Part of the joy of using a lectionary to determine the readings for any given Sunday is first that somebody else has done the work of selecting texts so… one less thing to think about. And second, that it causes us to consider texts together that we might never consider otherwise. The reading from Kings and from Luke are certainly an unlikely match. And yet the lectionary asks us to consider them together…
…Sermon for Oct 9 (Proper 23C) Read More »
Together with a good friend, Br Daniel arrived in Santiago de Compostela on 2 October, having set out on the Camino from St Jean across the French border on 18 August. He attended the Pilgrim Mass that evening, which he found quite moving. As he was in his monastic habit, he was asked for blessings and thanksgivings from other pilgrims, which was a special experience. He then continued to Finisterre on the coast, which brought his pilgrimage to an end. He will be spending three days in Madrid before returning to southern Africa to continue his sabbatical in Namibia.
…In the first part of our first reading this morning, the prophet Habakkuk describes his experience in terms that we might use in our own time, and raises questions that we might be asking. He sees wrong-doing and trouble, destruction and violence, strife and contention. The law is too often slack, with justice not prevailing and judgement coming forth perverted. It all sounds quite familiar. Why are we made to see these things? How long do we need to cry for help before we are saved?
The prophet’s response is to stand and watch and wait. His observation is that the spirit of the proud is not right in them. There is something wrong inside all of us that needs to be put right, but the righteous live by their faith.
As if in continuation of Habakkuk’s writing, the first words out of the mouths of the apostles in our Gospel reading are: “Increase our faith!” This seems a reasonable request: if the righteous live by their faith and the world is in a mess, presumably what we need is more faith so that there can be more righteousness. The only problem is that Jesus doesn’t seem to agree, and provides a metaphorical response followed by an analogy that don’t seem immediately helpful.
…Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after PentecostRead More »
Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Read More »
Edwin Kriel was received into our Order as a Postulant here at St Benedict’s Priory on Thursday 1 September. The postulancy is a six-month period of deeper discernment which is also the beginning of the process of monastic formation. We are very pleased that Edwin has joined our community and ask you to pray with us that the blessing will be mutual. Edwin comes to us from Worcester in the Western Cape.
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Sometimes, when I hear certain Gospel passages, I have to stop and double check to see if I heard correctly. Did Jesus really just say that, to follow Jesus, we have to hate people? Can this be correct? How can Jesus possibly mean what he seems to be saying?
…Sermon for September 4 (Proper 18C) Read More »
The first reading we heard this morning has an interesting, almost tentative place in the Bible. It comes from a book sometimes known as Sirach and other times as Ecclesiasticus. In the Roman tradition it is squarely in the Old Testament and in the Lutheran and Calvinist tradition it’s not there at all. We tend to think it comes from the Hebrew Scriptures. But it is not in the Hebrew Scriptures…
…Sermon for Sunday, 28 August Read More »
Yesterday morning, for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, I shared with our congregation this reflection by Debie Thomas, in which she says so much of what I would have wanted to say, and says it so well, as usual. The day before, Volmoed had hosted a memorial service for Elvia Bury and, in the time since her death, I have been thinking about both the Sunday Gospel and Elvia’s life, and how these intersected.
…They Stand Upright Read More »
The purpose of a sermon, I think, is to encourage an encounter with the Gospel – the good news of Jesus. So, I usually focus on the appointed Gospel reading. But encountering the Gospel is not just an encounter with a written record. In fact, it is never that. The Gospel is a living thing; our encounters are lively and intimate. Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John reliably point us in the direction of the good news. But they are guides along the path, not the destination; and they are not the only guides.
…Sermon for Proper 14 C Read More »
In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus is talking about possessions again, and about our relationship to them, which is usually reason enough to start feeling nervous, even though the surrounding context has Jesus repeatedly telling his disciples not to be anxious. I think if we listen carefully, we might be surprised by what Jesus is saying, and, perhaps as importantly, by what he is not saying.
…Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Read More »
While preparing to write our latest newsletter, I decided to review what had been happening in the world since the previous one, by scanning the headlines of news stories that had caught my attention during that period. This was admittedly not a scientifically rigorous process, but I found it difficult to escape the conclusion that quite a lot has been going wrong in quite a lot of different ways. This is perhaps hardly news, but it usually comes at me one day at a time, rather than all in a rush like that.
I wonder if it has something to do with the scale of modern life, with large systems that affect so much of our world and so many people all at once. The pandemic has served to highlight the inadequacies of our political and social structures to support the weakest and most vulnerable, but perhaps the scale of modern life also tends to amplify the effects of our worst impulses as exposed through corruption and violence and the destruction of our own environment.
I’ve been noticing again the ambivalent relationship Jesus seemed to have with crowds. While he had compassion for them, he also tended to speak to them in inscrutable parables and to withdraw from them when he could. He trusted himself to smaller numbers of disciples and mostly brought healing to people one at a time, in particular ways that were best suited to each individual. I think our humanity comes to life and is best expressed through relationship, and relationships are formed one at a time.
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