To be saved is to be fully restored to a state of flourishing, where we experience peace with people, peace with creation and peace with God. The only one of those ten cleansed people to arrive at this place of flourishing is the Samaritan – the one with the uncertain pedigree, the incomplete scriptures, the incorrect theology. The reject of rejects.
We have no shortage of stories about saints and animals. There are so many that we have to conclude that either there may be some truth to those stories OR, at the very least, there is a human intuition that spiritual maturity is connected with having a deep affinity with animals. When humans reflect on how we are at our best, when we think about what we were created to be, and we imagine how we wish we could be, the human imagination takes us into the realm of deeper, clearer capacity to communicate with animals and with all of creation. (Available from 4 October 2025)
“You need to make the right friends if you want to get ahead in life.” “Correct”, says Jesus, “but you might be wrong about who those right friends are!”
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for Pentecost 15
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for 14th Sunday after Pentecost - Season of Creation
A woman whose back has been bent and stiff for eighteen years; A man whose heart has been bent and stiff for - who knows how long? Jesus came to bring freedom and healing to them both. But only one of them accepts.
Giving away money, power or platform to people who need them more is an investment in God’s Kingdom that changes our hearts and sets our attention more and more on that which we hope for but don’t yet see. And Jesus says we can do that without fear because it is God’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom. We don’t have to worry. We don’t have to exhaust ourselves trying to force God’s hand. God wants to do this for us and in us.
When we look at what others have and we say, “That’s not fair”, is it because they have something we want? Or is it because we have something they need? And what do we do about that?
Do you remember those Colgate adds where Mrs Marsh breaks a piece of chalk that has been sitting in ink and a child says, “It does get in”? I guarantee that anyone who is my age or older and who was living in Australia at the time can remember it! It is the same with the Lords Prayer. It does get in. The repetition rewires our brains and us changes us from the inside out.