Sunday sermons and other occasional content from St Peter's Church, Mowbray, Cape Town
Everyone wants to have the right priorities, but a subversive little story Jesus tells about people making excuses not to come to a party suggests that maybe we shouldn't have any priorities. Luke 14:15-35
A Sabbath dinner party in the first half of Luke 14 provokes Jesus to a different sort of parable that continues to challenge our sense of entitlement and deeper motivations.
The parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:13-34 is about a man who decides to extend his property portfolio only to die the night the work is complete. It's a powerful, shocking story that exposes an addiction we all fall prey to, even without knowing.
The famous parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) is about the mercy we show to others - but it also helps us reflect on the extraordinary mercy we have received.
The familiar parable of the sower and the seeds (Luke 8:1-15) means that it's not all up to us.
The nameless woman who disturbs a dinner party between Jesus and some religious teachers has a lot to tell us about how we our worshipping life can be renewed.
Starting a series in some of the parables in Luke, we look at Luke 5:33-39, and the way Jesus renews our experience of religion.
Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man many times, but what's it all about. The answers lie in Daniel Chapter 7.
Jesus' resurrection appearances tell us a lot about the sort of Saviour He is. We look at John 20:19-31, and find out that Jesus is a Saviour quite unlike the leaders we see around us.
This Palm Sunday we're not able to gather and celebrate Jesus, welcoming him in to our midst as we would normally do. But in the midst of pain and suffering that may even prevent us from feeling like we can worship, there is much celebration of God going on around us.
A bonus talk from Ben Aldous, with some initial reflections on how the Coronavirus crisis might reshape the church.
We're all impatient for something - at the moment, for many of us, it's the end of the Coronavirus lockdown. But God can come to us here and now, not just when it's all over. We look at the call and promise from God in Isaiah 40:1-5 as we learn how to wait in expectancy. You can see a video of this sermon on our YouTube channel.
The Coronavirus pandemic has meant a few changes; so we're not meeting in person for the moment, but we are running corporate worship at the normal service time via WhatsApp and YouTube. We've also changed tack from our Lent series. Today we looked at our namesake Peter in Luke 5:1-11, and how limitations may not always be pleasant, but good things can come of them. You can see a video of this sermon on our YouTube channel.
The sense of smell may seem hard to connect with our spiritual lives - but looking carefully we discover amazing truths about how God views us, our worship and our prayers.
Martin Breytenbach kicks off our series on Jonah, the reluctant prophet.
We continue our Lent series by thinking about what it means to hear God. It turns out there are lots of ways of doing that - and we don't need to have the physical sense of hearing.
Charlie Alexander kicks off our Lent series on our 5 senses, looking at how our sense of sight can be a way of informing our relationship with God.
Life doesn't turn out how we planned; so how do we cope and what do we turn to when the worst thing we can imagine happens, and all our plans are dashed? Tim Tucker from The Message Trust uses Psalm 42 to tell his own story, and help us think about our own.
We all have plans; for disciples of Jesus, the most important one is to surrender all our plans to Jesus. Martin Breytenbach looks at Paul in Philippians to help us to continue to think through our priorities in 2020 for mission, money and prayer.
What are your plans for 2020? We may not know the whole picture, but we can take the next step of obedience God invites us to. Looking at Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3, we see how obedience may not be easy but we can trust God.
Philip Donald offers some thoughts on how we might enter the season of Epiphany.
Lauren Alexander helps us see that one of the things we can learn from the early part of Jesus' life, is that God always has a plan.
On Christmas Day we discover that even though we can't now see Jesus, he is in fact as close to us possible.
At our Christmas Eve midnight service, Philip Donald reminds us that the infant Jesus is enough.
At Christmas we discover the remarkable and shocking truth that God imitates people. This is short talk is from our service of 9 Lessons and Carols
If Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, then how cam we find him? We look at Mary and Jospeh in Matthew 1 for some clues.
Advent helps locate us in the biggest of all stories. Mike Keggie guides us through some advent insights in Matthew 11.
Charlie Alexander looks at John the Baptist, a colourful character with a lot to say about our place as a community of the waiting.
We're all waiting for something, so we might as well learn how to wait well. Looking at Matthew 24 and Romans 13, we learn something about how we do that, as we start this Advent season.
Not only does every meal look back to Jesus' Last Supper and Communion; it also looks forward to a wedding party - a royal wedding to which we're all invited ... and at which we're the one's getting married. We conclude our series on meals with a look at Revelation 19:6-9
After the resurrection, Jesus eats with the disciples. This meal tells us something very important about how Jesus sees every part of our lives, here and now. Martin Breytenbach looks at Luke 24:36-53 with us.
.The meal at the heart of Christian worship helps us see things we hadn't seen before. Mike Keggie helps us look at the familiar account of something that happened on the road to Emmaus, in Luke 24:13-35
Meals are so important that the central act of Christian worship is a commemoration of a meal. Looking at Luke 22:7-38, we think about why Comunion is so important, and how it came to be so.
Zaccheus is not popular - he's a very rich chief tax collector, with a bad reputation. But Jesus invites himself for dinner. Luke 19:1-10 raises some challenging questions about how we manage relationships with people with whom we deeply disagree.
The parable we often call The Prodigal Son turns on the way the two sons eat. Mike Keggie helps us see this familiar story of Jesus in a fresh way. Luke 15:11-32
The meals we've been looking at in Luke's Gospel make it clear that the Kingdom of Heaven is banquet. But what barriers do we put up - for ourselves or others - as we live this out? Craig Stewart helps us with the familiar but thorny meal in Luke 14:1-24.
Most of us think that there's only certain types of conversation that dinner guests would bring up; Jesus disagrees. Martin Breytenbach helps us look at Jesus' remarkable dinner-time chat in Luke 11:37-54.
In Luke 10:38-42, Mary and Martha create an atmosphere that isn't the best for hospitality. Sometimes simplicity is the best option - not just for our meals, but for our worship too.
When Jesus sends out some people on mission in Luke 10, he tells them to eat whatever they're given. Receiving hospitality can be just as important as showing it, and some of us find that hard.
We put labels on others - or ourselves, and we expect things to happen properly. Jesus looks past the labels to some deeper - which offends the religious. Our mealtimes with Jesus continue with Luke 7:36=50
The Kingdom Of God is a party that starts here and now ... but who's invited? Join us as we start a new series in Luke's Gospel, thinking about the beautiful significance of meals. Luke 5:27-32
What do we do when we just have to keep waiting for something to change, a prayer to be answered or a situation to be resolved? Lauren Alexander brings our Women's Month 2019 with Esther to a close, looking at God's perfect timing in the story.
We continue our Women's Month 2019 with Adele Farmer, from Calvin Protestant Church in Grassy Park, helping us look at themes of courage and grace in Esther.
The choices Esther and others make in the story give us a picture of a the sort of choices we all face as people who follow Jesus - choices between how the world might operate and how Jesus might invite us to do things. Annie Kirke helps us grapple with some challenging issues.
During Women's Month 2019, we're looking at the book of Esther. It's a gripping, strange, sometimes disturbing story. Caroline Powell helps us think about where God is in all of this, and who God may be inviting to stand and speak. Esther 1-3
If prayer is relational, that means we might have to learn some new ways of seeing people and places. John 1:14 gives us some ideas as to how we might start to do that.
How do we pray for a place we find ourselves in, and the issues we notice there? As with praying for people, relationship - and being prepared to be part of the answer to out own prayers - is key. We continue our Month Of Prayer by using Jeremiah 29:4-9 to help us think about praying for and making a difference in our communities.
It's all very well saying we'll pray for someone - but what do we pray. Colossians 1 gives us some good ideas.
As we come to the end of our series in James, and start our month of prayer, we discover that prayer is more of a corporate, communal activity than it is a solitary one. James 5:13-20
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