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A day in the life of Jesus

I wonder what fills your typical day. Work? Volunteering? Catching up with friends or family? Minding grandchildren? Housework and preparing meals? I wonder also where God fits into your day. A prayer at the start and end of the day or before meals? An intentional time of reading the Scriptures and meditating on them?

In the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel we are given a glimpse of a typical day for Jesus. It’s fairly breathless activity from morning until evening as Jesus teaches, heals, confronts unclean spirits, heals some more and plans his next move. Somewhere in the busy schedule there must be time for eating and there is definitely a time for prayer and solitude. In other words there is both action and reflection, doing and connecting with God … which is a good model for our lives.

As followers of Jesus, are we called to emulate Jesus’ busy schedule of speaking and healing (and what might this look like in our context)? In this passage from Mark, we are offered both positive and negative examples of what it means to be a disciple. Negatively, we are offered the example of the male disciples who seem to want to organize and bend Jesus to their own program of ministry, which Jesus resists. Positively, we are shown the example of Peter’s mother-in-law who serves and offers hospitality. Our first response may be to dismiss this as first century gender stereotyping. But the same word for serving (diakoneo) is later used by Jesus to summarise his own mission (Mark 10:45). So let us learn to follow Jesus using the gifts and passions we’ve been given, but to do so from a position of loving and serving others.

Worship this week is at Croydon UC building but will be streamed on Zoom using a different link which is the Croydon Zoom Link. Folk at Croydon North can also gather at Croydon North church to watch the service together or you can watch from home as during lockdown.  So please come along to either venue or login to Zoom from 9.45 am. Please click on the Zoom link in this week’s newsletter or contact Sue McKenzie for access.

From the Minister,

Digging deeper on Australia Day

For many people in Australia, 26th January is a final public holiday to be enjoyed before schools start back and life resumes its hectic activity. But for indigenous Australians it is a day to mourn – for loss of ancestors who died during the invasion by Europeans, for land stolen and culture destroyed.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus states that the truth will set us free. The truth that Jesus has in mind is the truth about the nature of God and how to live the abundant life that is possible through God. The truth about Australia Day is of a different order but still vitally important for our country. The truth that can set us free is to know what happened during and following the settlement/invasion of British colonisers – to recognize the great harm and suffering inflicted on the indigenous inhabitants and also to recognize that our current prosperity is built on the theft of land from indigenous peoples. These injustices from the past continue in the present and must be addressed if we are to truly become one people.

In the words of a Benedictine prayer, may God bless us with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that we may seek truth boldly and love deep within our hearts. And may God bless us with holy anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that we may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

From the Minister,

The shape of Jesus’ ministry

One sometimes hears the comment from a person who professes to be a Christian and follower of Jesus that they want nothing to do with the church. This may be because they think the church is corrupt and only interested in propping up the institution, or that the church is pretty much irrelevant in our day, or that they’ve had a bad experience with someone in the church previously. Whatever the reason, it seems unlikely to me that Jesus would ever encourage a person to be a solo Christian in the world.

Why do I say this? Based on the reading from Mark’s Gospel this week that the first act in Jesus’ public ministry is to call four people to follow him. These four are ordinary folk, fishermen, and have no particular qualifications or experience to make them stand out from others. As we soon discover they are also quite fallible and make mistakes and get confused. So they are quite like us! Jesus will be their mentor and teacher, but pretty soon they will be extending the ministry of Jesus based on what they have seen and heard from him. These four are soon joined by others – both women and men – so that there is a growing community of people who follow Jesus.

So it has always been, right from the beginning. This was clearly Jesus’ intention rather than being a Plan B if things did not go well. Jesus deliberately formed a new community who followed his ways and taught others to do the same. Certainly the church over the years has shown itself to be fallible, to make mistakes and to get confused – just like the people who make it up – but the shape of Jesus’ ministry is clear – follow me and be part of the movement that I am establishing.

Worship this week is at Croydon UC building but will be streamed on Zoom using the regular link. Folk at Croydon North can also gather at Croydon North church to watch the service together or you can watch from home as during lockdown.  So please come along to either venue or login to Zoom from 9.45 am.

From the Minister

Jesus is baptised

We’ve barely finished singing Christmas carols and eating Christmas leftovers and hot cross buns are already on sale in our supermarkets. Consumerism, it seems, waits for no one. It’s a little the same with Mark’s Gospel. Within the opening few verses he’s introduced John the Baptist and his message about repentance. Then Jesus arrives on the scene, unannounced and incognito. He’s one among many people being baptised by John in the muddy waters of the Jordan River.

What marks Jesus out is what happens after he’s baptised … as God’s Spirit descends on him like a dove and a voice from heaven proclaims him to be ‘My Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased’. Jesus is named and affirmed and empowered, ready to begin his ministry (after a period of testing in the wilderness). What is true for Jesus is also true for Jesus’ followers, including ourselves. We too are named and affirmed and empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. What a blessing and what a challenge! How ready are you to follow in Jesus’ footsteps as we begin the new year?

Worship this week is at Croydon North UC building abut will be streamed on Zoom using the regular link. Folk at Croydon can also gather at Croydon church to watch the service together or you can watch from home as during lockdown.  So please come along to either venue or login to Zoom from 9.45 am.

From the Minister

The great inspiration of Mary

Christmas is nearly here and this week we light the fourth Advent candle, the candle representing love. Not the mushy sentimental love that features in Christmas movies and most nativity scenes but the practical and costly love that is at the heart of the biblical Christmas story.

Mary is both a recipient and a giver of this love. Gabriel greets her as someone who has found favour with God and who is given a unique role as the mother of God’s Son. Nothing in her life to this point would have indicated her readiness or worthiness for such a role. Hence Mary is perplexed but thankful that she has been chosen. Like many others in the gospel story she is a relative nobody just trying to live a faithful life and by God’s grace she becomes a conduit for God’s love to be revealed to the world.

She will of course give birth to Jesus and nurture him in faith as he grows up. She will watch as he begins his ministry of healing and teaching, and she will watch in anguish as he is later crucified. She will be part of the emerging Christian community of faith that gathers after the resurrection. She will love Jesus as only a mother can and will bear the cost of watching her son die.

Like others in the gospel narrative, she is not the central character but one of many characters that point to Jesus and the love of God revealed through him. I wonder how your life and your choices shine the love of God to those around you as you in turn point others towards Jesus.

This week we again have a combined collaborative service prepared by Heathmont, Ringwood, Ringwood North and our two Croydon congregations. You will see and hear from several familiar faces from Croydon and Croydon North. Join together at 10 am in your respective worship spaces or login at the following website https://nruc.online.church/ from 9.45 am.

Click here for worship@home resources.

Church@home, From the Minister

Blessing – and justice

After the year of 2020 that we’ve all experienced, who would like some good news, divine favour, comfort and joy? These are some of the blessings promised in the reading from Isaiah 61. However bleak the situation is facing God’s people on their return from exile in Babylon, God promises great blessing and hope for the future.

Similar claims are made in Mary’s song the Magnificat (so-called because this is the opening word of the song in its Latin translation) … God has done great things for those who fear him (like Mary), the lowly have been lifted up, the hungry fed. Blessings abound!

There’s just one small problem. Nobody seems to have told the leaders and rulers of the nations about these new arrangements. They still rule through military might and oppression, they still hoard most of the wealth, and they’re not about to give up these privileges, whether we’re speaking of the Romans in the time of Mary, the Persians in the time of Isaiah, or the wealthy elite in many countries of the world today. The vision we are offered in Isaiah and in Mary’s song doesn’t seem to match our world’s lived reality. So are these just idle promises? Or is our call to seek justice to turn the world right side up? When Jesus preached on the Isaiah passage (as recounted in Luke 4), his audience were quite happy to accept God’s blessings but far less keen to share them with others. They were also angry that Jesus didn’t stress God’s judgment on their enemies. It seems that our sense of and commitment to justice may not match that of Jesus. Will we accept both God’s blessing and God’s call to seek justice?

This week we again have face-to-face worship at Croydon North this Sunday. For Croydon North people who want to attend, the service will start at 10 am in the worship space as per the old pattern. For Croydon people, the service will be broadcast via Zoom at 10 am in the worship space.  For everyone else, this worship service will be streamed via Zoom in the usual way (fingers crossed that the technology all works as planned). So please come along to either venue or login to Zoom from 9.45 am.

We will be basing our worship on the attached worship@home resource for this week, so it would be handy for those on Zoom to have a copy present.

Click here for worship@home resources.



Church@home, From the Minister,

A new beginning

This week still feels like a new beginning – as we will be gathering together for the first face-to-face worship at Croydon in many months. The whole season of Advent is about beginnings – the beginning of the church year, the beginning of the hope and promise of the Messiah, the beginning of the good news of Jesus.

In the reading from Isaiah, God’s people are invited to imagine a new beginning in their relationship with God and in a promised return to their home in Jerusalem. Their past sins will be wiped away and God will prepare the way through the desert for their journey. It will be like a new Exodus for the people.

The opening verse in Mark’s gospel reads ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ’. It’s not immediately clear whether the beginning stands for the whole Gospel to follow or for the ministry of John who is preparing people for the coming of Jesus. Mark identifies John as the voice crying in the wilderness from Isaiah 40:3, indicating that the good news is beginning in the wilderness, at the margins.

I wonder what new beginnings you have experienced this year? Perhaps learning new ways to keep in touch with others? New ways to shop? New ways to worship God at home? Has it felt like a wilderness experience that caused you to trust more in God’s provision?

More exciting news this week as we begin face-to-face worship at Croydon  this Sunday for the first time in over 8 months. For Croydon people who want to attend, the service will start at 10 am in the worship space as per the old pattern. For Croydon North people, the service will be broadcast via Zoom at 10 am in the worship space.  For everyone else, this worship service will be streamed via Zoom in the usual way (fingers crossed that the technology all works as planned). So please come along to either venue or login to Zoom from 9.45 am.

We will be basing our worship on the attached worship@home resource for this week, so it would be handy for those on Zoom to have a copy present.

Click here for worship@home resources.

Church@home, From the Minister,

Welcome to Advent

This week feels like a new beginning – with some of us joining together for the first face-to-face worship in 8 months. So it feels like a time to give thanks and voice hope for the future.

But this week many of us will continue to gather virtually by Zoom and others again will be worshipping at home alone. So it also feels like a time to mourn for the lives, the freedoms and the hopes that we have lost this year and acknowledge what has been and continues to be a dreadful year for many people in many places across the world.

This week is also a time to wait on God and pray for God to act to restore what has been lost and to heal what has been broken and what is still hurting in the world.

Welcome to the season of Advent, the season of waiting. It is a season that invites us into a space of lament and suffering and longing – longing for justice, longing for restoration, longing for healing. Perhaps for the first time for many of us, we can resonate with the feelings of lament in the Hebrew prophets for God to act and bring change to a hurting world (as expressed in Isaiah 64:1-9).

Advent is also a season of hope. It invites us to a space of trust that God has not forgotten or abandoned us but rather is still at work in the world in quiet and unexpected places bringing new life and new possibilities for change and for good. In the gospel reading this week we are invited to be alert and to look for such signs emerging around us. I wonder what you are seeing?

Some exciting news this week as we begin face-to-face worship at Croydon North this Sunday for the first time in over 8 months. For Croydon North people, the service will start at 10 am in the worship space as per the old pattern.  For everyone else, this worship service will be streamed via Zoom in the usual way (fingers crossed that the technology all works as planned). So please login to Zoom from 9.45 am.

We will be basing our worship on the attached worship@home resource for this week, so it would be handy for those on Zoom to have a copy present.

Click here for worship@home resources

Church@home, From the Minister,

Practical faith

There has been a long theological debate – lasting millennia – about the relative importance of faith and works. As Protestants, we may recall that this was one of the key turning points of the Reformation with Luther and others arguing that we are saved by faith alone.

I think it would have been fun – and informative – to host a debate between the apostle Paul and the writers of the Gospel of Matthew and the letters of James and John. Paul and John insist that we are saved by faith alone yet encourage their communities to act with compassion towards the poor and needy. Matthew and James insist that it is our works of mercy and compassion that demonstrate our faith and that without them our faith is useless. Yet each of these writers assumes we have faith in God.

In this week’s parable about the sheep and the goats it is interesting that faith is never mentioned as a criterion for obtaining eternal life – whether faith in God or faith in Jesus. Instead it is whether people have shown practical love to the hungry, the homeless and the stranger. This is consistent with the teaching and ministry of Jesus presented throughout Matthew’s Gospel. What is at stake is how our faith is lived out in practice.

Our challenge is finding the right balance between our beliefs and how we live, which are like two sides of a coin. One way forward is by taking to heart verses like Micah 6:8:

God has shown you, O human, what is good:
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice
and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God.

We will be holding a Zoom worship meeting this Sunday morning from 9.45 am. I will host the meeting from my home but it will be an opportunity to hold a larger (virtual) gathering and to see each others’ faces. We will be basing our worship on the attached worship@home resource for this week, so it would be handy to have a copy present. We can send you a link to the meeting or a phone number and meeting details if you sign up by emailing the Croydon UC church office on office@croydon.unitingchurch.org.au or using the form in the sidebar.

Click here for worship@home resources

Church@home, From the Minister,

Talents and how to use them

It’s not too often that biblical words and phrases take on a whole new life in the English language. But some images and phrases do stick. Think of the images of a Good Samaritan or a Prodigal Son (or Daughter) that have entered common parlance. There is a word from this week’s parable that has enjoyed similar treatment, namely the concept of a talent. English has picked up this word from the Greek talanton, which was a measure of weight used for gold, silver or coins.

In the parable a wealthy Master gives varying numbers of talents (representing large amounts of money) to three of his servants, to each according to their ability. In English it is this latter association that has stuck, so that a talent is seen as a skill or ability that a person possesses to be used to enrich the lives of those around them. So the common interpretation of this parable is that we have all received talents from God that we are to grow and use to benefit others. The warning is to not be like the third servant who buries his talent in the ground (i.e. doesn’t use or develop it). Of course, the talents may not be individual traits but rather a measure of God’s abundant love and grace freely given to all and to be shared widely.

There are some problems with this interpretation. These relate to Jesus’ teaching elsewhere about money and wealth (key aspects of the parable) as well as the character of the Master (seen as greedy, vindictive). An alternative interpretation (also not without its share of difficulty) is that the Master represents the Emperor (or King Herod) who encourages people (or Israel) to make money at the expense of the poor and thus to play along with an oppressive system. The most faithful response is that of the third servant who refuses to play the game but who pays for his lack of engagement when the Master returns.

So we are invited to reflect on this parable and see what its message may be for each of us. Perhaps a call to use what we have at hand to build up God’s kingdom in our midst. Perhaps a reminder of the great value of God’s love that is not to be hoarded but rather shared. Or perhaps a warning not to participate in systems that are geared towards wealth creation over caring for people. May God give us ears to listen.

This Sunday we will not be meeting by Zoom for worship. Instead we encourage people to watch and participate in the collaborative service prepared by Heathmont, Ringwood, Ringwood North and our two Croydon congregations. You will see and hear from several familiar faces from Croydon and Croydon North, including Rev Peter. To log in to the service go to the following website https://nruc.online.church/ before 10 am.

If you are unable to join us to participate online, click here for worship@home resources.

Church@home, From the Minister