Second Sunday of Lent

‘To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.’ [William Blake]

Today’s gospel story invites us to look again and see things in a new way - to see Jesus, ourselves and sisters and brothers as God’s beloved and to see Creation as God’s gift. Lent is our opportunity to liberate the imagination. We are offered the gift of renewed sight. We can see God within ourselves, each other and in Creation and recognise their sacredness and dignity. 

The classic image of Australia as a new and young country of opportunity and promise is an illusion. We are not a young country. We have history, languages, cultures, lore and traditions going back tens of millennia. We live in diverse places across the continent which historically recognised hundreds of First Nations. We, as Australians should all be proud to have a direct lineage to the world’s oldest, continuous culture and civilisation. We are a country whose very earth and land formation speak to deep time, history, mythology and dreaming. What we can agree on is that we are a country of opportunity.

First Sunday in Lent

’Who do you think you are?’ Today we return to our origins and remember who we are, how we are meant to be. We see where life was meant to be shared [Genesis], God's word was perverted and God’s image in people (others and ourselves) was disfigured and maimed. We are inundated with competing ideas about life, how to live, and many distortions of God’s image.