Faith Speaks — Reverend Neil Taylor — Sermon Podcast

Read Luke 1.39-45

Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C)

As Mary meets with her cousin Elizabeth the intimate conversation that follows portrays Jesus as more important than John. It also shows God is already at work to overturn the world’s structures and expectations.

Read Luke 3.7-18

Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)

John the Baptist helps us perceive and make use of the riches of the faith, helping us live faithfully here and now, even as we look forward to God’s redemption. John encourages us to be who we are called to be, where we are, in the meantime.

Read Luke 3.6

Second Sunday of Advent (Year C)

Advent suggests that God seems to want us to wait. God seems to expect expectation. God seems to know that the proximity of desire is not the same as experiencing the fullness of life in the moment.

Read Luke 21.25-38

First Sunday of Advent (Year C)

From Pharaoh in the first chapter of Exodus to today’s tyrants and autocrats, fear is how we turn those who are different from us into an enemy. Fear causes us to horde. Fear causes us to assume we will never have enough and to see those around us as competitors. Fear drives wedges of distrust into our communities that fracture solidarity and compassion. Fear causes us to define ourselves and those around us not by what we share but by what makes us different. Fear creates an “either/or” and “us/them” mentality. It is nearly impossible to find common ground with that mindset, let alone see each other sympathetically. Fear, in short, drives us inward, hardens our hearts, darkens our vision and stunts our imagination.

Throughout human history, it’s always been true; that is why the most spoken command and promise in all of Scripture is “Do not fear”.

Read John 18.28-19.16

The Feast of Christ the King | Pentecost +26B

Pilate wavers back and forth between Jesus and his accusers, like a drunken sailor trying to walk from the pub back to his ship. And that’s just the point, Pilate wavers! He knows what is right, but he also knows what is easy. He also knows what is politically expedient, and he’s torn between the two. Ultimately he takes the easy road, and he caves into political pressure. Pilate denies the truth that he sees right in front of him.

Mark 13.1-11

Pentecost +25B

In time—in God’s time—what is said by Jesus will happen. Of course, we would like to know when that is; however, that is not our calling. We are called to live now, allowing the promises of God about the future to infuse our every present moment. Because when we live looking for the activity of God, here and now, we will begin to see it.

Read Ephesians 6:19-24

All Saints Sunday | November 7, 2021

The question that needs asking is will you love the legacy? Laying hold of the future; laying hold of a refreshed and reengaged assignment? A refreshed and reengaged calling? A refreshed and reengaged mission because my Bible says: “Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The legacy is the same; it is unchanging; this is a fantastic concept; our true north is this legacy. Because our roots and our foundations are set in this legacy, the legacy of the past, the legacy of the present, and the future. We are not called to create an atmosphere or an ambience for a Christian audience. 150 years ago, Christ Jesus called this Church to discipleship, “Therefore go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).

Read Deuteronomy 6.1-9; Mark 12.28-34

Pentecost +23B

For his first-century listeners, Jesus probably could have stopped with, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart". Because all that follows (soul, mind and strength) are implied in the biblical understanding of "heart". But for us as twenty-first-century listeners, we have shrunk the definition of heart to emotions. So when we hear "Love God with your whole heart," we might think Jesus means "Have only happy feelings about God."

Read Mark 10.46-52

Pentecost +22B

As believers in Jesus, we love this story. It is such a lovely warm story that shows the loving care of Jesus toward a man in desperate need. Here’s an interesting fact. This is the only person healed by Jesus recorded in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, who is actually named — Bartimaeus. It’s as though by the time Mark wrote this gospel, this man had become one of the well-known members of the early church. Maybe Bartimaeus never got tired of telling his story, and he never forgot that day when he first saw Jesus. And so here we have this true story of Bartimaeus, a person who responded well to the fact that Jesus was passing by.

Read Mark 10.32-52

Pentecost +21B

That’s the big question in our gospel text today, Who will you serve? I don’t know if you got a prickly feeling when you heard those words, or you just glossed over them, not noticing how much the words in the question run against your grain. Either way, I’ll ask the question again: who will you serve?

As a culture and as a species, we tend to prize freedom. We tend to prize accomplishment and autonomy, and self-determination and the list could go on.

This is why, if we slow down and take the question seriously, we will recognise how much it grates against our deeply held beliefs and our culturally formed sensibilities.

Yet perhaps one of the most dangerous misconceptions of our culture is that we are, indeed, free. We are autonomous beings who can live independent of all bonds of loyalty, devotion, and service.