Author Archives: CraigT

MtE Update – June 4 2019

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  1. Our second quarter study groups commence this week; details are here; if you have not already, please let Craig know if you are planning to come…. NOTE, however, that the Tuesday night sessions will now not begin until next Tuesday, June 11.
  2. The most recent Presbytery News (May 31) is here.
  3. Later in June Craig will begin a series of sermons in Sunday worship on the book of the prophet Hosea. See here for a bit more information
  4. Check the lists in church for details of the ‘Dinners for Eight’ coming up in June and July.
  5. The Justice unit at the Uniting Church  : Refugee Week and Healing for the Climate Movement
  6. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday June 9, see the commentary links here. 

Old News

  1. Advance Dates
    1. June 22 (Saturday) Hotham Mission Bunnings BBQ – volunteers sought! 

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

Lectionary Commentary – Pentecost C

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The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.

Genesis 11:1-9 see also By the Well podcast on this text

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Acts 2:1-21 see also By the Well podcast on this text

Romans 8:14-17 see also By the Well podcast on this text

John 14:8-17 see also By the Well podcast on this text

Posted in Lectionary Commentary

Hosea – Love lost and found. Sermons in 2019

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Over the months of June to September(ish) in 2019, Craig will be preaching through a series of sermons on the book of Hosea.

    The prophet Hosea preached to the northern kingdom (‘Israel’, ‘Ephraim’ Samaria) in the eighth century BC. His preaching spanned many years, from times of great prosperity in Israel up to the imminent threat of war with Assyria, with no small amount of local political anarchy in the meantime (Hosea 1.1 lists a turnover of five kings). Assyria overcome the northern kingdom in 733-32 (BC), with Samaria falling in 721.

    A striking and, to modern ears, somewhat disconcerting image which dominates Hosea’s preaching is that of marital unfaithfulness expounded with the powerful language of whoredom and prostitution. Hosea’s personal life becomes a model for the relationship between Yahweh and Israel when Hosea is told to take ‘a wife of whoredom’, ‘for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord’ (1.2). The theme of Israel’s unfaithfulness is then developed in terms of adultery and seeking other ‘husbands.’ The children of this union are given names which symbolise the impact of Israel’s turning away from God.

    The charge of unfaithfulness is brought with anger and hurt on God’s part, and with the threat of dire consequences. At the same time, Yahweh’s willingness to forgive and be reconciled, by which Israel returns as ‘wife’ in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy (e.g., 2.14-23), is also a central theme of Hosea’s preaching.

Preparing for the series:

  • The best introduction to Hosea is to read the book itself. It’s not long and a half hour might get you through it. Plan to do this a few times through the series!
  • A short animated video introduction can be found here, which summarises the book a little simplistically nevertheless tells the story pretty well (how much can you expect from 7 minutes!?).
  • A more sophisticated introduction (with Isaiah) can be found in this lecture
  • So far as commentaries go, the ‘Interpretation’ series provides reliable introductions to biblical books for those who don’t need a full-blown scholarly treatment. The volume including Hosea can be found here, among other sources. Beeby’s commentary is a bit more expansive but still very accessible (here, among other places). A more general volume on the prophets, such as Brueggeman’s ‘The prophetic imagination‘ might also be helpful.

Posted in MtE News, Sermons

MtE Update – May 30 2019

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  1. Our second quarter study groups commence next week; details are here; if you have not already, please let Craig know if you are planning to come….
  2. A communication from the President of the UCA Assembly, in response to recent commentary in the ABC news about the reaction of some congregations to the Assembly’s 2019 resolution about same-sex marriage
  3. This Sunday June 2 Bruce Barber’s series on the Ten Commandments continues: ‘You shall not kill.’

Old News

  1. Advance Dates
    1. June 22 (Saturday) Hotham Mission Bunnings BBQ – volunteers sought! 

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

MtE Update – May 17 2019

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  1. The latest Synod eNews (May 10) is here.
  2. May Social Justice Events Nationwide from the Synod Justice Unit.
  3. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday May 19, see the commentary links here. 

Old News

  1. Advance Dates
    1. Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project POSTPONED to a date TBC
    2. June 22 (Saturday) Hotham Mission Bunnings BBQ – volunteers sought! 

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

Study Groups

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Our study groups return in 2025, with online read-and-discuss groups meeting each quarter for 4-8 weeks.

FIRST QUARTER

SECOND QUARTER

  • Our second quarter book will be Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith, How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good; details will be finalised and registration become available around Easter

THIRD QUARTER – TBA

FOURTH QUARTER – TBA

You might also be interested in our Quarterly Conversations on the Quarterly Essay

PREVIOUS STUDY GROUPS:

The following is a mostly complete list of study group materials we’ve used over the last decade or so…

2014

Lent: Bruce Barber — four presentations on “Beginning at the beginning, or Why is it like this?

May-July: William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical imagination

November: William Cavanaugh, Being consumed

2015

Lent: Reformation Questions for the contemporary church

2nd Quarter: Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel [Not the easiest read]

2016

Lent: Called to Holiness in Australia

August: Rowan Williams, Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer

2017

Lent: Bruce Barber, The Lord’s Prayer

2018

Paula Gooder: on The Joy of the Gospel

August 2015: Northrop Frye, The Great Code

2019

Lent: Rowan Williams The Spirit in the desert – audio of lectures

2020

Lent: Rowan Williams The sign and the sacrifice

April-Dec Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (Christine Hayes, Yale)

2021

Lent: Three studies on Mark’s Gospel (at St Mary’s)

Oct-?Feb 2022: Introduction to the New Testament (Dale Martin, Yale)

2022

Lent: Called to Community (video resource)

May-June 2022: Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as resistance

July-Aug: Miroslav Volf, Free of charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace.

Oct-Nov: Rowan Williams, Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life. 

2023

Lent: Rowan Williams, Meeting God in Paul

July-Aug: David Ford, The shape of living

Oct-Nov:  Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand, When church stops working: a future for your congregation beyond more money, programs and innovation.

2024

Lent: Samuel Wells, A cross in the heart of God

Aug-Sept:  Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies

Oct-Nov: Angles on world Christianity

2025

Lent: Rowan Williams, Christ on trial

May-June: Miroslav Volf A public faith

Other occasional studies have included

 Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom: How the church is to behave if freedom, justice and a Christian nation are bad ideas.

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

MtE Update – May 10 2019

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  1. This Sunday our congregational AGM follows morning tea, including the reception of annual reports, financial statements and the election of elders. Please plan to stay for the meeting if you can!
  2. This Sunday May 12, we return a monthly treatment of the Ten Commandment from Bruce Barber; for more information, here. This week, ‘honour your father and mother’!
  3. The Hotham Mission web site has had a complete makeover. It’s still a work in progress, but have a look here…
  4. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday April 28 17, see the commentary links here. 

Old News

  1. Advance Dates
    1. May 12 — Congregational AGM 
    2. Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project POSTPONED to a date TBC
    3. June 22 (Saturday) Hotham Mission Bunnings BBQ – volunteers sought! 

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

May 14 – Matthias, Simon, Jude

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These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Matthias, Simon, Jude,  apostles

Matthias filled the place left vacant by Judas Iscariot after his betrayal of Jesus subsequent demise (Acts 1:23-26). Peter depicts his death as foreshadowed in scripture and then points to the need to replace him as apostle with someone who had been with them throughout Jesus’ ministry. “So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias” (Acts 1:23). Having prayed, they cast lots, and Matthias was chosen. The author, Luke, assumes that praying and doing the equivalent of tossing a coin would achieve the desired outcome. We hear nothing more of Matthias. Luke’s story of Matthias reflects his view that there were (and needed to be) twelve apostles, almost certainly as symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel. Limiting who could be called an apostle to the twelve stands in some tension with Paul’s view, who claimed also to be an apostle (1 Cor 9:1). In his day some denied his right to be so, possibly because they understood “apostle” as Luke or Luke’s source had done, although Luke also knew stories which called Paul and Barnabas “apostles” (14:14). Otherwise we know nothing of Mattias except for sayings attributed to him as part of a Gospel or Tradition of Matthias believed to have been composed early in the second century.

Simon, named as one of the twelve disciples, is sometimes called the “Cananean”, an Aramaic word (Matt 10:4; Mark 3:18), which Luke translates as “Zealot” (Luke 6:13; Acts 1:13). A group called “Zealots” were part of the uprising against Rome in Jerusalem which Rome crushed in 70 CE, but the term could also be used for zealous devout Jews, although readers of the gospels which appeared after 70 CE may well have understood him to have been a sympathiser with those who resisted Rome. He is not to be confused with Simon Peter, Simon the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3), Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21), Simon the magician (Acts 8:9), or Simon the tanner (Acts 9:43).

Jude (also called Judas) was one of Jesus’ brothers along with James (Jacob), Joses (Joseph), and Simon (Simeon, not “the Zealot”). He is not to be confused with the two disciples with that name among the twelve: Judas Iscariot and “Judas, son of James” (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22), nor with Judas of Damascus (Acts 9:11), nor with “Judas called Barsabbas” (Acts 15:22). Mark tells us that he and his family once wanted to take Jesus home because they thought he was beside himself (3:20-21) and that his family did not accept him (6:4). The image of Jesus’ family in Matthew and Luke is more positive. Eventually we find his brother James running the church in Jerusalem, but also Jude being attributed with leadership and penning the Letter of Jude. He may have done so, although many conclude that it was more likely written in his name much later like the Letter attributed to James.

William Loader

Posted in LitBits, LitBits - People to Commemorate
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