‘What can we do?’
HOMILY: For Luke, the new world will mean a new temple of some kind. Disoriented believers throw up their hands and cry, “What can we do?!” The gospel offers assurance – reach out your hands, join hands and ask, “What can we do?”
‘Life and how to live it’
HOMILY: On the altar-table (and on screen) we have an Icon of the Transfiguration. The icon shows Moses and Elijah “alive” with Jesus, just as Moses, in the Exodus passage about the burning bush, encounters the God of Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Leah and Rachel and Jacob …
‘A force greater than self-importance’
HOMILY: “You love everything that exists / And you don’t hate anything you have created … / You save all things because they are yours …”
Words from the book of Wisdom, a book, as protestants, we don’t often open and read – a book we call apocryphal, or hidden away, amid texts of uncertain authenticity in the eyes of 16th-century reformers.
‘Hymns to grace’
HOMILY: The tax collector’s prayer invites our humble prayers and heartfelt hymns to grace.
‘We meet our match’
HOMILY: Our reading from Genesis is something of a classic. It is part of the Jacob/Israel saga – the story of a trickster (“Heel Grabber”) who steals a blessing, who leaves home, wrestles with his conscience, his God and himself; a deceiver who is deceived, who loves, who returns home, is forgiven, undergoes conversion, walks thereafter with a limp.
‘Stigmata’
HOMILY: The action takes place in a liminal space, in a nameless village somewhere between Galilee and Samaria. Jesus leads disciples to anticipate surprises, healing, new life at the margins, in various border settings …
‘In a Spirit of freedom’
HOMILY: There are many references to slavery in the Bible. In one sense, the whole Bible is a reflection on slavery and freedom – what it means to overcome oppression and to become free people …
‘Children of the cosmos’
HOMILY: Jesus calls the salvation he provides “bread” and calls himself “bread from heaven”. John, arguably the most mystical of the gospels, is artfully constructed, layered. It is sacramental – the material world is a bearer of spiritual meaning, the material participates in the spiritual.
‘The place of faith and understanding’
HOMILY: Job asks, “Where is the place of understanding?” And Jesus asks, “Where is your faith?” God knows believers, afraid and amazed, seek Wisdom – a certain power, wellbeing, confidence … relationship, connection, shalom/peace …
‘Walk the line’
HOMILY: Leigh knew hardship … and Leigh loved his neighbour, which, according to Jesus, means he loved God – he loved with the faithfulness of God who says: “I will cover you with my pinions; under my wings you will take refuge; my faithfulness will shield you” (Psalm 91:4). Leigh loved with the faithfulness of God who says: “Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”
