HOMILY: Standing up for what’s right and compassionate is to risk/live your life. Paranoid powers – gluttons and abusers like Herod – deeply resent social and political criticism, and prophets like John the Baptiser are undermined, ridiculed, imprisoned.
HOMILY: Jesus was turned around. Jesus turned. Made aware of multiple needs, possible directions. Ministry on both sides (“all sides”) of the lake. Younger and older people. Life and death issues.
HOMILY: Jesus says: “You shouldn’t be working for perishable food, but for life-giving food that lasts …” (John 6:27). The gospel directs us beyond immediate needs and shallow pleasures, and toward a maturity “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
CHILDREN’S MINISTRY: The shapes, textures and colours express the joy of life in community.
HOMILY: Jesus says, “I am the bread of life …” There are seven “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s gospel. In addition to the bread of life, Jesus compares himself to light in darkness (8:12), a gate to safe pasture (10:9), a good shepherd (10:11), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way or path (14:6), and the true vine who fulfils Israel’s destiny (15:1; Isaiah 5).
PRAYERS: The following Collects were written by participants in our monthly Liturgy Resource group.
HOMILY: We give thanks for the witness of John, the poet-evangelist whose gospel invites us to receive a poetic Word, dense and substantial like bread.
HOMILY: On Monday morning I met with Dorothy for a walk in Redfern Park. We talked about the gospel, about the apostles with Jesus in a boat (boundary crossings), about the tassels (tzit-tzit), the Torah, touch and healing.
HOMILY: Jesus calls disciples to travel lightly and to live simply – to declutter, we might say, to discard weighty anguish, foolish ambition, gnostic wishes, fears of missing out, even worries over other people’s desiring and accumulating …
PRAYERS: Inspired by John 6:1-21, the following intercessory prayers were written for Ordinary Sunday 17B (July 25) by participants in our monthly Liturgy Resource group – Jane, Anne, Abner and Andrew.
