Tag: exodus

Exodus | Ten words, three strategies, and a never-ending flow of life

God gives the gift of freedom and Ten Words – three strategies – to help us resist the lies of empire. (Listen.)

Just imagine: You have been set free. Free from unreasonable expectations, casual contracts, and ever-increasing KPI’s. Free from the busywork of middle management and trivializing performance reviews. Free from the gnawing feeling that, no matter how many hours you put in, you will never know enough or do enough or be enough or have enough. Free from seeking other people’s approval; free from the need to be seen as helpful, powerful, successful, special, right, reliable, calm, happy or wise. Continue reading “Exodus | Ten words, three strategies, and a never-ending flow of life” →

Exodus | God provides in the wilderness

The ancient story of a wilderness-wandering people invites us to ponder how God sustains us during shutdown. (Listen.)

Day after day, week after week, month after month, we have been walking in the wilderness of shutdown. School has changed. Work has changed. Church has changed; and so has everything else. Most of us are still spending time with too many family members and not enough friends; many of us are lonely, anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed. Babies are being born; children are growing; grandparents are ageing, all without loved ones attending every step. Significant milestones are passing by without our usual rituals: Birthdays. Graduations. Anniversaries. Even deaths.

Continue reading “Exodus | God provides in the wilderness” →

Exodus | Walking between the waves

When a nation is founded on violence, and uses violence to ensure people’s ongoing submission and obedience, the forces of chaos will one day overwhelm and destroy it. (Listen.)

As we saw last week, our world is besieged by plagues and other signs and wonders. These are desperate times in which sin is a deep, ever-present, and continuing reality, which affects every person, and all life, on earth. Only a fool would claim that life is good right now.

Continue reading “Exodus | Walking between the waves” →

Exodus | Plagues and other signs and wonders

A story of plague, empire and pyramids is truly a story for our times. A reflection, followed by a congregational conversation. (Listen to the reflection part here.)

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a nation whose gods shaped it into a pyramid of power. At the top was one man: Pharaoh: the semi-divine son of the sun god Ra. And as happens to everyone, Pharaoh was made in his god’s image. Dominating. Enslaving. Murderous. Turning the things of life—midwives, the Nile—into instruments of death.

Continue reading “Exodus | Plagues and other signs and wonders” →

Exodus | Aunty Sandra Onus, Lidia Thorpe, and a pharaoh with no name

We are all called to be actors in God’s great story of salvation, reconciling people, land, culture, and even trees. (Listen.)

On the other side of Gariwerd, along the Western Highway, you’ll find a camp. It’s the Djab Wurrung Heritage Protection Embassy. Elder Aunty Sandra Onus, Zellanach Djab Mara and others are there. They are protecting an 800-year-old birthing tree. They are protecting a 350-year-old directions tree. They are protecting 3,000 other trees: and by protecting these trees, they are protecting their dreaming. Continue reading “Exodus | Aunty Sandra Onus, Lidia Thorpe, and a pharaoh with no name” →

Exodus | Walk like an Egyptian … into the Promised Land

As privileged people, we can’t simply claim the story of the Exodus without reflection, repentance, and concrete response. (Listen.)

Over the last few weeks, we have heard much about the suffering of the Israelites. Slaves in Egypt, they were given backbreaking work with impossible quotas; their children were being killed: and God heard their cries. One man, Moses, escaped the genocide and was raised in Pharaoh’s household. As an adult, God sent him back to Pharaoh over and over again to ask him to let God’s people go. Each refusal was followed by a plague; and the Passover, which sees the death of all the firstborn children and animals in Egypt, is the tenth plague. It is only after this that Pharaoh finally let God’s people go. Continue reading “Exodus | Walk like an Egyptian … into the Promised Land” →

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