Romans | While Rhodes burns

An homage to Targum, reading Romans 8 through an ecological lens this hottest month on record. Read here or listen here. 

Isaiah | The city of joy

A city of joy, its people a delight: this is what God promises through the prophet Isaiah. Sounds wonderful! So, what are the elements of this joyful city? First, says Isaiah, health and wellbeing ...

Read here or listen here.

Deuteronomy | In the face of climate catastrophe, choose life

This week, as cataclysmic floods pour across Pakistan, destroying farms, roads, towns and infrastructure and displacing over 30 million people; as unprecedented heatwaves and wildfires continue to threaten much of Europe; as long-term drought impacts water security for millions of people in the southwest United States; as we brace ourselves for the likelihood of another La Niña cycle and further devastating floods; as we learn that the catastrophic bushfires along the Great Dividing Range burned six metres deep in places, rendering regrowth impossible, the most famous words of Moses’ most famous sermon should ring loud and clear ... Read here or listen here.

Pentecost | God's holy breath

Take a breath. The breath which you have drawn in, which fills your blood with oxygen and gives your body life, is the same air which —  who knows? — a pterodactyl breathed and a pobblebonk in the rushes and a kangaroo on a nearby plain. It’s the sigh of a cyclamen on a Florentine hillside and the blow of a blue whale arcing from the sea and the song of every ancestor who has gone before; it’s the original reuse, recycle ...

Read here or listen here.

But he was still hungry ...

"On the fifth day, the Second One was given schools of mullet to swim through the bay, and long dark kooyang to leap up the falls. Flocks of corellas caroused through the sky and yellow tailed black cockatoos called out. Spotted pardalotes filled the karrang, and cormorants perched, airing their wings. The waters and skies were filled with life: but he was still hungry ..." A mashed up re-telling of a few old stories. Told tonight on Peek Wurrung country, Eastern Maar nation

Read here or listen here.

Job | Responsibility, awe and wonder

All of us have big questions about human suffering: our own, and that which we see around us. And twenty months into a pandemic, with other griefs and losses mounting, with the prolonged physical distance from family and friends, and with climate catastrophe unfolding all around, these questions feel more urgent, more desperate, than ever.

Read here, or listen here.

In a climate emergency, Jeremiah shows us how to lament

According to Jeremiah 12, injustice leads to land degradation and species loss. In an era of anthropogenic climate change, these words have new resonance and show us how to lament. Read here or listen here.

Biblical wisdom, cultural knowledge, and healing

Biblical wisdom leads to understanding the particularities of place and the interconnectedness of all things, and is a source of hope for the healing of the earth. Read here, or listen here.

The bitch slaps back

Bitch. It’s a vicious taunt. Every time I hear it, I’m left enraged, gutted, and gasping, which is exactly what the taunter wants. It’s meant to silence: and mostly, it works. It tells me that the speaker doesn’t see me as fully human. There seems no point in continuing the relationship: so I shut my mouth, and move away ...

Read here or listen  here.

Better a dinner of greens ...

I hate lockdown with a passion. And yet, there have been gifts. A reflection on 'steak and trouble' vs gardening, prayer and slow living, digging deep into the book of Proverbs. Read here, or listen here.

Liturgy for the longest night

Tonight we gathered around a fire pit in the church carpark (current COVID restrictions put the kybosh on a bonfire in a local paddock); and we marked the winter solstice. You can read the liturgy here.

Walking between the waves: On state power, military violence and our hybrid identity

When a nation is founded on violence, and uses violence to ensure people’s ongoing submission and obedience, the forces of chaos will one day overwhelm and destroy it. 

Read here or listen here.

Plagues, and other signs and wonders: A story for our times

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a nation whose gods shaped it into a pyramid of power. At the top was one man: Pharaoh: the semi-divine son of the sun god Ra. And as happens to everyone, Pharaoh was made in his god’s image. Dominating. Enslaving. Murderous. Turning the things of life—midwives, the Nile—into instruments of death ...

Read here, or listen here.

Aunty Sandra Onus, Lidia Thorpe, and the pharaoh with no name

On the other side of Gariwerd, along the Western Highway, you’ll find a camp. It’s the Djab Wurrung Heritage Protection Embassy ...

Read here, or listen here.

In the face of chaos, a new story

As the Black Lives Matter protests unfold, let us remember an old story, given to a people who were also invaded, removed from their land, forced into slavery and subject to state sanctioned violence. Read here or listen here.

Jesus Christ, the apple tree, and me

While we were away with our sister church recently, Phil went for a walk. When he came back, Uncle Den wandered up for a chat: “I saw you come back from a bit of a walk-about just now.” “Yep,” said Phil, and he told Uncle Den how much he loves being outside by himself, and how he finds peace and rejuvenation there. Uncle Den asked him, “So do you talk to the birds that you see? Do you stop to listen to what they might wanna say to you? How ‘bout the trees? They’re always talking; do you listen to them, too?”

Read here, or listen here.

Crushed by capitalism? Consider the ravens

Weighed down by capitalism’s incessant demands? Consider the ravens and discover a renewed way of life.

Read here, or listen here.

Midwife to the Sea

At a time of catastrophic climate change and oceanic collapse, the Book of Job offers a vision of hope.

Read here, or listen here.