Most of us avoid having hard conversations for as long as we possibly can. But when you are called to be a prophet of God in the court of the king, hard conversations are at the top of your job description, and they can place you regularly in mortal danger. I can imagine the Nathan lying awake all night looking for a strategy for this extremely hard and dangerous conversation. We know he was a genuine prophet of God because he settled on the one plan that just might work. He will use a story.
Nobody wakes up and decides to be a bad guy. It is a place people get to along a path of self-deception
There are times in history when people feel like things are getting better and better. Times when we smile to think about the lives our grandchildren will be living – about the things they will know, the things they will do – and we think to ourselves “what a wonderful world!” Then there are times when we feel like we are stuck in an endless rerun of a history documentary that we know ends badly.
For more than half his life he had been the anointed king of Israel, but not the recognised king. So David lived with two identities. Not unlike Jesus. And not unlike you and me. 2 Samuel 5:1-5,9-10; Psalm 48; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for the second Sunday after Pentecost
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for Pentecost
When Jesus calls us to love each other as we have been loved, what sort of love is he talking about? Just what does his love for us look like?
In the Anglican church there can be a lot of pressure – for clergy at least - to pick a team; to choose a side in the various divisions into which the church has fractured. That isn’t just the church, of course. This is a whole of society – whole of world – problem. We are always being told to get in our box and stay there. In the church, this is particularly devastating because it goes against our very identity. If we are called to be people who love one another as we have been loved – then how can we refuse to love people who disagree with us - people in some other box? If we are the body of Christ, then how can the body function when the feet refuse to have anything to do with the hands?
I John 3:16-24, John 10:11-18; Psalm 23 What do you get when you combine 1 John with the Gospel of John? You get: Sisters and brothers, love one another. Love one another. Just get on with it! Love one another. Oh, for goodness sake, you have one job! Love one another. Over and over, at varying levels of intensity and frustration.
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for Easter 2