In our final sermon in this 2024 Advent series, James Hennings reflects on the role of shepherds in the story of God's salvation plan. In doing so, he shows that God has always chosen to reveal himself to 'the least, the last, the lowly' and he reflects on what this says about the way God wants to meet with us in our own lowliness too.

Jonathan continues our advent series by reflecting on the way the Star of Bethlehem functions as a symbol of that which brings us to the edge of our control. He looks at how Herod and the magi's divergent responses to the star represent the choice we face in our own discipleship to Jesus.

This year we are exploring advent through various "eye-witness" accounts of Jesus' first arrival. In the first sermon of this series, Anne offers both a playful and deeply thoughtful reflection on what the angels might have experienced as they witnessed the unfolding action of God's saving mission. Using characters of Tolkien's Middle Earth (as a way of making the familiar strange), Anne imagines how different angels would have reacted to the 'plot-twists' in God's mission to save us. In doing so, she maps out some familiar tendencies and responses which the people of God have made over time in the face of uncertainty and disbelief. In doing so, she invites us to see our own stories in the context of God's ongoing saving work and to adopt the posture of Mary and Jospeh, that is, to tremble and trust in the faithfulness of "the God of the plot-twist."

Peter brings our series to a conclusion showing how Luke presents Jesus as the one who is "made known in the breaking of bread." In this way, Pete (following St Luke) shows how our meals, and all the ordinary moments of our lives, have the capacity to become sites where we are welcomed into the home of God.

We are in the middle of a series exploring how Jesus' meals in the Gospel of Luke reveal God's work of making the world into His home. In this sermon, Lloyd offers a deep reflection on the significance of the meal which Jesus instituted the night before he was crucified (Luke 22:7-30). Every meal we eat can (if we are paying attention) be an opportunity to anticipate and even experience a taste of the great banquet God which is preparing for all of creation.

We are in the middle of series exploring how Jesus' meals in the Gospel of Luke reveal God's work of making the world his home. In this sermon, Victoria Rankin shares how Jesus used the table as a place to welcome outsiders into God's home. She gently challenged us to consider how hospitality, when grounded in it's proper context of Biblical theology, can be a life-changing ministry for us and for those around us, particularly, those on the margins.

“Behold, the home of God is now among humans!” (Revelation 21:3)The New Testament reaches its crescendo with this startling declaration: God’s home is arriving among us.At the final consummation of history, as death itself is destroyed and all “mourning and crying and pain” pass away, we find, perhaps to our surprise, the image of a home, a residence, a dwelling. The home is not often presented in such significant terms. Typically the domestic sphere is seen as less important, less serious or consequential as the public. The metaphor of home conjures images of insularity and smallness. A cozy pocket to retreat into. A bourgeois dream reducible to the pages of Home and Garden magazine or a real estate agent’s listing. And yet, the “loud voice from the throne” does not pluck this metaphor of home out of nowhere. Home is threaded throughout scripture, stretching all the way back to the very first pages of the Bible. What does it look like when God makes His home among us? For Luke, it looks a lot like a meal. Home is where the heart is - so the saying goes - and if the most direct route to the heart is through the belly, then a meal is the quintessential enactment of home.For Jesus, the table was a site of transformative encounter with rich and poor, the sinner and the self-righteous, the doubter and the believer. His meals were moments in which He welcomed people to be at home with one another and with God. In the same way, our meals can become moments where we taste more than what’s on the plate; they can become sites of encounter with the God who is making his home among us. This is not to say meals are inherently warm and fuzzy moments of domestic bliss. Our relationship to what’s on the plate is far more complicated than that. But when we welcome Jesus to meet us in that most ordinary and essential activity of eating a meal, we may find that His work of establishing home in our neighbourhood has already begun. We may find that a meal forces us to rethink everything. In this first sermon, Jonathan introduces the theme of God's homemaking work, and shows how Jesus acts as the herald of the Home of God by enacting the jubilee meal where ever he went.

In this final sermon in our series on the ten words, Anne presents a compelling and convincing interpretation of the prohibition against bearing false witness against our neighbour. Anne shows that the commandment is more than a prohibition against slander, but instead, is an invitation into a life of truth-seeking and truth speaking that builds up our neighbour and brings us deeper into God's gracious care. This is a fitting conclusion to a series that has sought to show how the commandments are always designed to lead us to perfect freedom in Christ.

James continues our sermon series on the Ten Commandments, looking at the prohibition against coveting. He uses stories from the Hebrew Bible to show how damaging coveting has been when it has taken hold amongst God's people, and he shows how the early church was characterised as a joyful 'anti-coveting' community of abundance, because of how Christ made them truly rich.