This Sunday, Bishop Peter Ingham’s Lenten Pastoral message – “This is Christian Hope: That the Future is in God’s Hands” – replaced the homily in all churches across the Diocese. You can watch the video here. Consequently, I did not preach nor record a homily this week. However, the homily from three years, recorded at St John Vianney Church in Fairy Meadow a few days after the devastating Christchurch earthquake is available below.
The fact that Jesus repeats a phrase seven times in our Gospel reading today perhaps suggests that there is something he wants us to learn. In a world that values money, security and wealth much more highly than the glories of God’s creation, the words of Jesus invite us to embrace a different way of being. One imagines that when Jesus preaches the sermon on the mount, he was surrounded by the lilies of the field in the Galilee spring and as he gestures upwards to the birds of the air there were many wheeling and flying free – just the same as Jesus lived and calls his disciples to live in the same freedom – embracing the amazing gifts of creation and the bounty and generosity of God.
Recorded at SJV, 8.30am (8’45″)
Sunday 08A. Matthew 6:24-34