Progressive, affirming, questing in Warrnambool, Victoria
It is Lent. The Revelation Lamb has been taken down, and a painting of a great scar tree is now hanging in the Sanctuary space. This moving image will be with us through Lent, Easter, and the fifty days to Pentecost as we journey through Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection, and learn to recognize the Risen Christ once again by his scars. Continue reading “Scar tree: What do they know?”
Disabled and poor people aren’t optional extras to God’s table, but primary participants. (Listen.)
It’s been more than twenty years since my mother died. As most of you know, she had multiple sclerosis. First it disrupted her balance, so she had to walk with a cane. Then it caused paraplegia, so she rolled around in a wheelchair. Gradually, the paralysis crept up her spine; she became quadriplegic. So she graduated into an electric wheelchair which someone else steered for her. Then she began losing hearing and vision; then finally the strength and mobility to inflate her lungs and breathe. She died quite literally crippled, lame and blind. Continue reading “Luke | Disabled and poor people are primary at God’s table”
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 children of the COVID-19 lockdown will bear scars of this time for the rest of their lives; yet even scars become gift in God’s hands. (Listen.)
This week I read an article which said that the children of the COVID-19 lockdown will bear scars of this time for the rest of their lives. I watch my own children’s social lives shrinking or moving entirely online; I watch them trying to study without the support of being in a classroom with teacher and peers; I watch my youngest dash off her learning tasks, then fall down the rabbit hole of the internet while her older sisters and parents all work. Continue reading “John | Even scars become gift in God’s hands”
I don’t know if it’s the season: perhaps it’s what happens after months of grey lowering skies. But so many of us are struggling right now: struggling with marriage, struggling with depression, struggling with our children, struggling at work. The temptation is to gloss over all these struggles and pretend things are okay; or to back away from church and each other and hide our mess. But the struggle continues: only now we’re struggling alone. Continue reading “2 Corinthians | The gift of brokenness”
Years ago, I was in a theology class which touched on ‘love your enemies‘. To my astonishment, a pastor of a large church burst out, rather angrily, “I don’t know why we keep talking about this. We are Christians. We have no enemies.” My jaw dropped. Continue reading “Adore, endure, forgive; and a prayer for enemies”
This week at Sanctuary we heard the story of Jesus appearing to some disciples in the locked room after his resurrection – meeting their astonishment and fear, and using his scars to assure them that he was real and well. Scars are often taken in our culture as a sign of strength, bravery, grit. My son proudly wears the scar on his head from a gash that had to be glued together, and the scar on his toe ‘when I didn’t even cry even though there was so much blood.’ Continue reading “Jesus of the scars”
Sanctuary 