Poems, Sermons and Writings

  Matt 28:1010 Oh, well, a-bless my soul, what's wrong with me? … Oh, well, my hands are shaky, and my knees are weak I can't seem to stand on my own two feet … I'm in love I'm all shook up Hm, ooh, yeah-yeah, yeah To quote another song title - there’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on here in the gospel of Matthew.   We often tend to focus on the joy of the resurrection on Easter Sunday but all the gospels also mention fear, anxiety and distress on this day. Nothing is simple.   Matthew is the only one of the gospel writers to speak of an earthquake in connection the resurrection. In this brief resurrection story we have the earth shaking and the guards shaking and then fainting. But this is not the first time in Matthew’s story we find mention of quaking and shaking. When Jesus entered the city on palm Sunday the whole city of Jerusalem was shaken up, disturbed, in turmoil.   Right back in the beginning of Matthew we find that image of things being shaken up, disturbe...

Isaiah 43:14–44:5 The situation in which the Hebrew people found themselves is a timeless one, most of us have no experience of exile—but we all have experienced times where our vision is clouded, preventing us from seeing anything but darkness and despair.  Sometimes this is on a personal level where everything seems to be going wrong - tragedy, broken relationships, illness, bad news … sometimes on more of a community level, in the midst of disaster and sometimes these days on more of a global level when we see the effects of climate change, when we watch helplessly while politicians just seem not to care, when we see only war, war and more war.  All these things linger about us and hinder our ability both to see the future and to move into it. They also raise for us the most serious of theological questions, as they cause us to doubt the promises we have received in Jesus Christ: divine forgiveness, new life, and the love of God. Jesus said the Kingdom of God was at hand...

Isaiah 32:14-18   The 2025 Symbol for Creationtide is inspired by  Isaiah 32:14-18. Titled ”Garden of Peace,” it  depicts a white dove flying over a tree. The left side of the tree is barren, with roots digging into dry soil, surrounded by an arid, desolate landscape. In contrast, the right side of the tree is lush and green, standing amidst a flourishing landscape. The dove, carrying an olive branch in its beak, flies toward the right—symbolising peace as a transition from a war-torn, overexploited land to one that is fertile, thriving, and hospitable. If we think of a theology of creation many of us might look back to the story of creation from Genesis and remember when God said “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” That’s it - humans are to ru...