Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Readings: Song of Songs 2:8–13; James 1:17–27 & Mark 7:1–8, 14–23 A number of years ago I was working in Clayton and living in Mulgrave. The company I worked for at the time was located on Centre Road, not far from the intersection with Westall Road. Between the street that I lived on and Centre…

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost Readings: 1 Kings 8:22–30, 41–43; Ephesians 6:10–20 & John 6:56–69 Where is God?  My answer to this question as a young boy was, “He’s in heaven”. And heaven of course was up above me in the sky, and my image of God being in heaven was one of Him reclining on a large, white cloud.…

Sermon for Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost Readings: 1 Kings 2:10–12, 3:3–14; Ephesians 5:11–21 & John 6:51–58 When John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency of the United States in 1960, he was viewed with suspicion by many Protestants and Evangelicals, as well as many non-Christians, on account of his staunch Roman Catholic background. There were those who believed he would have “dual…

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost  Readings: 2 Samuel 11:26–12:13a; Ephesians 4:1–16 & John 6:24–35 In the late nineteenth–century, the established patriarchy in the United States came under threat, surprisingly not so much from calls for women to be granted the vote and access to higher education, but from of all things, the bicycle! In particular, it was the actual act…