Progressive, affirming, questing in Warrnambool, Victoria
Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat.” (Matthew 25:26)
The summer I was fifteen, I tried to lose weight. My mother had always said I was too heavy, and she bought me a calorie guide, which I memorized. I planned my eating to meet a goal of eight hundred calories a day. Continue reading “12 | like an embrace #Lent2022”
In Luke’s account, Jesus is born into an ever-expanding family into which we are all invited. (Listen.)
A baby is born in a little village, it doesn’t matter where. The women attending send out word, and soon a line is forming at the door. One by one, every member of the village, and every visitor to the village, and every traveller passing through, comes inside and greets the newborn. They introduce themselves to the baby, and they welcome the baby into the world. Continue reading “Luke | A story of family”
Sunday’s conversation about Ruth and Boaz reminded Joel of an ancient and very sensual hymn, which celebrates the illicit actions of some Biblical women and claims them for holiness. So he dug it out, and shares it with us here. Continue reading “Holy was the adultery of Tamar, for Your sake”
Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)
There’s a lot of talk these days about independence, self-sufficiency, and ‘my body, my choice.’ Whether people are referring to financial arrangements, homesteading, or vaccination, there is an underlying assumption that each person, or at most each family, is an individual unit, independent of anyone else and free to choose how to live. This is not, however, consistent with Christianity. Continue reading “One body, not yet fully vaccinated”
The church is the body of Christ, and so it is our joy to be broken and shared to feed a hungry world. (Listen.)
Do you feed on success, or achievement, or excellence? How about winning, or seeing your team or country win? Do you feed on other people’s approval or praise or pity or love? Do you feed on wealth and power, or being followed on social media? What about the dopamine hit of other people’s ‘likes’? Do you feed on beauty? Do you feed on titbits of gossip, or righteous anger or outrage? Do you need to win every argument? Do you feed on being needed? Do you feed on your wounds? What do you feed on? Continue reading “John | With Christ as our centre and source, we too become bread”
The sacred body of Christ is a body of scarred tenderness, aching with love for the world. (Listen.)
At our last leadership meeting, we reflected on how we are members of one body, united and growing in love (Ephesians 4). We observed that we are therefore all connected: what affects one part of the body affects the whole; and this led us to think about the wounded and scarred bodies that form the body we call Sanctuary. For in recent weeks it has become clear that many of us live with chronic conditions or persistent pain: our bodies are exhausted, aching, or screaming in pain. Continue reading “Ephesians | The body of scarred tenderness”
The dance of the liturgy heals and transforms us: but to receive its gifts, we must participate. (Listen.)
One of my happiest childhood memories were church barn dances. Once or twice a year on a Saturday night, we’d gather in the hall with a dance caller and bush band; and off we’d go with a do-se-do and twirl your partner! Adults, teens and children stepped and galloped, wove and spun, stumbling and laughing and moving down the line. Towering blokes swung little kids around; teenagers dominated the Nutbush; and the oldest folk clapped along from the sidelines. Some of us were wonderful dancers; most of us were not: but the dance held us all. Continue reading “2 Samuel | Joining the sacred dance”
Bleeding bodies and suffering selves are all gathered up in Christ. (Listen.)
Like me, my mother was an ordained Baptist minister; but unlike me, she had endometriosis. Among other things, this meant that her menstrual periods were excruciatingly painful, and came upon her without warning, in great floods. And so my childhood is studded with high stress memories of her period suddenly starting while we were out. There’d be an intake of breath, then a quick hissed exchange between my parents, then a frantic search for a public toilet before disaster struck. Continue reading “Mark | Menstruation, miscarriage, and the multitude robed in white”
This term, we have been reflecting more than ever on healing, wholeness and integration. Here, Lucy shares a particular terror of hers, and an experience of integration both with her body and with a wider story: that first Easter Dawn. Thanks, Lucy!
Driving in pre-dawn darkness
Draws (for me) a deep shade of terror –
And on this unfamiliar, unlit,
Curving, swerving, hurtling highway,
I can almost smell
The pungent permanent ink of it. Continue reading “Driving in pre-dawn darkness”
For churches grappling with the loss of physical gatherings and an uncertain future, the story of Jesus’ ascension provides a model for discernment. (Listen.)
Here at Sanctuary, yet again we have ‘gathered’ to worship via Zoom. It is wonderful that we are able to do this: To see each other’s faces and chat before and after the service; to lead each other through the liturgy; to hear the Word of God proclaimed; to pray together; and to be reminded that, through the power of the Holy Spirit which transcends time and space, we continue to be the church. Continue reading “Acts | How can we be fed by the body when the body as we know it has disappeared?”
Sanctuary 