As we continue reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer we are invited to consider: what is enough?

Sermon Sunday 7th March, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

We continue reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer. When we pray for the Father’s ‘kingdom to come’ and ‘will be done’ questions arise. How can we know the will of the Father? How can we know what the kingdom looks like?

As Jesus teaches us to pray, we are reminded that a strong prayer life allows us to hear the voice and call of God most clearly.

Sermon Sunday February 28th, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

Dealing with the powers that be is a tricky thing. We explore the teachings of Jesus and we reflect on our discomfort at being revolutionaries. It is difficult to side-step the reality that Jesus cops the worst of all punishments from Rome because he directly confronts the power of Caesar.

Sermon Sunday February 21st, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

We continue reflecting on the Lord’s prayer:

Your kingdom come
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus and the disciples are in the town of Caesarea Philipi. Jesus asks them about who people think he might be. He then asks the disciples for their own insight. As Peter is congratulated for his divinely inspired response to Jesus, it is amidst the backdrop of a different kingdom. We reflect on Jesus’ kingdom in contrast to Rome, and the sobering reminder that Jesus begins a journey towards crucifixion.

Sermon, Sunday February 14th, 2010 (pdf)

We continue reflecting on the prayer that Jesus taught us. Often we struggle to keep reverence or hallowing and intimacy together, but Jesus teaches us to be bold in our approach to the Father.

Sermon Sunday February 7th, 2010 (pdf)

We begin a series of reflections on the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. We wonder how the words Jesus has given us relates to Paul’s idea that words are inadequate. We discover a source of ‘sighs too deep for words’ and come to a new understanding of prayer.

Sermon Sunday January 31st, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

The ministry of Jesus is beginning to take shape as we hear of his speaking in the Synagogue of his home town. As he reads from the scroll of Isaiah, we can an insight into the nature of his ministry. As Jesus brings good news, it is good news because it is more than a blessing of God’s love, but fundamentally it is about addressing social needs.

Sermon Sunday January 24th, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

At the wedding of Cana in Galilee, Jesus turns vast amounts of water into wine and saves the wedding host from great embarrassment. While we rightly focus on Jesus and the disciples who ‘believe in him’, there is a key person of faith in this story who often goes unnoticed.

Mary begins this sequence of events with such conviction and faith in her son that she compels the stewards to ‘listen to him’. Her conviction rubs off on them, and soon the whole village of Cana has been transformed through the abundance of God.

Sermon Sunday January 17th, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

When John the baptiser claims he is unworthy to even untie the sandals on Jesus’ feet, we begin to sense that Jesus is unreachable.

The gospel speaks loudly to a counter-reality. It is God who takes initiative and reaches out to both Jesus and then to all of humanity through Jesus. Barriers, pedestals, and notions of worthiness all seem to melt into nothing in the light of God’s grace.

Sermon for Sunday Jan 10th, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga

The gospel of John begins in a most radical way:

In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.

… and the Word became flesh and lived among us.

We consider the impact that such grand theology has upon us, and discover that through the incarnation this impact is known in very tangible and concrete ways.

Sunday January 3rd, 2010 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga