Episode

“Open our ears to hear and guide our steps to follow” Reading: Mark 9: 30-37             A well-known and I suspect much loved hymn begins with the lines, “O Sabbath rest by Galilee, O calm of hills above”. But it wasn’t like that in Galilee in the time of Jesus, Read more…

Taking up the cross – Mark 8:27-38, Isaiah 50:4-8a I am doing something different this morning. As I was preparing for two sermons – today’s and one for the service for Enos tomorrow – I decided to re-work an address I heard many years ago – the induction address of Read more…

Crumbs! – Mark 7:24-30, Isaiah 35:4-7 There are some passages of Scripture that you read and think – quite literally, Crumbs! What are we to make of this? Did Jesus just call that woman a dog? How did she find a way to respond to that? And what are the Read more…

Strange Soldiers – Ephesians 6:10-20 Saint Patrick’s Breastplate is an old Irish prayer attributed – perhaps as Ephesians is attributed to Paul – to Saint Patrick. It consists of five parts, each beginning, ‘I bind unto myself today…’ followed by a list of sources of strength that the prayer calls Read more…

Family – Ephesians 5:21-6:9 Two years before Aron and I moved to Japan in 1995, Crown Prince (at the time) Naruhito and Princess Masako were married. Masako worked for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs before her marriage. She was the daughter of a senior diplomat and spoke six languages: Read more…

Call – Ephesians 4:1-16 A few years ago, I told you a story of friend called Vikki who came to the church Aron and I attended in Sydney. She had grown up Catholic and gone to Catholic schools, but when she left school, she left the church behind. But in Read more…

The Church – Ephesians 3 I try to limit the number of times I mention Grand Designs in sermons which – if you haven’t worked this out – is ‘must see’ television in the Groves-Downey household, but there was a heightened level of drama in the last season. Not only Read more…

Therefore – Ephesians 2 We are currently working through a series on Ephesians. This is our second week – and we are looking at Ephesians 2 and it is a long passage! In the lectionary, the three-year cycle of readings many churches follow, it is dealt with in two parts. Read more…

In Him – Ephesians 1:3-14 Three and a bit weeks ago we were in Alice Springs. Darwin had been declared a hotspot, so we’d abandoned our plans to go there, and we were booking flights back to the ACT. South Australia had closed its border to the Northern Territory (they Read more…

Sheep may surprise you – Psalm 23 As animals, sheep have a certain reputation. We think of them as timid and use phrases like ‘as meek as a lamb’ or ‘as gentle as a lamb’. We consider the noise they make – bleating – synonymous with complaining in a way Read more…