Principles and Laws – 25 October

Once, a long time ago, I studied law at Sydney University and was eventually admitted as a solicitor, proctor, and attorney of the Supreme Court of NSW. Nowadays they just call them, much more commonly, legal practitioner, but there was a reason for the way to admit us with these three titles. For a proctor practised ecclesiastical law, which includes admiralty and probate, while solicitors practiced in the court of equity, and attorneys in the courts of law. We usually call such people now as solicitors, because historically attorneys made such a bad name for themselves with expensive pleadings in the courts, but Americans still refer to them as attorneys, perhaps they don’t have expensive lawyers there.

Now this distinction, between solicitors and attorneys, touches what I want to preach about today. For the Courts of Law were governed by what is often called black letter laws: either the acts of parliament or the common law, that is the customary law of the land or court. This was a question of interpretation – you had the act of parliament or an older case for the common law, and the court just interpreted if it would apply or not. However, the problem, with lawyers, is that we can get stuck into some rather odd interpretations, and sometimes what could be applied would be archaic or even unjust.

To deal with this problem of unjust application of laws, people could throw themselves on the King’s conscience – that is, to make a personal plea to the Crown, as the King was considered the source of all justice. The Monarch delegated this hearing of legal appeals to a Chancellor, who in early times was often the King’s confessor, who acted on what was fair, rather than the strict interpretation of the law. So, for example, if a person committed fraud or duress in having a contract drawn up, the person would find himself bound by the legal terms, but could have the contract voided in equity as unjust.

For this is always the problem with any society or body of laws: you have rules and regulations, but they are not always just or current. Times change: new technologies happen or new ways of people living, and people and societies have to learn to adapt and work out new rules. For example, identity fraud, of either one’s credit details or internet account, is a problem that did not exist thirty years ago. We are scrambling at the moment to understand what AI means for the legal framework. We usually find that there is someone who has done something that seems to be wrong, but there is no legal bar – so there is a hurried rush of legislation to catch up and cover this offence.

Now, you can make as many rules as you like, but they are not going to cover every situation. As long as society changes (and history teaches us that it always does) then the ethical problems will change as well. No system of rules is going to cover everything.

That is why the rules of religion never work as a system of rules, but need to be reduced to a shortened ethical principle. The Ten Commandments are the summary of the Torah for the Jews. However, they are seen as not covering everything. The passage today gives two principles, which we call the two great commandments, that can be applied to ethical situations and are the basis of any system of law. The two great commandments create two fundamental ethical principles that we can apply in life: what does God want us to do here – to love God in this situation and to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Let’s think about love. Our Lord tells us to love in three ways:

With all our heart: with the deepest reality of the human being. “To love God with all your heart” means to turn one’s whole being and his actions towards God in a burst of love.

With all our soul: which means life, our “intimate space” inhabited by God. The one who loves with the soul sees better with his eyes, and his love is pure.

With all our mind: which includes thoughts and intelligence. Love makes clever, able to understand better and to go deeper and farther.

It is interesting that Our Lord says that on theses commandments hang all the law and the prophets. In Jewish thought, particularly Hassidic thought, the world hangs on the Torah, The Law. (The Hassidic Jews arose in the area we would roughly now call the Ukraine, and developed a wonderful theology of a personal God communicated through their Rabbis.) By this the Hassidic Rabbis mean that the world is a manifestation of the principles of the Torah. The basis for this is that God’s Law is the fundamental reality that the world, coming later, is only a manifestation. The world operates, and the earthly rules of the Torah operate, on the universal deep Torah, the existence of God himself.

But Our Lord does not say this: he says instead that on the two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets; that is all the core writings of the Old Testament. These two commandments are the basis that cause all the Old Testament to be manifested – they are applications of this foundation. So instead of the world being founded on the full set of the Law, the Torah, the Old Testament is the manifestation of these two ethical principles. Principles, not a complete law, are the basis of Scripture. In Our Lord’s eyes, once you understand this, you understand why the Law can be set aside by Our Lord in favour of the deeper application of principle. The reason: because love is always more powerful than rules, and love is the core of these two principles.

These two principles then, loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself, are what God wants us to do. From this we can form the whole of our relationships in the world. But it is also a reminder to us, that all laws are just manifestations of principles. A law is only just when it conforms to these principles – if the law does not conform to these two, we should to reject it.

That is why in traditional English Law, Equity, with its principles of justice, always overcame the Common Law. Principles must be more important that rules. For us too, we must base our lives to answer the question, what does God want us to do: with the answer of loving God and loving our neighbour as ourselves.

Luke – 18 October

Well, today is the feast day of St Luke. Whenever we deal with the Gospel writers we have to deal with three things. The first is who wrote it, the second is what he wrote, and the third is why he wrote it: so who what and why.

So the who – what we know about him is short. He is referred to as Luke the physician, so he was a doctor. According to tradition, Luke was also the very first iconographer of our Lord. In other words, St Luke drew the first portrait of our Lady that has become a model for artists right down to our own day. That’s why he is often shown painting Mary’s picture. It’s also known by legend among Christians that St Luke was martyred for preaching the Christian faith at the age of 84 at Thebes in Greece.

Now the what – what he wrote most of us know are the Gospel that bears his name and the Book of Acts. It’s the longest historical account of the life of Our Lord and the early Church. It’s a great work that holds its own against other histories of the time: try reading some other writers like Josephus who also wrote about the fall of Jerusalem at the same time, and you get an ideal of how modest Luke’s ego was. He can hold his own against any other ancient historian from the Greco-Roman world, and is a magnificent writer, whose poetic pictures with words spellbind us to this day as his prose is read aloud, especially at Christmastime. Luke, more than any other Gospel writer, has the early details of Our Lord’s life with Mary and Joseph.

But why did he write it? Well, he actually has a little introduction in the Gospel to one Theophilus where he says while other accounts have been written he wants to write an orderly account so that you may know the truth concerning the things you have been instructed.

Now Theophilus may never have been a real person, it means literally God-lover, so Luke may be writing to everyman, giving a teaching tool to help those who have been instructed. This goes to the whole idea why the Gospels came into being. Yes, they were historical records, but that’s only the first part. Each Gospel writer wants the listener to change from listening to the text (remember that these were designed to be heard aloud, not read silently.

There is an overall theme to the Gospel and Acts. There are three historical times: that of Israel, that of Our Lord, and that of the Church. Luke looks back to the Israel of the Old Testament, with the stories of the prophets and the twelve tribes, and echoes their stories. Then he brings the life of Our Lord as God acting in history. He then sees the story of the Church with the expansion to the wider world. Thus the twelve apostles become the new foundations of the Church as the twelve tribes were the foundation of Israel. Furthermore, as Israel found as its centre Jerusalem, Luke centres his story of Our Lord on Jerusalem, and he fashions his source material, so Our Lord always sets his face towards that city. However, after Our Lord’s death and resurrection, both at Jerusalem, the action moves out with the Church, and Acts ends with Paul awaiting trial at the Gentile centre, Rome.

We know from his introduction that Luke reuses earlier sources, and we think that the two main ones were what we call Q, a collection of early sayings, and also the Gospel according to Mark. He then uses other material in his gospel, giving us the beautiful stories of Mary such as the story of the Annunciation, her visit to Elizabeth and the poetry of the Magnificat, the Presentation and the poetry of the Nunc Dimittis, and the story of Our Lord getting lost in the temple. We thank Luke for part of the Hail Mary, “Hail Mary, Full of Grace” spoken at the Annunciation, and “Blessed are you, and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus,” spoken by her cousin Elizabeth.

The whole of Acts is unique – we don’t know what sources he used, although some of it follows the historical practice of the time with speeches, and some of it is written using “we” which indicates he was an eyewitness. There is another problem in that is he was a companion of Paul, yet he doesn’t reference Paul’s letters, and that’s a tricky one. But he is a good Greek writer, and tidies up the Greek of Mark when he copies it. He is not so familiar with the geography of the Holy Land, which is why we think he may have come from what is now Syria or modern Turkey, as he is certainly very good on the cities of those regions. He also knew Roman procedures well, and tidies the accounts of the different trials before the Roman authorities to conform to Roman custom. He also uniquely has the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the healing of the ten lepers, with the thankful Samaritan, both images that are positive towards the Samaritans. The parable of the prodigal son is uniquely his as well, one of the most famous in the Gospels.

One of Luke’s great themes is that of forgiveness. Christ has come to offer forgiveness to all people. We see it in the healings and the parables, such as the Prodigal Son. Luke shapes the crucifixion to emphasise this gift of forgiveness. As he is crucified, we have the lovely story of repentant thief, with that lovely promise that today you will be with me in Paradise. Remember also that Paradise was the Greek from of Eden, so the promise is to be with Our Lord in the new Eden. Then as Our Lord dies, his last words are: Father, forgive them. Luke sees the life and teachings of Our Lord give forgiveness to Jews and Gentiles. Hence the story of Paul, which Luke tells so vividly in Acts, is one of a persecutor that converts, and finds forgiveness and becomes the apostle to the Gentiles.

The story of Acts takes up the theme of the message of forgiveness taken up to a world that struggles and misunderstands. The Jewish authorities think the Christians are perverting the Law of God. The Gentiles continually confuse the message, and instead of seeing the apostles as bringing a message of forgiveness and acceptance, they want to make the apostles gods instead or kill them as being troublesome. The simple message of forgiveness is continually confused and opposed by the powers of the world.

Perhaps that is the best message we can take from Luke still. In the end God’s message is a simple one. God loves us and God forgives us. Yes, we still live in an immensely complex world just like that of the polyglot world of Rome. But the message of God is still there, and even though people will distort it, or be jealous of it, the message still goes out. Luke finishes his second book, Acts, with Paul waiting in Rome for his trial. Now, all Christians who heard that message would know that Paul, and Peter as well, would die there. But the message still went on, as in those who heard the story from Luke. We celebrate Luke today and thank God for that message, that despite our failings and sins, we are offered forgiveness and life, through belief in the Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Parable of the Guest Without the Wedding Robe – 11 October

Today we have another parable. But today, this parable is actually one of the most difficult to interpret.

Often, it is read as the King being God, who invites people to the wedding banquet for his son, Christ, but they don’t come, so he then invites all and sundry, so eager is he to have his hall filled with guests. Then he throws out the man who does not come prepared, as a warning that we must prepare ourselves for God. We are invited, but we must come with our good works like the guest with his wedding garment.

But there are always a few problems with this way of looking at the parable. The big issue is that this king is not nice, he murders the first lot of guests who don’t come, the son never appears and the whole thing with the wedding guest who does not wear the right clothes is a bit odd.

Now, there is another way. Let’s look at this again with a bit of history of the time. First, peasants of that time did not think that kings were automatically the good guys; from bitter experience. Kings were usually exploitative and cruel. A peasant would not immediately think of a king as a good image of God. Then there is a particular piece of history to recall. Herod the Great is a character known to us from the birth of Our Lord. He was a nasty piece of work. The Holy Land after the expulsion of the Greek rulers following Alexander the Great, had been ruled by descendants of the Maccabeans, who were pious Jews, and had some independence. However, in the century before Christ they had become under Roman indirect rule, and one ruler was replaced in a revolt by a man called Antigonus. Herod obtained the support of the Romans, became engaged to wed Antigonus’ niece who was also a granddaughter of a high priest and returned to claim Jerusalem, offering forgivingness and preservation of the city if they should accept him. But they said no. Jerusalem rejected Herod’s claim, saying he was only a half Jew and not a proper king. They ignored him, however, to their peril, for Herod then came with the Roman army, laid siege to the city and took it in 37 BC with a suitable massacre. During the siege, he went to Samaria and married his bride, returning as a newly-wed husband to finish the siege. Poor Antigonus surrendered to the Roman general who was going to send him to Rome, but Herod intercedes that he be killed in order that his new kingdom will be safe for Herod’s sons. So Antigonus is suitably dispatched. Herod then murders his rivals and appointed his own cronies as High Priest. Not a nice man this Herod. To make up for this, Herod was a lavish builder, and the place where Our Lord is said to be saying this parable was the part of the Temple Mount built by Herod. Sometimes, politicians like Herod find grandiose public works a sop to poor popularity.

So, when Our Lord starts to talk about a king, it’s easy to think that his hearers would think about Herod who had built this section of the Temple. This parable starts differently to the others here, we heard is as “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who…”, but it can also read “the kingdom of heaven may be made like a king who…”

So let’s think of how this parable can be read. The king here is not God, but the usual nasty Herod. Herod had come to Jerusalem inviting them to take him king as he married a member of the royal house. However, the people of Jerusalem declined the offer and rejected him. Then King Herod, like in the parable, comes and burns and destroys the people of Jerusalem. He then fills Jerusalem with his own people, similarly to the parable.

Now if you should think of the parable in these terms then the rest of it starts to become clear. The new people of Jerusalem are like the good and bad in the parable, who have been forced to come to terms with living under Herod, and then the Romans. They have compromised. They are like those who have been forced to come to the wedding feast. Here they were those who came to Jerusalem after the wedding of Herod to his token bride.

Then we come to the passage:

But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’  And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.

Who is this man that does not have a wedding garment? What the king is annoyed about is how someone has come and not shown respect to his forced wedding banquet. The speechless may not been that he could not talk, but rather that he did not speak. So, the guest who came and showed disrespect by not conforming did not answer back to the king. The king then, in Herod’s typical way binds him and throws him into the darkness.

Now the prior ruler, Antigonus, was also bound as a captive and taken away to death. But think ahead also to what Our Lord does. He also will be bound, he also will not answer the chief priests, he also will not answer before Pilate. When Our Lord dies on the cross, there is darkness over the land, just as the king throws the guest into the outer darkness.

So, let’s consider what this parable is saying on this interpretation. The kingdom of heaven has here been like what has happened to Jerusalem. It has been taken by force. The rightful kings are gone and now false kings, Herods and the Romans rule. The people are forced here into celebrating this like a wedding feast, where the guests were “invited” but forced by the slaves to come. The guest without the wedding robe then becomes someone who challenges the king, hence the rage of the king towards him and why this section is so long in the parable. This is Our Lord, who challenges the legitimacy of the compromise that those in Jerusalem have made.

It’s interesting that the very next part of the Gospel, also talks about divided loyalties with the coin with Caesar’s head.

This parable can be read not about the generosity of God who invites everyone, but also murders those who spurned his invitation and throws the unprepared into darkness, but perhaps about the powers of the world who attempt to take the kingdom of heaven by force. Matthew also refers in 11:12 how: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” Matthew is perhaps showing us a God who condemns the world for trying to pervert the kingdom of God which should be about love and forgiveness, and instead creates an unjust world where people are forced to obey. It is a kingdom of Heaven that has been seized by force. However, it will be challenged by those who reject the demands of conforming, in this case the guest who does not wear the wedding robe, by Our Lord who will become the perfect victim. Others may be frightened and conform, but Our Lord will challenge and be killed. However, we know then as Christians that we too find our power to resist by knowing the power of resurrection.

Now, I am not saying that this is the definitive interpretation. But it is one way to look at the parable. Not all the parables are clear; some are designed to make us of away and do some solid thinking. That’s what informed faith is all about – don’t expect to be spoon-fed with answers, go away and pray and think as well. Baptism is not lobotomy. But that’s what faith is all about – the deep and rich understanding of God, that makes you think and understand when you have to stand up for your faith.

Francis – 4 October, 2026

Let me tell you about the bonfire of the vanities. It was Shrove Tuesday, 1497, the day before Lent starts, the time to make one’s Lenten promises. A friar, Girolamo Savonarola, had been working in Florence for seven years. Florence had prospered by the trade of the Renaissance, and great wealth flowed into the city, especially under the famous family, the Medici. Savonarola preached against the wealth and corruption, and called for a purge in preparation of Lent. He was a great preacher and warned the people of Florence of the dangers of luxury. So, on Shrove Tuesday he called for a great bonfire of these luxuries: mirrors, paintings, fine clothes, musical instruments, books of divination, astrology, and magic. Into the bonfire of the vanities these were thrown. He was not a gentle man. Anyone who tried to object found their hands being forced by teams of ardent Savonarola supporters, called weepers, because they made people weep when their goods were taken to the fire. 

But they made enemies – people are very attached to their possessions and Savonarola’s influence did not go unnoticed by the higher church officials, and he was eventually excommunicated later that year on 13 May 1497. His charge was heresy and Savonarola was executed in the same piazza in Florence a year later, being, ironically, burned to death where he had led the bonfire of vanities. Those who have been to Florence will remember that piazza was where the great statue of David originally stood.

So, who were the friars that produced this Savonarola?

This is where Francis comes in, gentle, gentle Francis. He was born probably in 1182 and died age 44 in 1226. Italy at that time was entering that period of prosperity that was the forerunner of the Renaissance. The city states were growing and with them was trade, trade that brought new riches. Francis was born in Assisi to a merchant family. After a rather spoilt upbringing he had a conversion experience and decided to dedicate himself to a life of poverty.

Now, a life of poverty in the Middle Ages was not one to aspire, as it meant a possible end in starvation. His family thought him mad. He also started to preach to all and sundry about the love of God, which made him suspect as a heretic. Society was not keen about mad heretics and he had a tough time at first. However, he went to Rome to get approval, and convinced the pope and authorities he was not mad or heretical, and started his order of poverty.

Francis started a wandering order of friars that would preach anywhere, and the Church, through the pope, recognising his gift, gave him permission to do so. That was a bold move, as it allowed the friars to go wherever they wanted and preach in new ways, not just in churches but in marketplaces and wherever they found people. It gave a new energy to making the Gospel alive to people. It was for this reason that the friars started using for the first time Stations of the Cross and Nativity Scenes to make people see and think what the stories of the Gospel meant. The Gospel is told over and over again, but we become dull to its meaning: Francis sought new ways for people to enter into the great drama of Our Lord’s love and forgiveness.

His was not the only order of friars. Another great saint, Dominic, started the Order of Preachers, known now as the Dominicans, with a similar aim of preaching and bringing the love of the gospel to those alienated from the Church.

There are many stories of Francis that tell of his love of the poor and of animals, in fact the whole creation, which is why he is patron of animals and ecology, and why the last pope chose his name on his election. One of the favourites is that of St Francis preaching to the birds, which is why he is often represented with a bird on his shoulder, like our statue here. However, others have argued that the birds he preached to were the birds by the city gates, the birds of carrion, picking over the city dump, and Francis was making the point that his preaching in the city was being ignored by those in the city who were like these birds eating the scraps and refuse, and not hearing the Gospel.

Francis fought hard for his friars to remain poor and outside the control of the church authorities, such as bishops, so they could have the freedom to preach the Gospel where the Spirit led them. His friars set up new missions to try and make the gospel relevant to a people who often thought the church was wealthy and irrelevant. Dominic also tried that with his friars, who became famous as preachers. Savonarola, a Dominican, was an extreme version of that – challenging the wealthy of Florence to turn again to a simple life. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church. He disobeyed the Pope. Some consider him a forerunner of the Reformation. Others think he was just mad.

The friars are a prophetic movement of the Middle Ages that still resounds with us today. How do we make the Gospel relevant to those who find the Church nothing but cold and legalistic rules? Why do people say they are spiritual but not religious? How do we teach the faith to a new generation? Are we so much in love with our wealth and possessions that we cannot hear the loving Lord calling us to follow him?

Now there will always be extreme groups within Christian communities, such as Savonarola, who will call for a bonfire of the vanities, who will call for fire and coercion to make changes. But Francis was not like that. He embraced a leper to share his suffering. He carried the marks of the stigmata, the manifestation of the wounds of Christ on his body from his great devotion to the crucified Lord. He believed that nature itself was the mirror of God. He called all creatures his brothers and sisters, and supposedly persuaded a wolf in Gubbio to stop attacking some locals if they agreed to feed the wolf. In his Canticle of the Creatures he sings of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and the wind and water. 

We still live in need of people like Francis. We live in a time of great wealth, but much unhappiness. Money does not make us a happier people. Our churches are empty. Our people do not come through our doors. The love of God is laughed at. Yet we, we who know of the true love of God, still believe in a God of miracles who calls the Church for reformation so it can speak to the world. Now I do not know what that Church will look like. I do not know what our society will even look like in a few years. Yet I believe that God still gives us people like Francis and Dominic, fired with the love of God to call people to the love of the Gospel again.

Grace and Law – 13 September, 2026

One of the things that comes up time and time again in our language as Christians, is the contrast between grace and law. The words abound over and over again. You only have to think of such great hymns such as Amazing Grace to see that word contrast again.

Well, today is all about law and grace.

But before we get to the parable, there is an important point about Peter’s question and the answer. Peter’s opening bid for forgiving an offending brother “seven times” is intended to be a generous measure, but there is an implication of posturing (this is Peter, after all). When Our Lord responds with “seventy times seven” his point is not just that we should be more generous than we think, but to change the nature of the question. Our Lord’s response is intended to move the conversation from keeping score to asking what the nature or the challenge of forgiveness is. It’s also referencing an obscure part of Genesis.

You may remember the bit about the murder of Abel by Cain – Cain is then marked with a sign and the warning that anyone who kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance, (Gen 4:15). So here we have the seven that Peter uses. But shortly after in Genesis we have a descendant of Cain, Lamech. He says “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold (4:23b-24).” Here’s the seventy-seven.

The mathematics of the Gospel exchange may now be somewhat clearer. Just as Lamech’s seventy-sevenfold violence aggravates the situation that arose after Abel’s murder, or reflects yet a further decline into violence and retribution, the arrival of the community heralded by Our Lord as the reign of heaven means a new possibility of restoration and healing. Our Lord is not merely suggesting that Peter lacks ambition by undercounting occasions for forgiveness, but that the inauguration of this new community is something more than “doing better”—and after all, we know the Church and its members fail often enough in that regard anyway. It is more like the cancellation of debts, which was a common theme in movements against tyranny.

Our Lord suggests that the reign of heaven amounts to a restoration of what was lost to the world in the violence of Cain. This idea that history is being remade is woven through the New Testament; and the words that Luke uses of Our Lord on the Cross, that today you will be with me in Paradise, is a reference to the Eden, the original paradise, being restored. So there’s a reason for the seventy-seven.

But back to the Parable of Unforgiving Servant. In this parable the king forgives his first slave of an enormous amount, ten thousand talents; a sum that would goggle the imagination of those living. According to the historian Josephus, who lives at the end of that century, the tribute for that whole region was 800 talents, and the Romans were not doing Empire cheaply. So, it was a massive sum. No condition is put on the forgiveness; the slave is left to go free.

However, the slave then seizes and imprisons another slave who owes him only 100 denarii. The Good Samaritan in that parable from Luke paid the inn keeper two denarii for the board, so you get an idea that this was a matter of some thousands – a bad credit card debt in our terms. The king hears of this injustice by the first slave and summons him back and re-imposes the original debt and the punishment of torture.

Now this is a clear example about grace and law. The king had the right to imprison the servant because he could not pay. He didn’t. Instead, he forgave freely. Grace was given, instead of the Law.

Now before we go on with this parable, we should make one thing clear here. Don’t think the king is automatically God. This is part of our cultural blindness: we tend to read the Gospels seeing authority figures such as lords and kings as the good guys. After all, isn’t the old Bible often known as the King James version, a lovely way of sanctifying one of our kings. Well, let me tell you that the peasants of Our Lord’s times saw things a lot differently, with nasty characters such as Pilate or the Herods. Peasants of Our Lord’s time tended to see the authority figures as exploitative and vindicative, trying to extort money from them all the time. The king here is certainly not God, the king goes on to agree to torture the servant at the end. Our Lord is not simply putting the figure of the King as the figure of God. It’s a bit more subtle than that. Remember also the background reference to Cain and Lamech – both murderers. We are not dealing with nice people.

What Our Lord is trying to teach in this parable is that the way to live is important. We can live lives of grace, learning and giving forgiveness, or lives of law, demanding and been bullied.

To make it even clearer, Our Lord concludes the parable with the clear application: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

What Our Lord is teaching is that we have a clear choice as his followers. We can use his teaching to enter a new world, a world where we find the true nature of God, a God who cares and loves for us like the lilies of the field or the birds of the air. This is a world of Grace, unconditional love, so unconditional that God sends his only Son to live as one of us and die for us to show that love. The parables and the teachings provide an entrance into that new world.

However, God will never force anyone to choose. Our entry into that love must be our own choice, our own exploration. Our Lord contrasts this new world with that which exists, a world that is in the power of darkness and evil, a world of Law. In that world fear and retribution rule, and justice is used to create injustice, so the slave is imprisoned and tortured. That world works on fear and pain, and those who refuse to open their hearts to a new way of forgiveness are left in this system. That is what happened to the Unforgiving Servant – he did not enter the new world of grace and so was dragged back to the world he supported. It’s like Lamech carrying on from Cain.

Now to be fair, a lot of the Old Testament is about a world of Law. Yet even the Old Testament moves away from this idea. The great Book of Job, for instance, tells of the story of Job. God. for no reason but to test Job, makes him lose fortune, children and even all his camels, and is inflicted with sores, and then sits in the ashes with a potsherd to scratch himself. His friends come to console him and decide he must have offended God – Job instead wishes his life would be taken away but declares that he has done no sin. The Book ends with God saying to Job – gird up your loins and answer me – where were you when I created the world? The Book does not give an answer, just says that misfortune is part of God’s plan that we cannot understand. It is not the direct result of sin. There is no law that makes Job suffer.

Our Lord also teaches about sin and forgiveness. Firstly, in so many of the parables, he points to the world around. The rain falls on the good and evil alike. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field also point to a God who takes care of the world. The parables point to a God who knows and loves what is made and does not have a policy of immediate revenge and rewards. This is a God who offers love and grace.

The ability for us to face the demands of forgiveness as Christians, people who choose grace. is paramount. We are challenged directly whether we want the new world of grace or the old way of law. If we should not forgive, we are not part of God’s love, and instead trapped into the old way of the law of vengeance. Our Lord challenges us to this task. It is a hard task. The bitterness that people cause us, especially when it is unjust, scars the soul. But if we dwell on the injustice or hurt, we never learn to let go and move on with love. That is why we pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,” every day. It is a lifelong challenge to be a Christian and mean those words. It is a lifelong challenge to live a life of grace and forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the mark of those who follow the Lord. It’s not easy, but the choice is whether we practise this and enter into a new relationship of grace and love, or we remain in a world of the law of vengeance instead. That’s what today’s parable is asking us.

Based in part on a reflection by the Rev’d Andrew McGowan.

The Shop of Crosses – 30 August, 2026

A hobby of mine is to go to the local auctions and op shops. It’s amazing what turns up. There is, of course, a large range of furniture and pictures and glassware and just junk. As a priest I keep an eye out for religious items, and some of the things in this church are from items I have bought over the years. 

However, as someone who is reasonably knowledgeable about religious items, I get annoyed when things are mislabelled. Icons are given to the wrong saint. Each saint has a clear symbol, and I don’t think it is that hard to work out who it is. But one thing that annoys me repeatedly, is when crosses and crucifixes and confused. Crucifixes have the little man on them I say, crosses don’t. But the catalogues still get confused.

There are a lot of crosses and crucifixes that turn up over time. Lovely big brass ones like the ones I use on the nave altar are rarer, only every couple of years. That was a good find. Then there are lots of little gold crosses and crucifixes. There are occasional icons of the crucifixion. Some are heavy, some are light. Some you wear, some you hang of the wall. Some are gold and some are wood. All sorts.

Now imagine that you could see all these crosses at one time, a whole display of all the sort of crosses that you could imagine. Now the question is, what cross would you take up? What would be your choice? Would you like something very beautiful or very light? Practical or wonderful? What would you take up?

There is a further condition – there is only one cross that is right for you. Now that makes it much harder, it is not only what you desire but what is designed for you. How do you work that out?

The stakes are very high. Consider Peter, in the gospel passage today, was the rock of the Church, for confessing that Our Lord was the Christ, the one chosen for salvation, as we heard last week. This week he is the stumbling block, because he does not want Our Lord to go to Jerusalem and be killed. He does not recognise that the cross that Our Lord must bear is one that comes with a price. To be a Christ is a fine thing, and Peter could see Our Lord going to Jerusalem and setting the world to rights, ushering in a kingdom, earthly and peaceful. He saw Our Lord with a winner, with a victor’s wreath. But Our Lord did not come for winners, Our Lord did not come for the perfect, he came for all those who struggle, fall and sin, so that he might lift them up and carry them. The price of being Christ was to bear a cross and die, so death would nail God and human together, and forgiveness would flow in blood, and our cross would be borne by his cross. The cross had a price that had to be faced. Peter, by trying to deny it, was a stumbling block to fall over, not a rock to build upon. There is no profit in gaining the whole world if one’s life is forfeit in return.

So what cross are we to select in this wondrous room of crosses, full of all styles. What one has been made for you? Which one are you to bear? Is yours to be one that can be quietly kept in a pocket to give you courage or one to be borne for the mockery of the world? What price is it to be bought at?

This is where discernment is needed. For many people take the wrong cross in life, and a life may be damaged by the wrong choice. The wrong cross can be too light, and be no true price worth the blood of our Lord who died to show us the price he was willing to pay for us. Great gifts can be given to people who waste them, never taking the cross that would stretch them, make them give the price that could buy the cross that would make their lives. Others have taken crosses that they were never meant to bear becoming bitter with burdens they attempt to bear. Save us from the trivial person, who only finds a light cross and fritters and never dedicates. Others take heavy crosses that consume their time and energy in a passive aggressive delight. Save us from the bitterness of those who whinge over crosses they delight in grasping, that they were never meant to take.

So, what is discernment, that ability to choose what cross to bear? It is prayer, it is time with our Lord, it is the gift of listening to God. Prayer often starts with words, but most move beyond to being with God. That is part of the story of our liturgy, why we use the same form over and over again, the same words over and over again, so our minds go behind the words and actions to being the actual prayer, having it in ourselves so we can listen to God. We have to be with God to find the cross we are meant to bear.

For all these crosses, big and small, golden or plain, are nothing but images of the one true cross, and the cross bearer himself, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is offering the crosses to us, waiting for us to come in and choose a cross that will suit us. Our Lord knows which cross will suit us, which cross is made for us. He knows which will fulfil our destiny, give scope to the skills we have, and carry the price that is right for us. It may not be the heavy one full of gold and jewels, it may not be the light cross we can hide in our pocket. But for each and every person there is cross, made and fashioned to suit each one of us, waiting for us, if we listen to the cross bearer, so we can take up our cross and follow him.

The Exercise of Power – 23 August, 2023

Looking at the Gospel today there are two things that strike me. First there is Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. Then there is Our Lord’s response, that lovely poetic passage, that Peter is the rock on which he will build the Church and Peter will have the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 

Let’s consider Peter’s answer. Our Lord starts out by asking, what are people saying about me? People in ancient times obviously gossiped about each other just as much as we do now. We know when we get a new work colleague or boss, we want to hear all the stories about that person. Well, Our Lord had been travelling around, he had been healing people like the Canaanite Woman’s daughter we heard about last week, and he had been doing miracles like feeling the thousands as we heard the week before. We can imagine that there was a lot of gossip about him.

Now the disciples give different answers. That’s the safety of gossip – you can give unattributed stories. You don’t take responsibility for the truth or even believe in them; you just pass on the gossip. But then Our Lord makes it personal: but who do you say that I am? One can almost hear the silence after the question.

But then Peter, good old impetuous Peter, gives the answer: you are the Messiah, which we would call the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Peter jumps the fence, and comes down to a profession of faith.

That’s always the hard one. We can report rumours, tell gossip, but in the end that’s not faith or even good leadership: in the end we have to be responsible for what we believe. Faith is like that: in the end we have to have a core of belief, we have to know that Jesus is the Christ our Lord and what that means. That’s one reason why the Creeds developed in the Church, starting with the Apostles Creed and going onto the Nicene Creed which we use every Sunday: we have to know what we believe in. We have to say who Christ is and that he is our God. Faith means a confession of who Our Lord is. That’s why the Apostles Creed is used at baptism since early times, it is the faith to which people confess. It is thought that in some churches they even baptised during the Creed, the priest said, for example, Do you believe in God the Father? and the person replied I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and then the priest did the first of the baptisms by immersing the person saying I baptise you in the name of the Father, and then going on with the second part of the Creed for the Son, and then the third for the Holy Spirit.

The second point from today’s gospel is Our Lord’s reply to Peter’s confession:

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Now this has been a passage that has a long history. Is Our Lord giving the keys to Peter personally or to the Church that will be built on that reply? Now we have a hugely divisive history on that. On one side we have the extremes of Roman Catholicism, and the other side we have those who hold to no authority outside a congregation or even a personal faith. A lot of this comes down to what you think the Church here on earth is. Is it the local congregation? Is it the local diocese gathered around the bishop? Is it a universal Church gathered around a Pope? Now we, as Anglicans, have experimented with all these types of structures. We have tried popes wanting uniformity and power. We have tried dioceses believing that they are the definers of what is right in ordination and marriage and ignoring all other Christians. We have tried mega churches being the absolute churches and calling all other Christians lost. There just isn’t an easy answer as to what the best church structure is. There just isn’t an answer to what Our Lord exactly foresaw as the Church.

But Our Lord did say quite a bit about how authority is to be exercised. The Gospels record that immediately after this passage Peter gets things wrong and is rebuked. So being a rock does not make you perfect. People in authority don’t know everything. Our Lord also warns his disciples about the bad examples in the world and that we are not to exercise power as the world does. In St John’s Gospel, which seems to have issues with the model of Peter, the confession of Our Lord’s divinity is done by Martha, a woman, a person of lower status. Furthermore, in that Gospel we have the story of Our Lord washing the feet of those he leads as an example to them of how authority is to be exercised. The Gospels each present a fairly cautious attitude to how authority is to be exercised. The early Church took a lot of time also working it out. From the early times it had bishops, but often it was just for small groups until the faith spread so we had a bishop over all the Christians in a city. But working out how bishops related to each other took another few centuries, not until the peace of the Church and the first council at Nicaea in 325 do we get some sort of structure with the great cities of the Roman empire of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem holding a greater authority.

Mostly since then the Christians who have held to things like tradition and the Creeds have preserved some sort of structure with bishops. We Anglicans tried a cautious structure with the Archbishop of Canterbury being a figurehead without power. Well, it’s hard struggle for us trying to stay united. For the last century or so we have a group meeting of all the bishops every ten years, the Lambeth Conference, so called because that is the place where the archbishop of Canterbury lives in London. They are not always easy. Last week in Melbourne we also had our General Synod, the Synod responsible for the whole of the Anglican Church. Structures are not fun or easy.

But in that passage, there is one last final reflection. The gates of Hades will not prevail. So often we think of the Church as a besieged city, with the evil pounding on our gates. But Our Lord did not say that our gates will not fail, he said that the Gates of Hades will not prevail. One of the best reflections of the Vatican II Council of last century, the great gathering of the Roman Catholic bishops, was that the Church is not a besieged city, but a pilgrim people on the way to salvation. So, our wanderings, our failures will not stop the gradual spread of what faith is. We will walk into the Gates of Hades, and those gates will not prevail against our little selves. That’s terribly consoling. We are all Peters making our confession of faith and then getting it wrong, but we have been entrusted with the power of Our Lord to tell the story of faith, even to the Gates of Hades. And we do prevail somehow, not by our own strength, but because God is on our side. That’s immensely comforting.

Peace and Calm – 9 August, 2026

The image of Peter walking, and not walking successfully, to Our Lord on water has become so much a part of this story of Our Lord, the disciples, and a storm, that it is hard to imagine it otherwise. But let’s think about Matthew’s specific intention about this text and Peter’s role.

Last week with the miraculous feeding and now again here, the Gospel according to Matthew offers stories of Our Lord’s power which are intended to teach, more than just to astound. Some may be inclined to disbelieve this ever happened (even though sometimes people do seem willing to believe anything…), the mere fact of multiplying loaves or walking on water may seem too startling, or entertaining, for us to get past the surprise, to the heart of the matter.

In Our Lord’s time the idea of walking on water represented divine power, but the desire of human rulers to do so was a symbol of arrogance, and of tyranny. The Second Book of the Maccabees (you will find that in the strange middle section of the bible, the Aprocrypha), written very not long before Our Lord’s time, refers to the tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes, defiler of the Jerusalem Temple, who thought “in his arrogance that he could sail on the land and walk on the sea” (2 Macc 5:21). A bit later, between the time of Our Lord’s ministry and Matthew’s composition, the notorious Caligula had a temporary bridge built across the Bay of Naples, 50 km long, to enable him to cross on foot— since it was more appropriate for a god to walk over water rather than to wallow in a boat.

So the scene where Our Lord walks on water would have reminded ancient readers both of the prerogatives of divine power, and of human presumption. As to the first, divinity is also invoked by Our Lord’s response to the fearful disciples, “It is I.” While this phrase could be Our Lord just saying who he is, it is the same as the “I am” that appears in the Old Testament as divine speech, and more clearly in John’s Gospel as a divine self-announcement. The disciples acclaim Our Lord as “Son of God,” this doesn’t come from nowhere.

The Our Lord who walks on water is not only a “Son of God,” but a more legitimate ruler than Antiochus or Caligula. This is clearer in Matthew than in our lectionary excerpts; we have jumped over another story of tyranny, of Herod Antipas (son of that other Herod from Matthew’s nativity) and the death of John the Baptist (14:1-11), which set up a contrast that Our Lord fulfilled in the miraculous feeding story, a compassionate leader juxtaposed with a greedy self-serving one. So when Our Lord, immediately after that story of violence, multiplies the loaves and now walks on water, Matthew shows him to be as a legitimate, effective, and compassionate ruler for Israel, in contrast to the oppressive conduct of the Herods and to the pretensions of Antiochus or Caligula.

The walking on water story is not just a demonstration of power over nature then, although it is that; Our Lord is pointing towards the true Messiah, whose rule promises plenty and freedom in place of the familiar exploitation and war. The stilling of the waves represents power over nature, but also the promise of care for God’s people.

Matthew is also giving special attention to Peter, given the apostle’s subsequent role in the earliest Christian movement. The disciples and the twelve are presented as a group growing in faith and understanding. The growth is not easy, there is no simple walk to wisdom or strength, and crises a-plenty are still to come— but they progress in being called to follow, trust, and participate in what Our Lord is doing. The disciples function within the narrative itself as the key audience to the Gospel, modelling how readers might respond to the message of the reign of heaven in Our Lord as they did. Despite the most monumental failure still to come, they will ultimately receive the task of Our Lord’s mission.

This story is the first time Peter becomes a sort of representative disciple, providing what is needed when the reader might be asking “what do I do?” Something similar—again not idealizing him at all—will recur in the Transfiguration story and in the prediction of the Passion. Peter is emerging as personal embodiment of what the disciples have been learning across these events, parables, etc., inexpert as he may be. His suitably inexpert walk on the water shows that Christian discipleship, like the disciples’ participation in the feeding story (14:19), means imitating Our Lord in his own self-giving love.

At the end the disciples “worshipped him.” We badly misuse this word. Worship doesn’t actually mean waving hands around or lots of words, it doesn’t mean musical performances – it means devotion or obedience. However, sacramental worship, the mass, has a particular claim to being “worship” because we do this in obedience to him. 

In the boat however, the disciples are not curating, nor performing, nor undertaking ritual; the word prosekunēsan translated here as “worship” means they are prostrating themselves. Flat on their faces, they embody their own dim but growing understanding of this mysterious one who controls even weather, and whose service is not ecstasy or ritual but justice. It must have been a funny sight in the floor of a boat. Their joy as well as their apprehension anticipates their future as actual “worship leaders,” that is, people who will serve him in building community, proclaiming the reign of heaven, and giving themselves for his sake and for the sake of the world he came to rule and save. Sometimes they too may even walk on water.

Based in part on a reflection by the Rev’d Andrew McGowan.

The Lord of Miracles – 2 August, 2026

Sometimes we hear stories such as, “so-and-so were in a car accident and should have died, but they walked away without a scratch. It’s a miracle. God must have been protecting them for some purpose,” or “I prayed that the cancer would go away and it did. It was a miracle,” or “Please God, grant us a miracle and help the Port get into the finals.” Such stories reveal a worldview in which God sometimes acts exceptionally outside of the ordinary: and only for those who have enough faith. But this way of interpretating miracles is not what our Christian miracle stories, like the feeding of the more than five thousand in our Gospel today, are about.

But let’s think about miracles. Miracles happen around us still in different ways. A dead man rose again; people marvelled. By contrast, numerous babies are born every day, and no one marvels. If only we would reflect upon life more carefully, we would come to see that it is a greater miracle for a child to be given existence who before did not exist, than for a man to come back to life who already existed. People hold cheap what they see every day of their lives, but suddenly, confronted by extraordinary events, they are dumbfounded, though these events are truly no more wonderful than the others. Holding the universe together, for example, is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand people with loaves of bread, but no one marvels at it. People marvel at the feeding of the five thousand not because this miracle is greater, but because it is out of the ordinary. Who is even now providing nourishment for whole world if it be not the God who creates a field of wheat from a few seeds?

But back to the Gospel. The Gospel miracle stories are not about showcasing Our Lord as a man with special powers. Instead, they show the coming of the kingdom of God. Yes, Our Lord acts in miraculous and non-miraculous ways, just like other wonderworkers. However, unlike many others, Our Lord’s miracles point beyond themselves. They point beyond him. They express a God-centric, not Jesus-centric, worldview. Our Lord himself is God-centric: always looking to God, praying to God, and following God’s call to him. Miracle stories do not typically happen as a reward to someone’s faith. Instead, they make the presence and power of the kingdom of God visible to everyone, whether they believe the story, or not.

A few important points about how these stories operate in the gospels. First, the people for whom Matthew’s gospel was written were expecting the end of time to happen soon: within their lifetime. Miracle stories here were told in part as a manifestation of the fulfillment of such expectations. Secondly, each miracle portrays an act of God in Our Lord to deliver humans from something posing a threat to authentic life: to restore the person to the state God had intended in the creation of birth. In this, each miracle exposes a separation from God, from our truest selves, and the need for salvation of many kinds: from sickness, thirst, hunger, demonic possession, being without purpose, natural disasters, and of course from sin and death. Finally, each miracle tells us something about the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord and holds this up to us in a shining, concise narrative. Think about it. It is breathtaking.

We can see this in our Gospel story today. Our Lord withdraws to a deserted place by himself, but the crowds follow him. Our Lord has compassion for them and cures the sick among them. Here, he delivers a multitude of humanity from sickness and returns them to their true selves: healed and restored to community. This takes a long time. So long that the hour is late and the disciples want to send the crowd off.

Our Lord surprises them by saying, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Isn’t that interesting? Our Lord does not say that he will give them something to eat but tells the disciples “You give them something to eat,” thus inviting the disciples into this miracle as well, knowing that God provides for human life. It does not matter that these people are poor, desperate, tired, and do not have much to offer in return. The disciples are tasked to give food to everyone, regardless of social status. It is not a transactional relationship. God asks nothing in return.

The disciples are like the children who go into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and say, “There’s nothing to eat!” So, Our Lord takes the five loaves and two fish and he focuses on God. He looks up to heaven, the place of God the Father; he blesses and breaks the loaves; and he gives them back to the disciples. The same actions we will do today at the altar. Then the disciples give the bread to the crowds, where everyone eats their fill, with twelve baskets left over.

Our Lord calls the disciples, and us, to dream bigger. He entrusted the disciples to work together to feed the crowd, and he calls upon us to do the same.

“You give them something to eat” is the heart of this miracle. Our Lord is saying those words to us today, just as clearly as he said them to his disciples on the deserted shores of the far side of the Sea of Galilee all those centuries ago. There is a hungry world out there, and it is our responsibility, our duty, to feed them. This hunger is both spiritual and physical. And although it may look like there’s not enough bread to go around, the miracle we recounted today teaches us that, in fact, if we should open our eyes, we will see that there is enough – that God has already provided enough bread to feed every last person on earth. It just depends on how you divide it up.

We are invited into this miracle story. We are reminded yet again that God provides for human life, and we must respond.

How many times have we been given blessed nourishment, salvation of some kind, and not passed it along to people who needed it? Our Lord passes the bread to the disciples, who pass it on to the crowd, and then the miracle happens.

As often as we take the Eucharist, we re-enact Our Lord’s feast on the lakeshore. Just like on that day, Our Lord takes our bread, blesses it, breaks it, and shares it with all who are hungry. And he is calling us to do the same with our lives – take the blessings God has given, break them open, and share them with others. 

Our Lord is holding the loaves and fishes out to you. Someone is waiting for you to share the blessing, to be invited into the miracle.

What will you do?

Based partly on a sermon by the Rev’d Danae Ashley of Seattle.