Homily for Holy Communion Tuesday 25/8/26

2 Thessalonians 2:1-17

Matthew 23:23-26

The great richness of our spiritual tradition means that we have a lot to spend time on in our personal reflections, meditations, and study. Our Lord, God incarnate, revealing the holy and blessed Trinity, and the great work of redemption he has wrought, opens up to us a field of spiritual study stretching back to where we have come from as a species, all the way to where will end up in the age to come.

Today we have heard two different ways that our thoughts can send us off down the wrong path. First, we heard St Paul writing to the Thessalonian church. They were a faithful church, but they had narrowed their focus onto one particular doctrine: that of the end times. It had caused no end of distress for the saints there, because now they were beginning to get worried. Hope was being lost.

The apostle brings them back on track by reminding them that all the Lord needs to do is to simply exhale and evil is banished. But in the meantime, they should remember the traditions that had been passed on to them. What he had in mind specifically is up for debate, but if we look at the rest of his writing across Holy Scripture, we find St Paul concerned primarily with the human heart, and how we can best give our heart to the Lord Jesus. And so if there is one doctrine above all that we should be concerned with, it must be our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus; everything flows from that. So let us fill our minds with him, to keep hope alive, and to be ready for when he returns.

Then we heard from our Lord himself. We heard a couple of his many “woes” pronounced upon the religious leaders of his time. In particular, we heard about their misplaced priorities. They were very good at tithing the material things, but sorely lacking in the spiritual. Note the three things Jesus focuses on: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

He might as well have been pointing to the cross. There, we see the justice of God against sin, as Christ drank dry the cup of God’s justice. We also see mercy, as he hung in our place, so that we may enjoy the blessing of Christ’s sinless perfection. And on the cross the faithfulness of God was fulfilled, as the many promises of God throughout history were vindicated, namely, that God himself would provide the means for our forgiveness.

Justice, mercy, faithfulness, and the traditions handed down to us: this is where we must place our focus, and discover God’s intended direction for our lives. It is in the cross of Christ, and all that that demands upon our lives today, that we find meaning for ourselves. We also discover the great mysteries of God revealed, the doctrines that should shape our lives, the sacrificial loving-kindness of God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ giving us a pattern to follow and discipline to place ourselves under.

So let us indeed plumb the depths of the many doctrines that our religion uncovers, for it is the glory of God that we discover more about him every day. But let us always keep in mind the firm centre, the rock of Christ, so that in all our discoveries he may be worshipped and glorified.

Sermon for Sunday 23/8/26

Matthew 16:13-20

The other day I was getting restless and realised what I needed was a good sit down and a novel. So I looked on my bookshelf and pulled out a Richard Bolitho story. If you don’t recognise that name, he’s like Hornblower: a captain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, sailing for months on a little frigate to the other side of the world, leading his men on adventures of daring victory.

As I read about Bolitho’s plans to take his little frigate into a battle of impossible odds and capture a fortress island in the Caribbean, I realised I had already read this story: it is today’s Gospel reading.

Look at where our Lord is. He is in the region of Caesarea Philippi. This stands out immediately. The thing about Jesus is that he does not really concern himself with big cities. He is more interested in the regional and rural areas, and with people who are honest and relatable. So why is he here? And what is the importance?

Caesarea Philippi is known, and has been known for centuries, as the place with the gate to the underworld. Hell – Hades – Pan’s labyrinth – the place of the dead – has a front door, and its front door is a big pit at the base of the mountain around which the city of Caesarea Philippi has been built.

The Lord Jesus walks up to this gate, like Captain Bolitho sailing up to the island fortress (or maybe Aragorn at the Black Gate of Mordor), and begins preparing his men. “Who do people say I am?” he asks his disciples. Several answers are offered; perhaps one of the prophets? “But you – who do you say I am?” he presses the issue. St Peter declares, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Our Lord could not have done a better job of rousing the spirits of his men. Like Henry V at Agincourt and his “band of brothers” and the “greater share of honour”, he brings their minds to higher things: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” You do not have the feeble weapons of steel and gritted teeth, but the blessing of the Almighty Father upon you.

Having raised their attention to whom they are speaking, and by whose power they do so, our Lord moves to their mission: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Last week we heard how Jesus has gathered a people who find their common link not through heritage, or language, or culture, but by faith in him. Now that he has gathered us into his company, he is telling us our mission. This is who we are; this is who we are to be.

First, we are gathered together under Christ. This is the most important part. Without him, we have nothing; we are nothing. It is in him and through him and to him that we have our union with one another. This is how he began his rousing speech: Who do you say that I am? We are a people continually answering this question. We sing his praises, we offer our prayers through his intercession, we feed on him at his table. He is our all in all. We cannot lift Christ up too high. His supremacy in all things can never be overdone. Who do you say that he is?

Having established this as our foundation and our essence of being, he moves on to the next step: we are a church. He builds his church on this: a group of people who proclaim Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. We must gather. We must come together. He is a personal saviour, but he is not a private saviour. He draws all people to himself through the blood of his cross; his people are gathered from the four winds from the ends of the earth. It begins with the individual under the tree with their Bible, and it is completed when that individual gathers with all the other individuals who have been personally called by the same Lord to gather as his body, the church.

To this church, to his body, to his gathering, he gives a mission, and authority to complete it. For he has marched up to the gates of hell, declared war upon it, and condemned its defeat by the victory of his church. This is the mission, and the authority is what he has given to St Peter, and therefore to his entire church: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” We are the gathering of people who proclaim Christ as Lord, and he has given us the mission and the means to defeat hell.

Where are the gates of hell here on the Redcliffe peninsula? I mean, I look out the window and the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we are going to sing some songs of our own and have a cup of tea afterwards out on the deck. But is this not the opposite of hell? Is this not the kingdom of heaven being loosed upon the earth through the church built on Christ himself?

The darkness is anywhere the light is not. A cruel word; a stern look; a snatching when there should have been a giving. But the gates of hell can not prevail against the church. When we gather, whether it be today at Sunday worship, or during the week over a social visit, or a phone call to someone going through tough times, the gates of hell are battered down and evil is put to flight. We are the body of Christ going into the darkness, and the darkness cannot withstand the light of Christ we shine into those places when we get together.

Our Captain is Christ, the Lord, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. He draws us together in himself, and leads the charge into the dark places. We are called to follow; but we are called to follow side by side, supporting one another, supported by him. And we know that we will succeed, because it is in his name and by his power that we do so. So let us look for those dark places, gather the troops, call upon our Lord, and batter down those gates.

Sermon for 12th Sunday after Pentecost, 16/8/26

Psalm 133

Romans 1:13-36

Matthew 15:10-28

While filling out my census form, I discovered a potential for improvement in the form. In particular, the question about heritage. Did you know that you can only select up to four options when entering your background? The British Isles have four nations; that’s everything used up, leaving no room for any of the Nordic countries, anywhere in the Mediterranean, or Aboriginal. And so it made me think about identity markers. What is our heritage? And how does that define who we are now?

In today’s Gospel passage we have a discussion about heritage. Our Lord is approached by a certain person, and we are told her heritage: she is a Caananite. Straight away this should make us sit up. The Caananites are the historic “baddies” of the Old Testament. Their culture is in direct opposition to God, and God uses his people against them. But the Caananites manage to mix their culture in with that of God’s people, leading them all into the same sin. The negative influence of the Caananites is a huge theme in the history of God’s people leading up to this conversation with Jesus.

Yet she strikes up conversation with him; not only conversation, but a forthright request for help. You can imagine the scene: a Maroons supporter breaks down on the side of the road. He goes into the local pub looking for help, and it is filled with people dressed in Blues regalia. He goes up to the publican and asks for help. Dial this situation up to 11, and that is what we have here.

Our Lord’s initial response sounds like he might be “playing to the crowd”. Surrounded by his Jewish followers, he replies that he has come for the children of Israel, not the “dogs” of Caanan. “Get ‘em, Lord!” is probably being muttered by not a few of them. Yet she persists, with that famous line that “even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table”.

The crowd must have been filled with a sort of shocked amusement at this. Who is this uppity Caananite? Doesn’t she know how this works? This is the Holy One of Israel, not the Holy One of Caanan. I think Jesus is using the situation to make the people around him as proud as possible of their heritage so that he can push the woman to this point. Because it is here that he flips around and declares that she has been saved by her faith, and her child is healed. Her Caananite heritage counts for nothing; her faith is all that matters.

When we think about who we are, or more precisely, who “our people” are, we often reach for obvious and shallow things. What language do we speak (or with what accent)? Where are our grandparents from? When I was talking to your parish nominators about the potential of me becoming your priest, the topic of rugby was brought up. I know little about rugby league, but I know enough to have been worried that you might be Broncos supporters. It was with great relief, which I am sure you will share, that one of your parish nominators proudly declared “we are in Dolphins territory”.

On a more serious note, these things that make us who we are can inform not just what colours we wear during football season, but our entire cosmology and worldview. That is to say, there is a risk that our heritage can define our morality and how we understand the meaning of life.

This interaction between Jesus and the Caananite acknowledges that reality. We humans do look at the differences between us, and create entire structures in our mind and society based on those differences. Yet this interaction seems to suggest that there is, at the end of the day, only one difference that matters: whether we have faith in Jesus as our saviour, or not.

Ancient Israelites and Caananites had massive differences. Different language, heritage, culture, and so on. The only difference God cared about, however, was whether they worshipped him as their God or not. The Caananites historic sin was worshipping other gods; the sin of the ancient Israelites was following the Caananites to their false gods. The salvation offered to the ancient Israelites was through Jesus; that same salvation was offered to this Caananite woman.

Let’s come back to ourselves. What similarities do we have with our neighbours – our actual neighbours, those in the same street? I literally live next door to a married, middle aged man, of Anglo-Australian ethnicity, with a son. We might as well be the same person, based off those things. Yet I have more in common with the unnamed grandmother in a North Korean gulag for Christians than I do with my next-door neighbour. For we have the same God; and that is what our Lord counts as most important.

Think also of the Jews. St Paul teaches us today that we are of those people according to our shared spiritual heritage. God has planted a tree – the tree being an illustration of God’s people. Some branches have been broken off – the unbelieving Jews. Other branches have been taken from wild plants and grafted in – believing barbarians, such as ourselves. As Christians, we have more in common with Jews than with unbelieving next-door neighbours who follow the same rugby team, eat the same food and speak the same language with the same accent.

So that is our heritage – our heritage is primarily spiritual, and it is our love and obedience for the Lord Jesus that defines it. But what does that mean for how we will live this week?

Consider the difference between our spiritual heritage and those other things. Those other things are like a club that is difficult to join. If someone from Kazakhstan wanted to join “team English language speaker with an Australian accent”, they would probably spend the rest of their natural life trying to get in, without terribly much success either. Or if someone from Morocco wanted to join “team East Asian physical features”, they would never be able to get in at all!

The defining difference that Jesus is concerned about – faith in the one true God – is a club that is not only easy to join, but membership is enthusiastically encouraged! And I think this is a way we can think about our Christian witness. We are members of all these different groups: our heritage, our language, our culture, and so on. And they are all wonderful expressions of the variety of God’s good creation. But ultimately the thing that binds us together is God himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can hold all those lesser differences and celebrate them more fully as Christians, because with Christianity, all are welcome, and all belong. Our differences are no longer cause for exclusion, but celebration. And we can hold them easily and lightly, because the important defining factor in who we are is that we place our faith in the Lord Jesus. “Our people” stretch all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and all the way up to the saints in heaven who behold God face to face.

So only having four options in the census question shows that even the Australian Government doesn’t quite understand what Jesus is about. But that is OK, because they are welcome to join his family too, if they are ready to put their faith in him. Let us be people known for our faith in the Lord Jesus, that all may know that our differences need not be an excuse to exclude, but to celebrate at the throne of the Almighty God who made us.

Holy Communion Homily 14/8/26

Observance: Twentieth Century Martyrs

Ezekiel 16:1-15, 59-63

Song of Isaiah (APBA p. 391; Isaiah 12:2-6)

Matthew 19:3-12

Today’s readings seem to be pretty lewd – there is the condemnation of Israel’s great sins in depressingly saucy imagery, and then Jesus is asked by the Pharisees about divorce.

Ezekiel’s prophecy is, ultimately, God telling his people to do two things: first, look at the great gift God has given them. Secondly, look at how they have treated that gift. We are not talking about gifts like a new coffee machine or the latest popular novel, but rather the great gift of God’s grace in bringing a people out of death and misery up into his glorious and loving presence. This is why the illustration God gives is so heartbreaking: because it is heartbreaking when people scorn God and his gifts to them.

Meanwhile in our Gospel passage, our Lord is interrogated by the Pharisees looking to trap him with a “gotcha” question. Jesus is a bit of a Bible-basher, as it were, and so his enemies pull out a passage from Scripture and ask him about it. He is very keen that we follow God’s Law. But he is also very keen that we keep a moral lifestyle that goes above and beyond the written Law. For example: God’s Law (as recorded by Moses) is that a man can divorce his wife. But Jesus says that we shouldn’t be divorcing each other at all. Ah ha! Jesus has contradicted himself! Or so they think.

As always, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter. He moves past the letter of the law to get to the spirit of the law. Marriage was ordained by God because men and women have been designed to get together and love each other. This is because there is some sort of higher mystery that human marriage points to. The reference our Lord chooses is telling in this regard: of all the passages he could have brought out, he quotes Genesis 2:24, the creation of human beings. Two become one. Two individuals retain their individuality, yet they also become one. Divorce doesn’t come into the equation.

This is a mystery which, as St Paul the Apostle points out, refers to Christ and the Church. In Ephesians 5, he quotes the same line from Genesis as Jesus does when talking about marriage, and follows on by saying “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5:31-32)

The reason I have taken this minor detour around marriage is not because I want anyone to feel scolded (or “Bible-bashed”) for their own experience of divorce. Our human experience is filled with enough of the tragedy of divorce and other marital sadness for me to add to that. What I do want to do is focus on the bit about how it is meant to point us to the relationship between God and his people; or, as St Paul teaches, between Christ and the church.

As a Christian, you are brought into Christ. The New Testament letters describe Christians as people who are “in Christ” more than any other way. We retain our individuality, yet are nonetheless joined inseparably to the Lord. When this breaks down, Ezekiel gives the extremely confronting imagery of a loose woman. Jesus talks about divorce as a sad compromise by Moses to save women from the hardhearted husbands. “Yet in the beginning it was not so”, says our Lord. Humans are made to be together with one another and with God.

Let us therefore check our hearts for any straying away from our Lord of love. For he has showered us so abundantly with such great gifts, and has promised us an eternity of rapturous bliss, it is a heartbreaking tragedy to scorn that gift by seeking lesser loves. And let us share that love that is within us with the humans we share this world with, that all may know that we were not made for ourselves, but for one another. What God has joined together, let no-one separate: and God has joined us to him and one another in the bonds of love through the blood shed for us by the Lord Jesus.

Homily for Solemn Evensong 13/8/26

Songs 1

There is, apparently, a Jewish tradition that says that men are not allowed to read the book of the Song of Songs until after they turn 30. This is because, so I am led to understand, we are not mature enough to read it. I have to wonder if even 30 is too young – all this talk about lying in beds between a pair of breasts is enough to make even the sternest church curmudgeon blush.

With this book, there always comes the question: why is this in Holy Scripture? Why did the ancient people of God consider this book divinely inspired, and why was this agreed to by the early Church? It is, after all, an erotic love poem; hardly the genre one would think appropriate for the Holy One of Israel!

I think our Anglican tradition gives us a good starting point in answering this question. If there is any theological basis that defines our general understanding of what it means to be a Christian, it is the doctrine of the incarnation: that God came to earth as one of us, joining the divine to the material, bringing humans and God together in the closest way possible. One outcome of this is that when it comes to the human experience, nothing is off the table when it comes to including God. And so the love between a man and a woman is made holy and sacred, and this book affirms that.

As far as an instruction for living is concerned, I would just like to cover what I think the main point of this book is. It is a piece of advice for young women entering the world of dating. The advice is this: have high standards. Young women should have high standards for the man they give themselves to in intimacy, and those standards are set in the lines of this poem. It is not that the man should have great wealth, or power, or public respect, or anything else like that. In fact, the king arrives part-way through, and he is compared in such terrible light everyone gets the point. Where the woman’s one true love is close, and has eyes only for her, the king comes from afar, sits up on his horse, and already has plenty of women in his harem, and she would just be one of many. This is the high standard young women should have: find a man who loves you, and loves you only.

As Christians, we are familiar with the concept of the heart – the core of our being, who we are on a deep fundamental level. We must guard our heart from deceit and wickedness, and furnish it with holiness and beauty. We must also give our heart, completely and utterly, to someone. We will worship; the question is, who will we worship? Jesus desires our heart, and desires that we give it to him first and foremost, above all else, and to him only. He is a jealous lover with high standards.

In the same way, he is entirely dedicated to us. All the blessings of Scripture that God gives throughout history we can see as from Christ’s lips to our souls. He said it himself, in the third chapter of St John: “For God so loved the world”.

And so let us reflect on the great, jealous, burning, singular love of God towards us. And let us fan the flames of our love towards our Redeemer, that we may give our hearts to him, immediately and completely. For the end of religion is the loving union between God and humanity, and Christ Jesus is the one who reveals it to us, and through whom that love flows.

Homily for Holy Communion Wednesday, 12 August, 2026

Matthew 18:15-20

Today’s Gospel gives us an outline of how we are to settle disputes in the church. First, talk in private to the person you have a problem with. If that doesn’t work, bring a couple of people together and try and work it out in a private group. Then, if things still aren’t settled, get the whole church together.

I am very thankful to God that I have not had to pull out this procedure in this parish; God has blessed us with a spirit of generosity towards one another. Let us pray that he continues to bless us in this way.

Where I do want to go in our reflections is to think about what a biblical definition of “church” might be. There are two words in the New Testament usually used: one is the word for “gathering”, and the other for “authority”. Sometimes we are described as a gathering; other times we are an authority.

In today’s lesson from our Lord, he talks about the church as a gathering – but the context is one of church authority. And so we have both.

This is important – a gathering with authority – because of the last line of this reading:

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them” (v. 20)

We often use this line when talking about a gathering of Christians. It is somewhat comforting especially during weekday services when there are very few of us, because we can be assured that even with just two or three of us, the Lord is here too.

But look at it in context: Jesus is talking about church authority. And so let us consider what it means that the gathering of believers has authority, and in particular, in our prayers.

When we gather to pray, we have an entire part of the liturgy dedicated to prayers of intercession. We address God specifically, and ask him to change something for the better. And we believe that, if it is God’s good purpose to do so, he will make that change, and that change will happen because of our prayers.

God has gathered us together, and given us authority to pray on behalf of the world. The church is the gathering of God’s people, and God has given this gathering the authority to pray on behalf of all creation to him.

And so when we gather to pray, I would encourage you to reflect on the great privilege and responsibility we have been given by the Lord: the privilege to gather in his name, in his presence; and the authority to speak to him on behalf of the rest of his creation. It is a privilege and a responsibility we must not take for granted; and it is one that we must make use of often. Because he has promised us: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them”. So let us sit with the Lord for a little while, and ask him to respond to the needs we name before him, knowing that he cares, and he has power, and he will act.

Homily for Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Matthew 18:1-14

Observances: Clare of Assisi (d. 1252); John Henry Newman, cardinal and theologian (d. 1890)

Discussions about hell are, for good reason, some of the most uncomfortable we can have in the Church. And because of this, we seem not to have those discussions very often. What is most uncomfortable, however, is that our Lord is the one person in the Bible who spoke about it the most.

In today’s portion of St Matthew’s Gospel, the reference to hell is in the context of the great privelige believers have: “their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 18:10) Jesus is speaking about little children, and comparing them to the citizens of the kingdom of heaven (in fact, he speaks in a way that seems to teach us that the two are the same, such is the degree of similarity).

This is the way of Christ. He draws our minds to the glorious wonder of the state of the believer. And he contrasts that with the misery of the alternative.

Does he do this because he really wants us not to go to hell? Or does he really want us to be with him in heaven? Or is it both at the same time?

It is a story of two extremes. It is one or the other. God is not interested in meeting us half-way. He wants to shower us with the complete fulfilment of joy and riches he has for us. It is not enough for God to wave the pudding under our nose so that we can get a sniff; he wants to bring us into the feasting hall and dine with him.

Jesus, as God incarnate, knows the rapturous delight on offer to us, and how it cannot exist side-by-side with anything else. God is unique; his pleasures are unique. And so our Lord tells us that if a bit of our body causes us to sin, cut it off for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Not that we should literally perform the surgery; but we should be so zealous for God and our enjoyment of him that we should get rid of everything that stands between us and him.

Our finite, dusty human minds cannot fully comprehend the true depth and breadth of what it means that God loves us and wants us to be happy. But our Lord encourages us to pursue it no matter what. Our challenge for today is, then, to do the hard work of checking our heart, to find what is causing us to stumble, and asking the Holy Spirit for help to cut it out and throw it away, so that we may perceive better the wonder of God’s pleasure over us.

Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/2/26

Matthew 14:22-36

They say there are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes, and the resurrection. To that I would like to add a fourth: we will all make the mistake of moving without thinking and getting into a silly accident as a result. It is not an age thing, either. Consider the small children: they look across the room and decide they want to be over there, and so they just throw themselves in that general direction, and quite often they’ll stumble on their way as a result. We do it as adults, too; we might speak before thinking and say something silly, or might act quickly on the spur of the moment and end up creating a mess.

St Peter looked out across the water, saw the Lord, and decided that he wanted to be over there, and just jumped over the side and got going. Half way across the water, he began to sink. To be fair, he did call out to make sure it was Jesus first before he jumped out of the boat; but let’s listen to our Lord’s reply and have a think before moving.

He says “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” Twice, in two different ways, he says that it’s OK: “take heart; do not be afraid”. Why does he feel the need to repeat himself like this? It is because of the middle part: “it is I.”

Another way of translating that into English might be “I Am”. And if those two words in that order ring some memory bells for you, then good, because that is what name God gives to Moses at the Burning Bush.

So what’s going on here in this stormy night? The disciples are in a rickety wooden boat, beating against a strong wind, and they see an apparition across the dark waves, who calls out to them “Ho there! It’s the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth and all that is coming towards you!” No wonder our Lord repeated the command to not be afraid.

I wonder what was going through St Peter’s mind when he heard that. Had he thought about the fact that Jesus had identified himself with Yahweh? Or did he just act first, and think later? I don’t want to speculate, but rather turn the question on ourselves: when we consider that Jesus is calling out to us, do we stop and think about the fact that this is God Almighty doing the calling?

In the Chronicles of Narnia, there is a character called Aslan the lion, and he is who Jesus would be, if Narnia were a real place. At the beginning of one of the books, a couple of children have just landed in Narnia, and some talking animals come up to them and have a conversation. The animals decide the best thing to do is to take them to Aslan, because he will know what is to be done with these children. To this, one of the children ask about this lion: is he safe? The animals laugh and say, no, he is not safe at all! But he is very, very kind.

This is a wonderful description of our Lord. He is the great I Am, Yahweh, the Almighty, the Lord of the armies of heaven. He is not safe, as he is burning white-hot in his perfect holiness. Fear is a natural human response. But he is very, very kind, as he examples to St Peter: “take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”

Why does our Lord tell us not to be afraid in his presence? I think it is because we are so ready to be afraid. There are many reasons for us to be afraid in the presence of the Lord of heaven and earth. Perhaps it is our guilt; maybe we are worried about something we have done, or something about who we are. Perhaps we are afraid he will let us down; that pinning all our hopes to him might not be a “safe bet”. Perhaps we are afraid he will change his mind about us; that while he loves us in this moment, he might not love us in the next, and his holiness will change from beauty to terror.

The common theme in all fear is, I think, ourselves. We think about ourselves, and we look down at the waves, and we get afraid, and we sink. But Jesus doesn’t say “you’re alright”, he says “it is I”. Jesus points to himself. So let us look to where he is pointing.

Focus on Christ. Keep your eyes on him, not yourself and your fears. Are you moving somewhere? It might even be just to the kitchen to get a sandwich. Look to him. Slow down, think on him, then move. Are you in conversation and a response is demanded of you? Slow down, think on the Lord Jesus, then speak. Is there a family situation that you are deeply involved with and you need to do something about? Slow down, think on Christ, look to him, then move.

Let the fear billow around you like the waves and the wind did St Peter. But as you look more and more on the Lord, they will fade out as he comes into focus, and you hear his voice, saying “take heart; I Am. Do not be afraid.”

And if you do end up moving without thinking, and having a silly accident, and feeling yourself go red with shame, cry out with the apostle “Lord, save me.” And what happened next to him will happen for us: “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him.”

Homily for Saturday, 8 August, 2026

Habakkuk 1:12-2:4

Psalm 9:9-14

Matthew 17:14-20

Observance: St Dominic, priest and friar (d. 1221)

The image of faith as a mustard seed is a familiar one to Christians. We may be used to it by now, and so it is worth, I think, to return to it again, since our Lord seemed to think it was so important.

He seems to almost contradict himself when he speaks to his disciples about why they could not heal this man’s son. They ask why they could not drive out the demon, to which Jesus answers: “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

I say this is almost a contradiction because at first, our Lord says “your problem is your little faith”. Then, he says “you should instead have faith the size of this little object”. What is it? Little faith, or faith like this little thing?

There is another place where our Lord refers to a mustard seed. Some chapters earlier, he spoke about how the kingdom of heaven is a like a mustard seed, which, though it is the smallest of all seeds, grows into the largest of plants, and the birds come and perch in its branches. There, his emphasis seems to be not on the size of the seed, but rather its potential for growth, and then that potential being realised.

And so when he teaches his disciples that their faith is too little, and they instead need faith like a little seed, I think he might be referring to this idea. Christians start in a place of tiny faith; this is good, this is all we need to “get into heaven”.

But Christ does not want us to stay there. His intention is that we grow in our faith. There is nothing about the speed of that growth, or in what direction, or anything like that. But since faith is the means by which we perceive God and the things of God, our faith should grow, so that we can perceive him more and more over the course of our lives.

And so let us ask ourselves: have we grown? How have we grown? In what way? Do we perceive God and the things of God more in our lives in any area? Where is he speaking to us more clearly than before? Where might we continue to grow?

I personally have discovered that if I set myself a target for spiritual growth, then spiritual growth happens, but not usually in the area I set for myself. The conclusion I have reached from those experiences is that God simply wants us to come to him ready to grow, and he will do the rest. So I encourage you: present yourselves to God, ready to grow, for it is the desire of our Lord that we do, and he will do it.

Homily for Solemn Evensong, Thursday, August 6, 2026 : The Transfiguration of Our Lord

Psalm 89:5-18

1 Kings 19:1-16

John 12:20-33

Today’s observance is one of those big doctrinal events: it marks a moment in the life of the Lord Jesus, a moment that had tremendous implications for the relationship between God and humanity, and leads us to live in a certain way because of it. This is what “doctrine” means; some truth about God and us, and the consequent way in which we ought to live.

So what is the event, and what is the direction for living?

The Transfiguration is the hinge upon which our Lord’s earthly ministry turned. Up until that point he had been teaching people about the kingdom of God in word and deed. From that point on, he turned to face Jerusalem, the place of his passion, death and resurrection. This moment, then, is significant because it links the two together: who Jesus is, and what Jesus does.

Immediately before his transfiguration he had been at the base of a mountain that, for centuries, had been used as a pagan shrine and gateway to the underworld. There, he turned to his disciples and asked who they thought he was, and St Peter replied “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) To this confession, Jesus announced that he would build his Church on that rock, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. In effect, he walked right up to the gates of hell in person, made a public declaration of war, and announced that he would win.

He and his disciples then spent some time going through what this would look like. There would be “many sufferings” at the hands of the authorities, he would be killed, and on the third day he would rise again. His followers, comrades in this war against hell, would have to deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow him. After six days of this, he then went up to the top of the mountain.

Taking only Ss Peter, James and John, he ascended that mountain, and at its peak, revealed his glory. We read that “he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” (Matthew 17:2) This was the glory that is enjoyed by God alone, and Christ Jesus revealed himself to enjoy that glory. A bright cloud then came and overshadowed them; again, this is the glory of God as he has revealed himself in ages past. From this cloud of the glory of God came a voice: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (v. 5) And so we have our Lord marching up to the literal gates of hell, declaring war, and then marching to the top and revealing himself as God Almighty.

There are a couple of doctrinal points we get out of this. Again, doctrine is a truth about God and us, and a response we need to make as a result of that truth. What we have here is that God is pleased to reveal his glory to us; and he reveals his glory to us on his own terms. This affects greatly how we worship him.

It is impossible to grow up as a Christian in Australia these days without coming across a certain form of worship that encourages an ecstatic emotional state. I want to give every grace to those who worship in this way; there is a great deal of faithful thought and prayer that goes into it. However, I believe God has revealed to us how we wants to be worshipped and, if we worship him in that way, he will reveal his glory to us. It is why I believe Anglican worship according to the Prayer Book is the most faithful way of worshipping God the Church currently has. Let me explain.

First, we must recognise the primary way God relates to us: through his covenant. God has made a covenant with us, a binding promise, and told us that if we live according to that covenant we can enjoy him and his glory forever. He made it with our first parents in the Garden of Eden: do this, and live. However, none of us can live up to that standard, which is why Christ Jesus came to earth and did it for us. This is how we start our services: by hearing that God expects perfection from us, confessing that we have not and could never live up to that perfect standard, and receiving the forgiveness in Jesus Christ God offers to us. In Christ, God has both kept the perfect standard he requires of his creatures, while also showering us with his gracious love in the self-sacrificial giving of himself for our sake. This is the glory of God in Christ Jesus to us in his covenant; we begin our worship by glorifying Jesus.

Having established ourselves in relation to God through his covenant and in the name of his Son, we hear his word to us in Holy Scripture. In the Bible we find all things necessary for salvation, for it is the special revelation of God to us. This is also the glory of Jesus in his Transfiguration: when he appeared in glory on the mountaintop he was flanked by two men: Moses and Elijah. That is, the Old Testament points us to Jesus, and so we read and hear his word searching for him in those ancient revelations. Just as God was pleased to glorify Jesus in shadows and types in the Old Testament, we too look for his glory there.

In the prayers we glorify the Lord by making requests of him and interceding on behalf of his creation. The Lord is glorified in this because we are laying aside our own glory and telling God he is the one who can help us.

When we celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion we glorify Jesus as the great climax of the glory of God to us, in his death and resurrection, and his feeding of us unto eternal life.

In none of these moments is there any need to manufacture or manipulate ourselves into “feeling” something. The glory of God in Jesus Christ is entirely objective; the glory exists, and is there for us to enjoy, whether we “feel” it or not. We simply come before the Lord according to the way he has laid out for us, and he does the rest, for it is all from him, through him, and to him.

Returning to the main point: the Transfiguration of our Lord is an important doctrine, which means a truth about God and human beings that demands a certain way of living from us. Jesus is glorified with the glory that only comes from God; he is pleased to reveal that glory to us; we ought to worship him according to the way he has told us to worship him; and when we do so, he is pleased to reveal his glory to us. Let us therefore pray that God would accept our worship as pleasing in his sight; and may we always be alert to when he reveals his glory to us in return.

Homily for St Oswald, king and martyr, Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Jeremiah 31:1-7

Psalm 72:15-21

Matthew 15:21-28

Today’s Gospel reading may seem a bit confronting, mostly because of how Jesus responds to the person in need. Usually we read about how ready and willing he is to help, but this time, he ignores the woman’s cries until the disciples get so annoyed they ask him to get her to put a sock in it. This is extremely atypical to how the Gospel narratives portray our Lord.

Yet look at who this woman is: a Caananite. If you remember your ancient history, you might recall that the Caananites were extremely bad people. They were the inhabitants of the Promised Land that the freed Hebrew slaves were to invade and exterminate. This is because their wickedness had gotten so great that the outrage had risen up to heaven, so to speak.

And so Jesus, the God of Israel, takes one look at her and reminds everyone that he “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” who, while no paragons of virtue themselves, had been hand-picked by God in eternity past to be his special people.

Yet she persists: “Lord, help me”. He replies, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she isn’t letting this go.  She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” It is at this point our Lord turns and blesses her, healing her child instantly.

What is the message for us here? We have heard enough, I am sure, of a hard-hearted God who has to be nagged into submission. And the good news of Jesus is that God is not like this, but rather generous beyond reckoning. I think what this incident is teaching us is that we must remember the two sides of the Gospel story as pertains to human beings.

We are very low, because of our sinful state. Yet in Christ we are made higher than the angels. And so while we must not dwell on the misery of our original condition, if we remember the amazing journey Christ takes us on, the thankfulness of our hearts will burst forth in praise.

Who is God, the holy and perfect one, that he would condescend to come in human flesh, die in our place, and raise us to glory? Who are we, that God would do such a thing for us? The answer must lie in God’s great love for us. And so while our Lord’s words to the Caananite woman may seem harsh at first, sometimes we need that little nudge to remind us just how wonderful God is, and that he has done such wonderful things for us.

When we gather at the Lord’s Table, we pray what is called the Prayer of Humble Access. It was written by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote the first Book of Common Prayer. It is notable because while most of the prayers in the prayer book are very ancient prayers which he translated and sorted out for popular use, this one he wrote himself. And it is very telling that he would reference this story of the Caananite woman within it:

“We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. Yet you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy.”

As we gather to feast on the heavenly banquet, let us gather with hearts filled with thanksgiving and awe at the God who comes not only for the lost sheep of Israel, but for all his lost sheep, even us.

Homily for Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Jeremiah 30:12-22

Psalm 102:23-28

Matthew 15:1-14

Observance: John Baptist Vianney, priest of Ars, France (d. 1859)

The Bible is full of common idioms we still use today: phrases like “can a leopard change its spots?” and “there is nothing new under the sun” originated in Holy Scripture.

And so it makes me wonder if what Jesus was talking about today is the inspiration for that phrase uttered by every mother: “if your mate told you to jump off a bridge, would you?”

The Pharisees have asked Jesus a critical question about why his disciples don’t wash their hands according to proper religious tradition. He turns it back on them and asks them why their religious traditions aren’t according to the Law of God they supposedly reflect. He specifically brings out this issue of honouring one’s mother and father. While that Commandment would suggest that the right thing to do would be to support your parents in their old age, the Pharisees have decided that if you instead say that money is for God (“corban”), then you don’t have to give it to them. Isn’t that curiously relevant for today. There are a lot of funny ideas going around the Church, claiming that those ideas are what God wants, and yet they directly contradict what God has explicitly says he wants in his word.

Jesus’ whole point in this interaction – his “teachable moment” for us – is that we should not follow people just because they say they know what God wants us to do. We should be thinking for ourselves, checking what God actually says, and then deciding whether we should follow them. Jesus talks about “the blind leading the blind”, and both of them falling into the Pit. In other words, if the Pharisee told you to jump off a cliff, would you?

So let us be a discerning people with regards to God’s will and purpose. If someone makes a claim about the Lord, don’t just take it on face value – think for yourself first. Check the Scriptures, check what Church Tradition has understood those Scriptures to mean, check with the Holy Spirit who dwells within every Christian and leads us into all truth.

Jesus said that every plant that his heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. We need not be blind people following blind guides telling us to jump off bridges. Because Jesus also says that he is the true vine, and we are the branches, if we abide in him. So let us abide in him, for he is the truth and the wisdom and the righteousness of God revealed to us.

Sermon for Pentecost 10, Sunday, August 1, 2026

Genesis 32:22-31

Psalm 17:1-7, 16

Romans 9:1-8

Matthew 14:13-21

Take, Bless, Break, Give.

There is a certain Lebanese charcoal chicken joint on the south side that, whenever we order from there, we seem to end up with more left over than what we started with. We started with some chicken, rice and bread, but we all end up with a bag of leftovers to go home with!

However this is still nothing quite like what happened when Jesus sat down with the crowds. He started with five loaves and two fish and ended up with twelve baskets. Not even the charcoal chicken place can perform that type of miracle.

This is not the only feeding miracle we have recorded in the Gospels. In fact, across the four Gospel books, there are no less than six miracles just like this one. Certain details differ – the place it happened in, the conversation beforehand, the food that gets multiplied – and so it would seem that Jesus did this sort of thing often.

When we read the miracles of Jesus we must remember that he does not perform them in order to look like a great magician. There is always a reason for doing what he does. St John, in his Gospel, doesn’t even use the word “miracle”, but “sign”: because they are signs that point to something important for us to take notice of.

And so what is consistent across the feeding miracles, that might give us an idea of what God is telling us? It is what Jesus does at the start of the meal.

...he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. (Matt 14:19)

He takes the food, blesses it, breaks it apart, and gives them to the disciples to distribute. Four actions: take, bless, break, give.

Jesus does this every time he sits down to eat. He kept doing it right up until his Last Supper, when he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying the words that we hear every week during Communion.

Even St Paul, who didn’t meet Jesus until after the Ascension, knows about these four actions of take, bless, break, and give. When he wrote to the church in Corinth about how they should be celebrating communion, he talks about how the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to them saying the words of insititution. (1 Cor 11:23-25)

This four fold action of take, bless, break and give is what we do every Sunday. It is the pattern of our Lord, and it is the pattern we follow in our lives. It ties into everything we believe, say and do. It is the pattern of the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and it is the pattern of a life of Christian discipleship.

We are taken by God. He blesses us, washing us clean in the blood of Christ, and forgiving us of all our sins, adopts us as his children. We then discover there are many parts of us that need breaking, and in that breaking, we are given new ways to be given in service to others.

This morning, we will baptise the newest member of God’s family. Freya has been taken and blessed by God, and we will confirm it in the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Then she will grow in God’s family, and we all know what that is like. There will be things that need to be broken in order for her to give herself in service to others. We all have had things broken, and discovered that in the breaking, we come out the other side much more able to be given in service.

We heard an example this morning from Genesis. Jacob was absolutely certain of himself. He thought he had everything sorted, that his life was as good as he could make it for himself. Then the angel of the Lord appeared, and he went to take the blessing by force, trying to wrestle the angel into submission. (How much control are we trying to exert over our own destiny?) But just as he was about to win the wrestling match – just at the point he thought he had his life all sorted out – the angel merely touched the side of his leg, breaking it. He still got the blessing. But he hobbled out of that encounter, learning something about how the blessing comes from God, not from his own effort.

And so we get this pattern of our Lord every time he sat down to eat with his friends: take, bless, break, give. We have been taken by God the Father as his own children. He has blessed us in the heavenly places with everything in Christ Jesus. We are broken, cracking open our cynicism, self-assurance, pride, and so on, so that we may be given to the world, living in loving service to one another. And just like the leftovers after the charcoal chicken joint, God will give us more than enough to share with others.

Homily for Saturday, August 1, 2026, Holy Men and Women of the Old Testament

Jeremiah 26:11-24

Psalm 69-32-38

Matthew 14:1-12

I hate hearing things I don’t like. It must be something physical; almost like tasting something rotten. It is so much better to hear things I do like. This is the appeal of the algorithm, that great monolith that curates digital reality for every single person on the internet. Whatever we click on means that we get more of it, and so our online experience ends up just being whatever we like to click on. We never hear anything we don’t like (unless of course it is something designed to make us upset, which is it’s own barrel of monkeys of sin).

Today we celebrate the holy men and women of the Old Testament. Throughout history, from the Garden of Eden to John the Baptist, there were always people who followed the Lord. Even though the Old Testament is full of naughty so-and-so’s, there are always faithful people keeping the ship upright. Today’s first reading is no different.

Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet”. He warned the people that God was leading the Babylonian army to punish them, but they didn’t listen, and he saw the destruction of Jerusalem. We have his book of prophecies, named after him, and we also have his book of lament over the destroyed city: Lamentations. He told the people something they didn’t want to hear, and instead of doing something about it, they discussed whether they should kill him for it.

And so it goes. There are plenty of things we don’t want to hear. But what if we listened to them anyway? There is a bit of folk-wisdom that might be helpful when listening to something you disagree with: “eat the meat and leave the bones”. There is something praiseworthy about the type of person that can listen to an opinion different to their own and not want to murder the person giving that opinion. So let us train ourselves to be able to listen. You never know what doors God might open if you do.

The other side of this is that we must not be afraid to say things other people don’t want to hear. Or, we must not be surprised when people get upset when we say things they don’t want to hear. This was something God told the prophets more than once: “I’m sending you to tell these people to repent, and they aren’t going to like it, but you have to do it anyway.”

In those sorts of situations we can rest on the words of our Lord, who ended his Beatitudes by talking about people who speak prophetically:

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt 5:11-12)

So let us glorify God in his saints of the Old Testament. Let us pray that he would make us mature people who can hear opinions different to our own. And let us pray that we would have the courage to speak his Gospel truth, even when people don’t want to hear it.

Wednesday 29/7/26 Homily - Martha of Bethany

1 John 4:7-16

Psalm 34:1-10

Luke 10:38-42

It may seem like we have things upside down when it comes to today’s observance. In our Gospel passage, Mary was the sister praised by our Lord; and yet it is Martha who gets the day.

The words from our Lord to Martha indicate that her sister Mary, who left the work of hospitality to sit at his feet, “chose the better part”. And this is true. The better part of anything is wherever Jesus is. We ought always to be looking for Jesus wherever and whenever we are.

Yet Martha’s enthusiasm (or perhaps better, energy) is rewarded in the alternative Gospel reading for today, from John 11. There, her brother Lazarus has died, and when Jesus comes to join them, she rushes out of the house, while Mary remains inside weeping. Martha’s reward for her go-getter attitude is the words from our Lord which resonate at every funeral: “I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The consistency across Martha’s actions is that she is proactive. She is proactive in making sure their home is a place where Jesus is welcome and well-cared for; and she is proactive in seeking his help for her dead brother.

And so I think this is our example to follow. Are we making in ourselves a home for Jesus? Is our spirit a place for him to feel welcome? And when we are struggling, are we proactive in seeking him out? Martha was rewarded for her go-getter attitude both times they are recorded in the Gospels. Are we proactive in seeking after Jesus? He has a reward for us, too.

Holy Communion 28/7/26 Homily

Jeremiah 13:1-11

Psalm 78:55-63

Matthew 13:31-35

The imagery of the one who loves God as being like a tree is found elsewhere in Scripture; the best example is probably in the Psalms. There, the book itself begins with a description of one whose “delight is in the instruction of the Lord… he is like a tree planted by streams of water”. (Psalm 1:2-3)

Today we have heard our Lord give a parable of the kingdom of God being like a tree – the mustard tree, specifically. It begins as a tiny seed, which grows into the biggest of trees.

This is what it is like to have the kingdom grow within us. And it is a wonderful encouragement to those of us who are a bit too honest about ourselves.

We can find it very easy, I think, to bring ourselves down. We know ourselves better than anyone else, and we see our warts and failings the best. But the way Jesus describes the kingdom teaches us that that is not where we remain.

There is a theological term called “progressive sanctification”. It describes the fact that the believer grows in holiness over the course of time. Just like the tiny seed growing into the enormous tree, so too our holiness begins with the hearing of the Gospel message, and grows over time into a well-formed Christian.

We do not need to sit on our laurels and wait for God to grow us into holiness either. This is a process in which we are involved with God. Consider the ancient practise of morning and evening prayer. Christians in generations past have found that spending a bit of time at the start and end of every day with the Lord in prayer builds their relationship up over time.

Sanctification and holiness is not a one-and-done. It is a life of steady, faithful prayer and living that grows up into the biggest tree. Let us not be discouraged by whatever the most recent spiritual failing we find oursevles in is. Rather, look “big picture” – are you different now than you were last year? Ten years ago? To when you were a child? The proof is in the pudding, and your efforts at getting closer to God are bearing fruit. Press on, water that tree, keep spending time with the Lord. One day we will be like he is, and see him as he is. Keep watering that tree.

Homily for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost, July 26, 2026

Genesis 29:15-28

Psalm 105:1-11

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:44-58

I really like the parable about the pearl, because I have actually seen it in real life. When I worked in a jewellery store on Queen St Mall, we had a certain customer come in many times over the course of several months. She was a silent, Eastern European woman with a very serious look on her face, and would come in every so often to inspect our pearls. At first it drove the sales associates mad, because all they want to do is to sell a customer the thing they like and then move on to the next one. But this woman would come in, ask to see the pearls, and go through them one by one, with her jeweller’s loupe, turning them over slowly in the light. After a while, she would stand up, thank the sales associate, and leave without buying any of them. Eventually we just came to accept that this particular woman had extremely high standards, and let her get on with her journey of discovering the perfect pearl. One day she finally did find that pearl she was looking for, and we all had to hold our tongues and pretend like it was just another normal day – and after the sale was concluded, and the customer left, the store exploded with claps and cheers.

When it comes to the kingdom of God, I think we need to raise our standards and our expectations. For whatever reason, we humans seem to be happy with “good enough” when it comes to the spiritual. C. S. Lewis, ever one to have a way with words, described the phenomena like this:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Consider how socially uncomfortable it is to be the discerning pearl customer. Even now, ten years later, I still remember her. Who wants to be that person? Don’t we feel much more comfortable just getting in, grabbing something “good enough”, and getting out again as soon as possible? And yet Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like the one who actually stops and spends some time searching for the best, and will not settle for anything less.

There are echoes in this parable of something Jesus talks about later in this Gospel:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

That is to say, dump all that other stuff, and keep your eyes on the prize. He has also mentioned something thematically similar earlier:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt 6:33)

Be the discerning customer; be the one who will only settle once they have found the perfect pearl. Deny yourself the consolation prize of second best; seek first the kingdom of God.

So there is this great sense that we must be pressing on, holding fast in our convictions, and reaching out for the kingdom of God, without being held back by the distractions of lesser things.

When I come to this conclusion from the text, I find myself wanting to know more. Why should I do this? And from here I think the answer is in the fact that the kingdom is like a pearl because the kingdom is beautiful.

Pearls are beautiful. Jewellers place them in the category of gems, and call them “natural” gems. When you get a really good one (like our customer from earlier), you can get lost in the way the light plays across the surface. And beauty is one of the defining features of the kingdom of God.

Take, for example, the waterfront here on the peninsula. Whenever I drive along the waterfront, I run some serious risk of an accident, because the view can be so breath-taking. Remember, when we look at God’s creation, we see the work of the Source of all beauty – it is God’s handiwork, not God himself. There is an even higher beauty behind it.

I saw something very much like the beauty of the kingdom when I was called up to palliative care this week. A woman, full of years, breathing her last, while her adult daughter was sitting beside her holding her hand and gently stroking it. The love between the two of them was a thing of beauty. And God, who had brought the three of us together to pray her home into her Father’s mansion – this was something of the beauty of God and his kingdom.

Most beautiful of all is, I think, the sacrificial love of the Lord Jesus. Think about the other short parable this morning, of the man who found a treasure in a field, and sold everything he had in order to get that field. When I read that, I thought “I wonder who that man is” (a very Sunday School question) and answered to myself “Jesus” (a very Sunday School answer). Jesus (as we read in Philippians 2:5-11) had everything as the Second Person of the Trinity, yet he did not consider it something to be grasped at or snatched. And so he “emptied himself”. He gave up everything he had, even to the point of dying on a cross. This was so that he could get the treasure: that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He gave up everything for the sake of the treasure of glorifying the Father.

The kingdom of God is beautiful, and so it is worth being the discerning pearl customer, seeking the perfection of the beauty of the kingdom. And this beauty is so superior to all other lesser beauties – indeed, it is the source of beauty itself, for it is the kingdom of God, who is Beauty – it is worth giving up everything else in order to gain it.

So I encourage you: seek the beauty of the kingdom of God. Do not settle for “good enough”. There is enough in the media and in the conversations you will have this week that will try and distract you and make you settle for less. But the beauty of the kingdom of God is found in the hand-holding of two people who share a deep love. It is found in the type of love that gives up everything for the sake of the beloved. It is found in the truth of the Lord Jesus, and his sacrificial death for us. It is why we put so much effort into our Sunday worship, and why we want the grace we receive from God to then go out into the community in our outreach. The kingdom of God is beauty itself, it is worth everything, and it is ours for the enjoying. Let us be known as people of beauty.

Holy Communion for St James the Greater, apostle and martyr, 25/7/26

Acts 11:27-12:3

Psalm 126

2 Corinthians 4:7-15

Matthew 20:20-28

There is a cultural movement I have begun noticing (and if I am noticing it, it must have been going on for a very long time by now), where young men are looking to rediscover the positive aspects of masculinity. And so while there are many voices online and elsewhere that would look to capture them and lead them on a particular version of masculinity, I think today’s saint shows us one of the best.

St James the Greater is the brother of St John, both described in the Gospels as the “sons of Zebedee”. Our Lord, ever one to give his friends much better nicknames, describes the two as “sons of thunder”. Now this is the type of name to make a man push his shoulders back and his chin up!

What we learn about them is that, over the course of their few years as Christ’s disciples, their masculinity was, shall we say, baptised. That is to say, all those things that made them men were filed, polished, and refashioned by the Lord Jesus into the type of men God is looking for – the type of men God originally had in mind when he invented men.

St James had great zeal, and to this was added courage. Rather than renounce his Lord, he willingly went to win the crown of martyrdom. To his courage was added love, for he saw the Lord Jesus go to the cross to battle the forces of darkness so that he would not have to. And I think this is where we learn something of what a holy masculinity looks like.

Men want to find the truth, and stand on that truth bravely. They want to find people to love and care for, and stand between those people and the danger that threatens them. In Christ, we discover what it means to live this way.

But we must remember not to just settle for any truth. We must continue digging into the Scriptures, and to be willing to have a robust exchange of ideas, in order to continue revealing more Truth.

We must also have courage, in order to stand against evil. And to courage we must mix in love, because as someone wise once said, “men do not fight bravely in war because they hate the enemy in front of them; they fight bravely because they love the people behind them.” (I think it might have been G. K. Chesterton.)

In all things we look to the Lord Jesus for the greatest example of true masculinity. When, in St Luke’s Gospel, he turned his face to Jerusalem to begin his final journey, he was rejected by the Samaritans (Luke 9). St James turned to him and asked if he should call down fire from heaven for their rejection of the Messiah. But Jesus declined; not because calling down fire from heaven was necessarily wrong, since Elijah had done that in the past (2 Kings 1). In that instance, the fire from heaven brought about trembling respect and awe for God. This time around, Jesus refused the fire from heaven, for he was to do something that bring even greater trembling respect and awe for God: he would go to the cross, on his own, take the punishment for our sins, and come back to life, bringing us safely through death. That sort of self-sacrificial love, running through the courage and knowledge of truth that the Lord Jesus held, was the true image of godly masculinity.

Let us therefore give thanks to God for making men, and for redeeming men in the image of the Lord Jesus, and let us pray that God would raise up a generation of godly men to lead the Church into the next generation, as a blessing to God’s creation.

Homily for St Mary Magdalene, Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Song of Songs 3:1-4a

Psalm 63

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

John 20:1-18

This morning we remember before God St Mary Magdalene. And the readings all speak of a great love – and so I think this is where we should direct our thoughts on this day.

In particular, I want to consider Song of Songs, and this line: “I found him”. Now, when we read Songs, we should keep in mind why it was originally written, and for what purpose. I was ministering at a young adults camp recently, and some young women were lamenting that there was nothing in the Bible that gave them advice on the biggest issue they were facing in their lives: that is, dating advice! Enter the book of Songs. It is in the genre of an ancient Near Eastern erotic love poem; but there is this phrase repeated throughout the book by the author:

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem...
...that you not stir up or awaken love
    until it pleases.

The author is a woman, writing about the type of man these young women (the “daughters of Jerusalem”) should be looking for. It is, in effect, an appeal to young women to have high standards in their dating life.

And so that is what it is about primarily. But if we were to take love itself – the concept of love, in its full divine sense – and see what conclusions about it we can draw from how Songs refers to it, I think we learn something about the love of the Lord for us.

Think of this line: “I found him”. Have you found him? Have you, as the Psalmist sings, tasted and seen that the Lord is good? (Ps 34:8) Then I think you may have a sense of what this must have been like for the author of Songs when she went out to look for “him whom my soul loves”, and then found him. In Jesus Christ we have such an endless ocean of the type of love found nowhere else. There is both quantity and quality. And having tasted that love, we say “I found him”. There is no other love that can come even close to the love of our Lord for us.

So that is the first reflection: remember the great love of the Lord for you.

But if I want to have more of it, what should I do?

There is one single competitor for our love. One person above all others that competes with Jesus for our love. Can you guess who it is? It is ourselves.

Whether you think you are wonderful or whether you think you are useless it doesn’t matter. The point is this: when you are deeply, madly in love, all you can think about is the person you are in love with. And so who are you thinking about more? Jesus, or yourself? That will tell you who is winning your heart. What then is to be done? How can we redirect our hearts towards the great Lover?

I thought about the opposite of love. What is the direct opposite of love – and if I can look at myself that way, then I will open myself up for more of the love of Jesus. I don’t think the opposite of love is hate, and so the answer is not to hate ourselves. (In fact, I would suggest hate is merely a side effect of misguided love.) Rather, I think the opposite of love is indifference. To love is to have a strong attachment; to not love is to not have any attachment at all.

So let us be indifferent to ourselves. My body is not my own – it is the temple of the Holy Spirit, bought with a price. (1 Cor 6:19-20). My soul is not my own – the faith that saves it is a gracious gift of God. (Eph 2:8-9) Whenever we think of ourselves, let the thought come, observe it with an aristocratic detachment, and let it go on its merry way. Because “I found him”, the true lover, the true source of love, the One who loves me with an everlasting love that no other love can top.

Homily for Holy Communion at Beaumont Friday 17 July 2026

Holy Communion for Beaumont, Friday 17 July 2026

Matthew 12:1-8

I was listening to a conversation recently about what type of people should go to church. It is a good question: who should go to church?

The conversation concluded that the type of people who should go to church are the people who don’t think they are ready to talk to God. If you don’t think you’re ready to go to church, you should go to church!

This is because of who God is, and what he is like. God is not the type of God who turns people away. God does not ask us to pass a Bible test. God loves it when we just start talking to him.

Jesus is walking through some grain fields when this question comes up. If you have ever been outside of the inner city, you can probably imagine it: big fields filled with crops ready for harvest, and he and his friends are walking through them, running their hands through the plants. Every now and then one of them will grab on and pull some of the grain off and have a bit of a munch.

The problem is, you are not supposed to do this. You are not allowed to go out into the fields on the Sabbath, because it looks too much like work, and you are not allowed to work on the Sabbath.

But Jesus responds in a way that shows he thinks that it is more important that people eat than whether they eat in the right way.

And because he starts talking about priests and the temple, it shows that he is also talking about how we relate to God.

So I wonder: do we think there is anything we should be doing before we start talking to God? Is there some sort of special head-space we need to be in? Do we need to wait until we “feel” something before we talk to God?

Jesus tells his critics that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Sacrifice is about doing something before talking to God. Mercy is about talking to God whether you think you’re ready or not, and knowing that God loves you anyway.

I want to give you one challenge, and one encouragement. The challenge is this: find a time you think it is inappropriate to talk to God, and start talking to him anyway. The encouragement is this: remember that God doesn’t care about whether it is appropriate or not; what is more important is that you have started talking to him. This is because he loves us all very much, and he wants us to spend time with him, and it brings him joy. And what is more wonderful than rejoicing with God?