In Luke chapter 15, the parable of wayward son and the gracious father is one of the most touching scenes of forgiveness and reconciliation but it only captures part and not the whole of the Gospel. For the reconciliation of which the Gospel speaks is the accomplished mystery of The Cross - that God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's sins against them. Something to contemplate this Lent season.

To understand the life of faith and doubt, our tradition give us the story of Abraham and his family. Not enough attention has been paid, however, to Hagar the slave woman, and Ishmael to rejected son. Let the tragedy of love rip your heart out.

Eve is a much misunderstood and misused symbol of Biblical womanhood and, quite frankly, the New Testament references to her are not feasible for faith today. But if we understand how Hebrew interpretation can work, we find a way to honour scripture, honour the motif of Eve, and honour the women of today.

Presenting a minority opinion of the church: that Adam is not a literal historical figure but a spiritual motif, and that Paul's use of the Adam and Christ parallel in Romans chapter 5 is a fully universalist presentation, one that we have been trained not to see on the page.

Paul asserts that the hope and peace we have with God is not grounded in anything we have ever done but in the objective historical fact of Christ dying for us all while we were yet enemies of God. If he gave us his unconditional love while we were sinners, how much more shall we be made secure in his love now that we are his stumbling children.

meditations on the Christian core value of reconciliation

We have a long conversational teaching session on the ethically challenging legends surrounding Abraham. Text critical realities, ethical challenges, interpretation questions, and lot of interesting discussion.

Looking at the full new testament references to Abraham's faith - in James, Hebrews, Galatians, Romans - we find that things aren't as simple as mere belief.

Chapter 4 of Romans is all about how right standing with God is attained by trust in God, and not any particular religion or ethnic belonging. That way Jews and non-Jews are found righteous in the exactly the same way, by faith

The actual story of advent and Christmas is one of shocking upheaval, as the world of men and power politics is overcome by the meekness of women and the miracle of incarnation