Tag: hope

Matthew | Expectation management

What are we waiting for? And how, then, do we wait? (Listen here.) Content note: One mention of suicide, in the first paragraph only.

The saddest funeral I ever did was for a young woman who died by suicide. She attended a very high energy local church, all praise and worship. However, it did not do funerals and certainly not for suicide. Trying to find a pastor who would hold a service for their daughter, her distraught parents were eventually given my name.

Continue reading “Matthew | Expectation management” →

Matthew | Our hope in the dark: Being left behind with Jesus

Maybe being left behind is the better thing. (Listen here.)

My friend came home from school one day and found the house empty. His mother was visiting with the neighbour, but my friend didn’t know that. He walked around that empty house calling, ‘Mum? Mu-um!! MUM!!!’ No reply. My friend went up the stairs and checked the bedrooms. No mum. He checked the bathroom, the linen closet, the laundry. Still no mum. He went out into the garden and checked front and back, then he checked the shed. Nothing. Once he realised that she really wasn’t there, he collapsed into a foetal position, sobbing. His worst fear had been realised: the rapture had happened, his mother had been taken, and he’d been left behind.

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Jeremiah | Suffering from solastalgia? This is what to do

In the face of climate catastrophe, seek the welfare of your place. (Listen.)

Ten years ago, the scientist Glenn Albrecht coined a new word. He was studying the impact of open-cut coal mining on the people of the Upper Hunter region of NSW. The mines were creating new and horrific scars in the landscape; the power station was polluting water, air and soil; there was persistent drought. As the earth groaned, Albrecht realised that the people who lived there were experiencing a form of chronic distress for which English has no word; he came up with the term ‘solastalgia.’ Continue reading “Jeremiah | Suffering from solastalgia? This is what to do” →

Revelation | A liturgical reading (My little finches)

A bleak day, a cosmic conversation, a liturgical identity – and consolation. (Listen.)

I was feeling despondent so I went for a walk when I came across a flock of red-browed finches. They were darting back and forth across the path, cheeping merrily at each other. And they said to me, ‘Learn from us! Look how happy we are in our little flock, flitting between sun and shade.’ And I said, ‘But where is my little flock? I don’t know anymore. And I seem to be stuck in the shadows.’ Continue reading “Revelation | A liturgical reading (My little finches)” →

Jeremiah & Isaiah | A tender shoot of love and justice

Jesus embodies ancient hopes for justice, nonviolence, and peace between all peoples. As people grafted into this righteous branch, we must embody these qualities, too. (Listen.)

So it’s Advent: a paradoxical time-slip in which we look forward to the coming of the one who was born, and lived, and died, and was raised, and lives among us now. It’s a time of anticipating more than ever God’s kingdom come. It’s a time of hopeful expectation of a world turned rightside up, a world where love and justice reign, and vulnerable people are raised up, and the arrogant are cast down. Continue reading “Jeremiah & Isaiah | A tender shoot of love and justice” →

Palm Sunday | The jester’s joke

Palm Sunday is not so much a triumphal entry as a profound anticlimax, a raspberry, a fart. (Listen.)

Some days, I’m flooded with awe. I look around and I see miracles. I see people affirmed in equal marriage, and victim-survivors acknowledged and believed. I see households working towards equitable arrangements, women in leadership, women in Parliament. I see small acts of justice raining down, and diversity appreciated in myriad ways: and I am filled with hope.

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Genesis | Becoming prisoners of hope

In this current moment, despair feels natural: but we are only partway through a story, and the ending has not yet been written. (Listen.)

Young Joseph had it all. He was his father’s favourite, a spoiled brat. He was given a beautiful coat with long sleeves: because no one expected him to do any real work, anything which required him to roll his sleeves up. He had vivid dreams which showed he would one day be top of the heap, and he had God-given interpretive gifts. He was on the wide road to success, power, affirmation, acclaim. Continue reading “Genesis | Becoming prisoners of hope” →

Matthew | Trusting God’s life will prevail

The Apostle Paul said that if Christ had not been raised, then our faith is in vain. So what is resurrection faith? (Listen.)

Time after time after time it comes to this: Violence. Destruction. Despair. Death. This summer, Australia burned; yet the Victorian Government is logging state forests again. COVID-19 rampages the earth; countries are digging mass graves. Men murder their own wives and children, and are sympathetically described in the media. Powerful religious types support oppressive governments and corporations. Pell has his conviction quashed on a technicality. Millions die from tuberculosis and air pollution every year; vulnerable people are trafficked into slavery; and the world turns a blind eye. Violence, destruction, despair and death: they are never very far away. Continue reading “Matthew | Trusting God’s life will prevail” →

Ezekiel | A word of life to a nation in lockdown

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promises life to a people cut off from everything they once knew. (Listen.)

The people were devastated. Family, friend and neighbour had been killed by an invading army. Bodies were abandoned, with no proper burial. Shops were shuttered; streets were emptied of life. Those who survived were in exile, and everything had changed. They could not worship in the usual places; they could not go to familiar shops or town squares; they no longer saw their friends. Continue reading “Ezekiel | A word of life to a nation in lockdown” →

Job | Midwife to the sea

At a time of catastrophic climate change and oceanic collapse, the Book of Job offers a vision of hope. (Listen.)

Today is Ocean Sunday: and if the preaching helps are any guide, then I should be telling you to care for the sea. But I think that would be a waste of breath. Some of us here have protested and spread the word against drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight. Some of us have written to politicians, objecting to the Adani coal mine and the catastrophic effect it will have on the Great Barrier Reef. Some of us have created stunning pieces of art which highlight the prevalence of plastics on our beaches and in our oceans, and which challenge us to change. Some of us have spent hours on hands and knees, picking up nurdles from Shelly Beach; most of us come home from any beach trip with other people’s plastic in our pockets; and many of us are planning to be at the local climate rally on 20 September. So no, you don’t need me to tell you to care for the oceans. Continue reading “Job | Midwife to the sea” →

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