Topic: Love

Tonight we farewelled Peter from our congregation as he moves north, and he shared his reflections of what his time in this church has meant to him.

In his own demonstration of self-sacrificial love, Jesus has shown us what God is like and called us to love God and one another by loving likewise.

By lifting us out our enthralment to evil and death, Jesus sets us free from all that corrupts us and opens us to share real life with him.

When we expected to be shamed as we have shamed others, we are shocked and saved by the unexpected mercy of the crucified and risen Jesus.

The light of Christ reaches the world through those who will bear the wounds of love.

Jesus was born to reveal and fulfil what God had long sought to do; set people free to live joyously as God’s children.

For both God and us, time can drag when waiting for change, but patience is salvation when forgiveness is offered as a means of change rather than as a reward for change.

God has created a world that becomes healthy, free and full of life when its nations honour and care for the most vulnerable. Nations that fail to build cultures of compassion and care are doomed to destroy themselves.

Today, as in Jesus’s day, two fundamentally different visions of God and God’s expectations compete. Jesus calls us to side with the one that centres on love rather than the one that centres on concerns for holiness.

The marriage equality debate raises questions about authority, but prophetic authority is not proved by fidelity to past rules, but by its power to produce a harvest of new life and love among the people.

When Jesus exposes our aversion to having others recognised as our equals, he calls us to repent and celebrate God’s generosity to all. The marriage equality debate exposes another frontier of his challenge to us.

Jesus calls us to welcome and honour each other at his table regardless of the disagreements we may have over how to apply biblical teachings.