Sermon

This sermon was preached on the 4th of May 2025, The Third Sunday of Easter, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie. Texts: John 21:1-19 Hearing today’s Gospel, I think of Peter, and I find myself reflecting on just how difficult the path to reconciliation and forgiveness can be. When you’ve done something wrong, and you know it, it’s can be hard to accept forgiveness. And when you’ve done something very, very wrong, it can be hard to believe that even the possibility of forgiveness exists. ...

This sermon was preached on the 27th of April 2025, The Second Sunday of Easter, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie. Texts: John 20:19-31 The risen Jesus bore wounds. Wounds in his hands; wounds in his feet; a wound in his side; and for a very long time, that surprised me. If the Bible didn’t tell us what we just heard, then I would have pictured the risen Jesus as healed entirely – pristine and perfect. His hands healed, his feet healed, the wound in his side healed. The marks of minor childhood injuries, scars on knees and feet, all healed. Even the callouses upon his hands from working his trade, healed. ...

This sermon was preached on the 20th of April 2025, Easter Sunday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie. Texts: John 20:1-18 Hearing the Resurrection Gospel, proclaiming it, it’s hard not to weep with joy and awe. It’s hard not to let one’s voice crack and break. Love permeates every verse of Saint John’s telling of the Resurrection. Consider the love and care of Mary Magdalene for Jesus. Jesus was her rabbi, her master, her friend. And he died. He died, most horrifically. ...

This sermon was preached on the 19th of April 2025, Holy Saturday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie, preceding the Flowering of the Cross Texts: Mark 14-15 Today, Jesus descends into the underworld, into the ground, to be with the dead. Today, Jesus harrows hell. Today, Jesus liberates the captives, offering to them his outstretched hand. And all who take grasp of it, he lifts up to freedom and eternal life. ...

This sermon was preached on the 18th of April 2025, Good Friday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie Texts: John 18.1–19.42 “It’s nothing personal.” If you watch one of the Passion movies, you can almost hear those words going through the heads of the Roman centurions, as they brusquely drive nails through each of the limbs of Jesus. Crash goes the hammer, driving a nail, crude and blunt, through tender flesh and into wood. ...

This sermon was preached on the 17th of April 2025, Maundy Thursday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie Texts: John 13.1-17; 13.31b-35 Would you have let Jesus wash your feet that night? Imagine yourself in the room we have just heard of. You and the other disciples are sat around the dinner table. There’s a sense of foreboding, of tension… there’s a tingle of fear in the air… a silence, strange and thick, falls upon the room. ...

This sermon was preached on the 13th of April 2025, the Palm Sunday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie Texts: Luke 22.14-23:56 On Tuesday I spent lunchtime doing a bit of housework. I had some cups in the office that need to be washed by hand, so I ran the sink. Then I went outside to put the bins out, and got talking to someone in the courtyard. Maybe ten minutes later, I walked back into the house, and remembered the tap… because I spent the next hour or so mopping up the water that was everywhere in the kitchen. Don’t worry, churchwardens, there was no major damage! ...

This sermon was preached on the 23rd of February 2025, The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany. Texts: Luke 6.:27-38 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Sometimes in Christianity you hear slogans, slogans which are carried around, maybe even bandied about. And one that I have a particular difficulty with is this: “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” You’ve probably heard that phrase – you may have said those words, and you may yourself have been hurt by them as well. ...

This sermon was preached on the 26th of January 2025, The Third Sunday after Epiphany, in the civil calendar known as Australia Day (or as Survival Day.) Texts: 1 Corinthians 12.12-31 Luke 4.14-21 I don’t know about everyone else here, but lately I find myself sick and tired of division. It seems to me that year by year, even day by day, the world gets meaner and angrier. People seem to be drifting apart from each another, and our civic society is getting smaller and smaller. ...

This sermon was preached on the 5th of January 2025, The Feast of the Epiphany. Texts: Matthew 2.1-12 There’s something compelling about the magi, isn’t there? Something fun: they’re exotic, exciting, encouraging… and so the tradition of the church has given them backstories and names, Caspar, Melichior, Balthassar. And it is those magi, the magi of the tradition, the kings of the tradition, who we see steadily processing towards the nativity every Christmas, finally reaching their destination today, on the Feast of the Epiphany. ...