    Moses
    Mother
    Mother Hen
    Mothering
    Mother-in-law
    Mothers Union
    Mountain
    Multicultural
    Multifaith
    Multuggerah
    Music
    Muslim
    Mustard Seed
    Myall Creek
    Myrrh
    Myrrh Bearers
    Mystery
    Mystic
    Myth
    NAIDOC
    Nakedpastor
    Name
    Natalie Adams
    Nathaniel
    Nathan Tyson
    Nativity
    Nazareth
    Neighbour
    Nelson-mandela
    Net
    New Age
    New Creation
    New Life
    Newman
    New Year
    New Zealand
    Nicodemus
    Night
    Nikita Gill
    Noel Preston
    Nonjudgement
    Nonviolence
    Norman
    Nungalinya
    Obedience
    Ocean
    Offering
    Oil
    Oppression
    Ordination
    Orthodox
    Oscar Romero
    Other
    Otter
    Overcoming Violence
    Oxford
    Pacific
    Pain
    Palestine
    Palm Sunday
    Pamela Lightsey
    Parable
    Parent
    Parish
    Participation
    Party
    Passion
    Pastor
    Patience
    Patriarchy
    Patrick
    Patrick Oliver
    Paul
    Peace
    Peacemaker
    Penitence
    Penny Jones
    Pentatonix
    Pentecost
    Pentecostal
    People Of God
    Perfume
    Persecution
    Perseverance
    Persistence
    Peter
    Peter Millar
    Pharaoh
    Pharisee
    Pharisees
    Philip
    Philippians
    Pig
    Pilate
    Pilgrim
    Pilgrimage
    Pitt Street Uniting Church
    Plague
    Plato
    Poetry
    Political
    Politics
    Poor
    Pope
    Pope Francis
    Possibility
    Poverty
    Power
    Praise
    Prayer
    Preacher
    Pregnancy
    Presbyterian
    Presence
    President
    Pride
    Priest
    Prince Of Peace
    Proclamation
    Progressive
    Prophecy
    Prophet
    Prophet Mohammed
    Protecttion
    Protestant
    Providence
    Psalm
    Puppet
    Purification
    Purity
    Quaker
    Queer
    Rabbi
    Race
    Rachael Mann
    Rachel Collis
    Racism
    Rage
    Raiinbow
    Rainbow
    Ramadan
    Reason
    Recapitulation
    Reconciliation
    Redemption
    Reformation
    Reformed
    Refugee
    Rejection
    Rejoice
    Relationship
    Religion
    Religious Experience
    Religious Freedom
    Remembrance
    Repentance
    Republic
    Resilience
    Resistance
    Resource
    Rest
    Resurrection
    Revelation
    Revolution
    Richard Rohr
    Rich Young Man
    Righteousness
    Risk
    Rita Mae Brown
    River
    Rock
    Roman
    Romans
    Rose
    Roses
    Rowan Williams
    R.S Thomas
    R.S.Thomas
    Rumi
    Russia
    Ruth
    Sabbath
    Sacrament
    Sacrifice
    Sadducees
    Safe Church
    Safety
    Saints
    Salt
    Salvation
    Samaritan
    Samuel
    Sanctus
    Sanguin
    Santa Claus
    Sarah
    Sarah Bachelard
    SBS
    Schism
    Schleiermacher
    Scholasticism
    School Of Hard Knocks
    Science
    Scotland
    Scott Stevens
    Scripture
    Sea
    Season Of Creation
    Second Coming
    Security
    See
    Seed
    Sermon The Mount
    Service
    Seth Godin
    Sex
    Sexuality
    Shadow
    Shakespeare
    Shalom
    Shame
    Shannon Kearns
    Sheep
    Sheep And Goats
    Shepherd
    Shepherds
    Shirley Erena Murray
    Sibyls
    Silence
    Simeon
    Sin
    Sinner
    Slavery
    Socrates
    Soil
    Solidarity
    Song
    Son Of Man
    Soul
    Sovereignty
    Sower
    Spirit
    Spiritual
    Spirituality
    Spong
    Sport
    Stan Grant
    Statement From The Heart
    Stendahl-Rast
    Stephanie Dowrick
    Stewardship
    St Francis College
    Stillness
    St John's Cathedral
    St Luke's
    St Mary's In Exile
    Storm
    Story
    Studdert Kennedy
    Subversion
    Success
    Suffering
    Suffering Servant
    Sunflower
    Sydney
    Symbol
    Synagogue
    Syrophoenician
    Tabitha
    Table-fellowship
    Taize
    Talents
    Tall-poppy
    Tears
    Teenager
    Temple
    Temptation
    Tennyson
    Test
    Thanksgiving
    The-glennie-school
    Theodicy
    Theology
    Theosis
    Theotokos
    The Way
    Thomas
    Thomas-berry
    Thomas-merton
    Threshold
    Thunderbirds
    Tillich
    Time
    Tomb
    Tongues
    Toowoomba
    Torres
    Torres Strait
    Tractarian
    Tradition
    Transcendence
    Transfiguration
    Transformation
    Transgender
    Transition
    Treasure
    Treaty
    Tree
    Trinity
    Trump
    Trust
    Truth
    T.S.Eliot
    Tufty
    Tutu
    Tweed
    Tyne
    UAICC
    Ukraine
    Uluru
    UN
    Uniting Church
    Unity
    Universe
    Usury
    Valwyn Wishart
    Vanstone
    Veridiitas
    Victory
    Vincent-van-gogh
    Vine
    Violence
    Virgin-mary
    Virgins
    Vision
    Visitation
    Vivid
    Voice
    Waiters-union
    Waiting
    Wales
    Walking
    Walter Wink
    War
    Warrego
    Warsaw
    Watch
    Water
    Wear
    Wedding
    Weeds
    Welcome
    Wellspring
    Wesleyan-quadrilateral
    Westminster Confession
    White
    Whiteness
    White Ribbon
    Widow
    Wilderness
    Willliam-blake
    Wind
    Wine
    Winston-halapua
    Wisdom
    Woe
    Wolf
    Woman
    Woman At The Well
    Woman Bent Over
    Womb
    Women
    Wonder
    Wontulpbibuya
    Word
    Word-of-god
    World-council-of-churches
    World Pride
    World-youth-day
    Worship
    Wounds
    Woy-woy
    Wrestling
    Xenophobia
    Yabun
    Yahweh
    Yoga
    Yoke
    Zacchaeus
    Zebedee
    Zechariah
    Zogron
    Zwingli

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly