The Parish

Following Jesus takes us on a costly path, because his way is the path of love

We begin the journey to Easter with Jesus, and are reminded that if we follow him, it's our journey too.

Lent begins this Wednesday – though for many of us it may feel like it began on some Wednesday back in 2020 and has never ended. How can we find hope in this season of languishing?

In a world where we have forgotten how to love each other, God’s love can be hard to see and not just for others but for us as well—this can be remedied.

We are told to love our neighbour as ourselves. But for some of us, that first step – of self-love – seems daunting.

As humans we just don’t need to learn how to love, apparently we also need to learn who to love.  It really wasn’t supposed to be as complicated as we have made it, but that doesn’t mean it was meant to be easy either.

Our image of God may have many layers created by a mix of happy and heartbreaking experiences, helpful and misleading teaching. But what if, after we scrape away all those images, what we find is love?

The idea that love is all we need isn’t wrong, it's just misunderstood.  It is time to open up this box and see what's inside.

Today we look at Paul's take on God's work of bringing the kingdom of heaven - work that we are invited to be part of. It's an epic task but we'll find that the resources we are given are more than adequate.

What enables us to Shine is not our diplomas or our successes but our time spent in the dark.

Salting the earth is not an add-on to a list of things we need to do – it is the by-product when a community is flourishing, when it’s living life together in the Jesus way.

As Mary returned to Nazareth after a tumultuous time away, she didn’t have pat answers or tidy explanations of what God was doing. But she had a heart full of memories and had acquired the skill of pondering them in a way that sustained and stretched her.

Sometimes you cannot take what you discover, but you can keep what is revealed. 

The Christmas story is ultimately a story about God, and what the shepherds discover on that wintry night in Bethlehem is a God Who is both infinite and intimate.

You may not realize that Mary encounters two angels in the birth story recorded by Luke.  One gives her the courage to head to the hill country in Judea, and the other to return home.

It's one thing to say you are being persecuted because of Christianity, but it is a completely different thing to say you are being persecuted because of Jesus.  One enables you to flourish, the other has you criticizing coffee cups.

In our sadly divided world, peace has been reduced to the absence of conflict and is enforced with walls. But Jesus offers a better way!

Jesus announces the flourishing of those who are pure. But to get there we don't need to time travel back to an age of innocence - we need a renovation of the heart!