St Barnabas Swanland, Sunday Sermon Summaries

  John 10: 1-10 In this day and age, it’s not exactly a compliment to call someone a sheep.     Sheep have a reputation  for not being too bright,  for following blindly without thinking or questioning,    and having no real capability for intellect or independent thought. Now, of course, we need to question.    To think through our faith.    To look at the evidence.    We don’t want to be thought of as stupid, or to actually be stupid.   Yet, the analogy, or metaphor, of Jesus as a shepherd and us as the sheep is a recurring theme in the Bible.    Understanding the context gives us a better understanding of what this means...   God as the Shepherd of Israel How would Jesus’ hearers have understood this? They would have understood the shepherd to symbolise a royal caretaker of God’s people – God himself is called the shepherd of Israel in the Psalms.    He had given responsibili...

 Luke is a master storyteller. There is so much drama and tension in this account. A very human story of loss, confusion, suspense, realisation… and then an exuberant flurry of excitement and activity. A real rollercoaster of emotions. It’s told as a physical journey and the narrative contains so much movement and dynamics. There is lots of coming and going, travelling, walking, stopping and rushing. Such a dynamic and exciting passage.  The framing of these disciples being on a journey fits with the wider theme of Luke’s gospel, in which he has organised the whole central section of his gospel, Jesus’ teaching and ministry, as part of a journey to Jerusalem from Luke 9 to 19.   The central question that Luke poses in his gospel is whether the disciples will follow Jesus on that journey both physically and spiritually.  But here it’s a couple of disciples rather than Jesus who are on a journey, in many senses in the wrong direction, going away from Jerusalem and it i...

  John 20 19 to 31 Is there anyone here who likes the repair shop? I do. I love to see old, broken, just discovered precious things, some surely beyond repair, coming back to life at the hands of the skilled repairer. They are renewed, as they are lovingly restored, sometimes by replacing a little bit or scraping off the dirt or rust. Then they can live on in the lives of those who cherish them and touch the lives of all who hear their story. A few weeks ago, I was fascinated to watch how a master craftsman employed his skill to a diamond ring which was in a really sorry state. The gold band had broken, and the diamond had slipped out of its casing. Its owner had real doubts if anything could be done, but was willing to allow this master to try. As we think about the passage from John, I would like you to keep that image of the restored ring in your minds. Today I want to look at the verses in John, with a focus on 2 words: love and doubt.    John Firstly, let’s think a...