1 Corinthians 1: 10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23.

January 26 2020. St Ninan’s.

This is an election year. We’ll mark our Party votes, and we’ll say ‘we’re voting for Jacinda’s party – or Simon’s – or David’s, – or Winston’s, – or, or, or…. And if, further down the track, Jacinda’s party becomes someone else’s, and so on down the list, maybe we won’t be greatly worried, because (we hope) the leader only stands as representing the principles of the party. That’s what our democracy gives us, and by and large, democracy’s the best option we have for state government. Because of our particular culture, we’d be unhappy about a state with no choices. For myself, I’d be particularly unhappy with a state that operated as a theocracy – the sort of form of government that ISIS had. Continue reading Follow Me! →

John 1:29-42.  Epiphany 2A. St Ninians. January 2020

We’re still in the season of Epiphany. I don’t know about you, but this part of the church’s year is something that wasn’t ever really talked about in my Sunday School or Bible Class. We had Christmas – everyone knew about Christmas. Then we had holidays. And a few weeks after starting back, we had Lent. Somehow, we missed the significance of a whole string of Sundays – 10 of them – in which the church is both celebrating the amazing fact that God is manifest in the human person named Jesus of Nazareth, and trying to come to grips with the concept that God can be incarnated in a human person. Continue reading A Crowd of Witnesses →