Sermon: God’s love, like the flooding rain

Sermon for Riddells Creek and Mount Macedon

The Seventh Sunday of Epiphany, 20^th of February 2011

Matthew 5:38-48

For years we’ve prayed for rain. The most recent Victorian drought lasted for over a decade and even the most urban of inner city dwellers was aware of it, with water restrictions limiting not only the watering of gardens but the washing of cars. I have vague recollections from my childhood of people washing down their concrete driveways; my niece and nephew, born in the past decade, just wouldn’t believe that. For country dwellers, and particularly for farmers, the effects of the drought were even more obvious.

Sermon: Jesus’ Guide for Living

Sermon for Romsey and Lancefield

The Sixth Sunday of Epiphany, 13^th of February 2011

Matthew 5:7-11

This is the third and last of the series of sermons on the beatitudes in Matthew. A fortnight ago, you’ll remember, I suggested that the ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ the first of the five blocks of Jesus’ teaching that Matthew gives us in his gospel, paralleling the Five Books of Moses, is to be taken seriously as a guide to the way in which Christians are to live. We may not succeed in ‘[being] perfect … as [our] heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt 5:48), but these are the commands that the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel tells us that disciples are to be taught. (Matt 28:20)

Sermon: The reversal at the end of time

Sermon for Riddells Creek and Mount Macedon

The Fifth Sunday of Epiphany, 6^th of February 2011

Matthew 5:3-6

Last week, some of you will remember, we began to read the Sermon on the Mount. One of the ways in which Matthew presents Jesus is as the new Moses, the one able to give the authoritative interpretation of the law; and so in his gospel Matthew gives us five blocks of Jesus’ teaching, paralleling the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses. The Sermon on the Mount is the first of these, given from “the mountain” to match the revelation of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai.