St Barnabas, Fendalton

Love, Hospitality and Connection

What does Jesus teaching tell us about the Kingdom of God - and how does this transform us today?

Matthew 5:1-12 - being peacemakers and living the Beatitudes in our daily lives.

Is it possible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle?What does it mean to be open to the upside down work of the Kingdom of God?Where do we spend our time, energy, money and mental load?What do we value?And how does this enhance and inhibit our spiritual life?

Matthew is far more interested in the names Jesus was given, than how his conception and birth actually happened...

One of the many gifts Advent gives to us is an invitation to see God at work.And especially to see God at work right now, with whatever is happening in our lives, families, parish, communities, country, and world.Advent is an invitation to take a devotional, as much as a practical, posture as we ask, ‘how do we get through until Christmas?’

As part of the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the First Four Ships in Lyttelton in December 1850, Frieda Looser will speak about Fendalton connections among those who came on the George Seymour. Frieda comments, ‘It is always important to recognise, research and respect the contributions and histories of tangata whenua and earlier migrants.’

Advent Calendars - few of my favourites, and there's not even any chocolate involved!

‘God enters the world’ was the theme of Messy Church yesterday. In the same way we can say ‘God enters our lives’. God is the one ringing the doorbell while we’re distracted by many things. Emmanuel, God-with-us wants to be with us. Advent then is an invitation to us to be ready for God’s arrival, to be hopeful for God’s coming, to say with fresh faith ‘Come Lord Jesus’.

Where do we find Advent hope in a world in self-destruct mode?

This is the king who reigns with the power that is love...

Today’s gospel reading is the only time it is read in the three-year Lectionary Cycle outside of Holy Week. You might be forgiven for thinking that we have rapidly skipped past Advent, Christmas and Lent and gone straight to Easter!Today is also the end of that three-year cycle, where we work our way through the Bible and, this year especially, through Luke. Next week, the liturgical year starts anew, with Advent, candles and a sense of anticipation for what is to come.Today is about The Reign of Christ, or Christ the King.

How do we cope with the end of the world?We could ignore it.We could magnify it.We could endure it.

Joy to the World - or is it? Jesus has some challenging words for his disciples, but also some encouragement

What does it mean to be already living into the Resurrection hope we share?

In a world of things we do not know, in a life full of questions of ‘why?’ In our experiences of all that dies and decays, we mourn. We mourn, but not as those without hope. We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song.Christianity is the conviction that love is stronger than death, that we are sealed upon God’s heart, that no matter what may confront us, assail us, or leave us, we need never be afraid. In Christ’s outstretched arms on the cross, and in his outstretched arms as risen Lord embracing those he loves, he shows us that love is stronger than death.

New growth from the tree trunk

This morning, we mark All Saints Day. At the heart of All Saints is that the universal church is united in time and space. In the New Testament, the word “saint” appears 64 times, always in the plural.This All Saints Day is about being a community of faith. This, of all days, is where we might ask ourselves, “what does it mean to be this community of faith?” This is more than a ‘church’. This is more than a building; but does take both of those things. It also takes 150 years almost of those who have gathered here as the Parish of Fendalton, in whose footsteps we walk, on whose shoulders we stand, and from whose decisions we benefit even now.There are eight ways we can be All Saints together

The first thing I’d want to say about today’s gospel reading is that we should all follow the example of the Pharisee.Seriously.That’s where we begin.If we think somehow that we shouldn’t because, say,we think we’re not at all like the Pharisee,that we never look down on people,that we never pray with ourselves as the centre of our prayers,that we never compare ourselves with others so that we come out on top,that we never list categories of people in our prayers as a way of making ourselves feel better,then, well, we are exactly like the Pharisee.

Goodies & baddies - just who does God welcome?

In today’s gospel, we have before us a persistent woman and a JudgeAt one level this is a story about why persistence, especially persistence in prayer, is something that is worth pursuing.And it’s also about a widow. Widows in the Bible are held out for our special attention, along with orphans and strangers.We also have the story of Jacob from Genesis.Jacob’s struggle appeared to be with Esau and his parents, but his struggle is really with God. This is not just sibling rivalry, which we find in every family. This is something more profound. This is a story for those for whom life is a battle, for whom resolution never fully comes but is only ever experienced as a limp.

In the gospel reading today we meet the Samaritan once again in Luke’s gospel: the first time is in Luke 10 with the parable of the “Good Samaritan”, the second time is here. The Samaritan is both an actual figure and a representative one: representative of the outsider, the outcast, even the enemy. In this gospel reading, as in the Good Samaritan story, it is the Samaritan who is held up as the exemplar: the only one who returned to give thanks.

Today’s readings have a multitude of images in them: there’s mustard seeds, mulberry trees being thrown into the sea, slaves at work, and tablets with visions.There’s all sorts of threads that tie them together – the size of our faith, the size of our vision, even the size of our ego, particularly if we feel we’re being compared with mere servants. And one of those thread’s is humility.

I think the first thing to say about today’s gospel is it’s not about the hereafter. It’s about the here and now. It’s a parable, not a prescription about how to get into heaven. And it’s a parable about wealth and poverty, about a rich man’s table and a poor man covered in sores. It’s about a man who enjoys a feast and a man who lives in famine. And read alongside the reading from Amos, it’s a wider message about too much comfort and too little discomfort, about being preoccupied with material possessions such that the agony of those around them is ignored. It’s a parable and a prophetic word that could just as easily have been written today.

It’s the little things that matter. Welcoming the stranger, orphan and widow. Pursuing peace and seeking justice. Caring for the poor and the needy.

We are continuing in the gospel of Luke, where we are right through until Advent, and this week it’s all about how good it is to be lost. Jesus in the parable here does something he so often does; he turns everything upside down: If you’re lost, you will be found.

Luke 15:1-10 This sermon explores Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin as sharp, funny, and even outrageous stories aimed at the religious elite of his day. Jesus imagines God as a reckless shepherd and an extravagant woman, turning social expectations upside down to show how deeply God values the lost. The humour - like a shepherd abandoning ninety-nine or a woman throwing a huge party for one coin - highlights God’s excessive, almost absurd love. For the lost, this is comforting; for the complacent, it is a challenge: God’s circle of welcome erases every boundary of “us” and “them.”

This sermon wrestles with one of Jesus’ most challenging sayings: “Whoever does not hate father, mother, and even life itself cannot be my disciple.” Jesus shocks his hearers into attention. The message is not about despising people or possessions, but about releasing the grip of possessiveness and focusing on the journey to union with God. To follow Christ is to travel light, keeping God as our ultimate goal and measure of value.

Following Jesus: The cost and hope of life

Luke 14:1,7-14Jesus often spoke of God’s reign in the language of meals and parties, where everyone is welcome and honour is redefined. In a culture where honour was thought to be limited and gained at another’s expense, Jesus revealed God’s honour as abundant, freely given especially to the marginalised. The Eucharist continues this vision: a meal where status, reciprocity, and self-promotion are overturned by grace. At God’s party, we are called to humility, generosity, and manakitanga — lifting others up without fear of losing our own place.

We sometimes talk about Jesus’ “comfortable words”. Well, the gospel today, and the Isaiah reading that accompanies it, could be described as “uncomfortable words”! It’s the sort of text where we’d much rather go to the preacher’s 10 greatest hits of Scripture passages that are familiar, reassuring and not quite so pointed. The lectionary doesn’t allow us to pick and choose, and it’s just as well really, because sometimes, like today, we need to be reminded that it’s a slippery slope to self-righteousness.  These texts exclaim, with both barrels, that we are hypocrites. And then we must, at all costs, resist the temptation to respond, “no we’re not!” which only serves to make the point.