Table Thought for Palm Sunday of the Passion, Sunday 25th March 2018

Reflections on the ordained life on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, at the…

A sermon on Holiness, preached on the Solemnity of All Saints, Sunday 6th November 2017

A sermon preached at the Mass to Commemorate the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Start of the Battle of Passchendaele…

A sermon on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard preached on the Sixteenth Weekend after Pentecost, Sunday 24th…

A sermon on the God who does not turn his face away Fourteenth Weekend after Pentecost 2017

A sermon reflecting on Jesus’ identity questions to his disciples, “Who do others say that I am?” and “who do…

A Sermon on Being in the Boat with Jesus Tenth Sunday after Pentecost 2017  

A Sermon on the Treasure found in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2017

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday

What image is conjured up in your mind, I wonder, when you hear the name Saint Barnabas? For those of…

One of the rich insights that Saint Paul gives us is that we see through a glass dimly. What we…

There are times when language fails us. There are other times when we fail language and they are not the…

A small puff of air, breathing out onto a candle on top of your birthday cake is fine, but generally…

I have two CVs on my desk at the moment. One is from a priest who has expressed interest in…

The Easter stories are full of people getting the wrong end of the stick, or misunderstanding what is going on.…

Introduction At all three services this weekend, I want, in place of a sermon to present to you my annual…

I suspect that it isn’t there any longer, but many years ago there used to be a church sign outside…

“In baptism, God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light. To follow Christ means dying to sin and…

A sermon for the Commissioning of Mother Jane Trigg as the Parish Priest of the Parish of Branxton, Greta and…

There is a story about a couple in conversation as they leave Church one weekend.  The wife says to her…

The beginning of January brings with it the joy of preparing the annual statistical returns for the Parish about attendance…

What a contrast! What a mystery!  Here is the great Emperor Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man of his age,…

Surely all that goes on here this evening conspires to point us to the glory of this night.  The darkness…

In September I received an e-mail that delighted and then perplexed me. It read like this: Dear Colleague, You were…

It is such a privilege to be here, amongst you, at Father Chris’ invitation. So wonderful for me to be…

    In ancient times, the Greek poet Homer called salt a divine substance.  Plato described it as being especially…

There isn’t a week that goes by when someone isn’t working practically to repair or enhance this great church building.…

We live in a world in which ‘up’ is better than ‘down’.  Singers want to be at the top of…

Alleluia! Christ is risen!  This is the night! Five times our Deacon Will sang that great phrase of promise as…

When Luisa and I moved to Newcastle from Perth our home was in the Cathedral Close on one of the…

Whilst the world around us, even in early November, is beginning to count down towards Christmas, we here in the…

Blessing: that is what our Gospel reading is all about, and we might say that that is what our central…

For many people, probably including some of us (whether we like it or not) money is one of the high…

A belief in the presence of spirits – both good spirits and bad spirits – is unmistakable in many, if…

The stories of the life of Jesus, as we find them, reflected upon and brought together by the Church in…

Have you ever stopped to wonder how Joseph felt about all of this?  Perhaps this is simply a window into…

“What was is that Jesus heard?”  That is the question that must surely be uppermost in our minds having just…

Peter said to Mary, ‘Sister, we know that the Saviour loved you more than any other woman. Tell us the…

It is probably not always uppermost in our minds when we hear the readings from the Bible Sunday by Sunday,…

Many years ago there was a little village on a rocky seacoast.  Storms often battered that coast line harshly and…

“That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”  That declaration will go down in history as…

Jean Francois Gravelet was one of the great dare-devils of history.  On 30th June 1859, under his stage name ‘Blondin’,…

Most priests will preach to more people in their life times than Jesus ever did.  Let me say that again…

The great Saint Irenaus, Bishop in Gaul (in what is now France) in the early second Century proclaimed, “Gloria Dei…

Woody Allen once famously said, “our civilisation stands at the crossroads.  Down one road is despondency and despair. Down the…

  It is early in the morning, on the first day of the week. We who are gathered here this…

  “Baruch atta Adonai Eloheynu melech ha-olam, dyan ha-emet.”  Holy One of Blessing, Your Presence fills creation. You are indeed…

“Baruch atta Adonai Eloheynu melech ha-olam, dyan ha-emet.”  Holy One of Blessing, Your Presence fills creation. You are indeed the…

  At all three services this weekend, I want, in place of a sermon to present to you my annual…

The benefits of drinking plenty of water are well documented.  We know that if our water intake falls below our…

Churches can be very strange places.  I have never forgotten one of the first visits that I made to a…

Right back at the start of everything that we can imagine, in the beautiful picture language of the first of…

Living totally without worry will seem to most of us to be as impossible a task as living totally without…

As I look back over the years I have always been very fortunate with neighbours. I have had the kinds…

We humans have a love-hate relationship with salt.  Doctors have told some of us who have high blood pressure to…

Within a few minutes drive of this Church building – depending on the traffic on the New England Highway– there…

“All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice: him serve with mirth, his praise…

Around the time that the architect Edmund Thomas Blackett was designing the beautiful building in which we worship today, another…

The story that we hear in our Gospel reading this morning is very familiar to us all.  We can picture…

One of the things that happens in the days immediately following our Christmas services each year is that priests around…

“I bring you good news of great joy for all the people,” says the angel, “to you is born this…

“All of you rejoice!”  That is the message for us on this Third Weekend in Advent.   All over the world…

It isn’t often that you see a priest breaking into a car, but on Friday afternoon that is exactly what…

The horror of being confronted, whilst you are driving down a road, by a sign that says “wrong way, turn…

The world held its breath as a boy stood in front of a tank in Tianamin Square – an image…

I am sure that you know as well as I do the rather profound children’s story about King Midas. King…

When I was growing up we learnt a little rhyme with hand actions about the Church, it went like this:…

Last Saturday a number of members of our Parish Council joined me, and priests and Parish Councils from around this…

I read an interesting statistic recently that claimed that Anglican clergymen in Australia were ten times more likely to have…

How do you respond to that beautiful miracle story that we have just heard from Gospel of Luke?  What do…

I expect that one of the questions that is upper most in your mind as you sit here in Church…

There aren’t many experiences in the life of the Church when Luisa and I feel like we are the senior…

Whatever else the Church is called to do beyond itself, in the way that it shares the good news of Jesus…

There’s a wonderful cartoon that has been doing the rounds on the internet at the moment made up of three…

In the process of moving from primary to secondary schools I was required to sit a number of examinations. I could…

We are in the midst of a great debate about the identity of Australia: about what it means to be…

When you look at yourself in the mirror who do you see?  That may seem a strange question to ask,…

“Where on earth is Lewisboro?” That was the question that I was greeted with by an officer as I attempted…

Over the next week the Brothers of Saint Gregory will be eating and drinking together in Convocation.  We will do…

Have you ever stopped and listened to the stories that you most often recount to other people when you are…

Because of his dyslexia, a friend of mine wore a pair of glasses for years that had one red lense…

Eating and drinking are essential for our living – whether for humans, or for animals.  But in human living they…

Before I say anything else this morning, I think that it is worth noting, that by rights Deacon Wendy should…

When we hear the word ‘Pentecost’ most of us probably presume that it is a Christian word – a word…

If we had not moved our celebration of this great feast from Thursday to today most of us would probably…

All Australians have become amateur psychiatrists.  The culture around us has learnt enough from the founders of modern psychology and…

One of the most confronting realities about the world in which we live is that on a global scale we…

There is a story in my dreaming that comes to me every now and again and captivates my whole being. If…

When I was growing up in London my family taught me to take reading the Bible seriously.  I had a…

What would you think if I told you that I had seen Bishop Tyrrell (the first Bishop of Newcastle) riding…

Christ is Risen!  Alleluia!  Christ is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia! A young man rose from poverty and obscurity, to a place…

It is early in the morning, on the first day of the week.  We who are gathered here in the…

Have you ever experienced that terrible feeling, of being at a dinner, party when everything is going wrong? When the main…

It is still uncertain when Christians first began to make an annual, as opposed to a weekly, memorial of the…

Over the last few Monday evenings in this season of Lent, the congregations in the Anglican Parish of East Maitland…

At all three services this weekend, I want, in place of a sermon to present to you my annual report…

Every one of us who is gathered here today, is here because we have been evangelised by someone else.  Each…

When the Pharisees come to warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him, his response is not as surprising as…

On your way home from Church today you are down on the New England Highway, and suddenly you become aware…

We live in a world of many questions.   Some of those questions have one answer; some of those questions have…

When I was a young boy I remember singing a Bible chorus about the Gospel reading that we have just…

What do you want more than anything else? What do you long for, right from the very centre of your…

Who do you most associate with in the story that Jesus told, and that we have just heard?  We have…

For those of us who enjoy a glass of good wine, or even a bottle between friends, the Gospel reading…

75% of the world is covered with water. 97% of the earth’s water is in the oceans. It takes over…

Around the world this weekend priests armed with chalk, water and in many cases ladders will be walking the streets…

“When the boy Jesus was five years old he was playing at the crossing of a stream, and he gathered…

My dogs and I have a basic communication problem.  I say that the fault is with them, but I know…

There’s shocking news and there’s shocking news, and we respond differently depending on what the news is all about. Hearing…

In our Gospel reading today, and in our Advent Wreath prayers, we are confronted by the rather other-worldly character of…