Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC - Penecost V Sunday 13 July 2025

Dear Friends,

As many of you have noted, I am trying to get GNT finished and distributed in the middle of the week rather than Saturday.  This gives a little more time to react and respond before Sunday is upon us.  A few notices haven’t made it in time for publication – my apologies, but I hope overall this is more helpful.

My thanks again to all involved in the Moggill Markets last weekend.  The cake stall was a great success – thank you bakers!  I think the system with us having a stall next to (or between) the ‘Muller stalls’, takes the pressure off having to have a specific convenor and roster of sellers.

Again, thank you to the church children’s craft team.  To have our church closed throughout the markets loses the opportunity of having the markets in ‘our place.’ So, even when we don’t have many children coming, being open for a few hours, provides the excuse and opportunity for people to come in for a look and a chat.  Thanks team!

And, thanks to the painters!

School holidays are over already (back to fighting the traffic)!  This week we will pray for our beloved teachers and equally beloved students, plus parents, grandparents, carers and all who run the many activities that occur in conjunction with school.  We are privileged and blessed to have a school system in which our young people can so wonderfully learn and be nurtured.

This Sunday is Sea Sunday.  I have included a notice if you wish to find out more of the work or to support the ministry to Seafarers through prayer or donation. Living on the many ships which visit Brisbane is to live without access to churches except on port visits.  I commend this ministry to you.

The continuing drop in numbers of people attending Anglican church services on a Sunday was starkly put to us in synod.  The trend in our Diocese, is in churches that were once large and had full-time clergy becoming like us – small and part-time.  I had several at synod ask me what my vision, strategy, goals and objectives were. They were surprised, some looked shocked, when I responded that I see numbers as God’s problem, and my task (our task) is to proclaim and live God’s Gospel, to love and care for everyone that God sends to us. 

Grace and peace and hope and love,

 ROB

13 July 2025

Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC - Penecost IV Sunday 6 July 2025

Dear Friends,

Wow, we are into the second month of winter and halfway through school holidays already!  Although we have had a few chilly mornings it is nothing like the -6C that Canberra has had and the rain event for NSW makes me thank God for calling me to live here.  Nevertheless, things are tough up here in winter for many; if any of you are ‘doing it tough’ through winter please always feel free to talk with me.

We had an ‘interesting’ time at Synod – Bronwen, Angela and I all experienced different aspects and we will each share a short personal reflection with you after church on Sunday.  It wasn’t boring!

In my ‘spare time’ this week, in addition to much Synod follow-up, I participated in an ethics seminar at the University of Queensland.  It was very good and much better than I feared.  I am encouraged by the growing interest in contemporary applied ethics – that is ethics which are relevant to our real lives; encouraged by the involvement of so many young uni students and numerous chaplains; encouraged by the seriousness with which the ethical aspects of Artificial Intelligence and potential medical advances are being taken.  Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

It is often tempting to see our Bible readings as, interesting (or not), challenging (or not) but removed from our personal worldly reality; the readings this week (and also last week’s Gospel) were particularly relevant in our Synod.  This week and last, we have military veterans coming to God looking for and receiving God’s healing.  This was a concept with which many in Synod struggled.  Should the Government ask the church to provide God’s healing for our current veterans?  Should our church agree to help the Government deliver care to those who may have sinned in their war service?

Some prefer a faith which is nice and comfortable but distant; Jesus does not give us that as an option.  This week Jesus appears to have work for everyone.

Grace and peace and hope and joy,

 Rob

6 July 2025

Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC Penecost III 29 June 2025

Dear Friends,

I don’t think we could fit much more into a weekend.  Sam Towers, Bronwen Thomas, Angela McNeil and I will be at various activities as part of our Diocesan Synod from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. 

The Synod Communion service (Eucharist) in St John’s Cathedral on Friday evening at 7pm is open to anyone who wants to join us.

Saturday and Sunday are at the Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie) and there are opportunities to sit in the visitors’ gallery throughout to observe (but not to speak or vote within the sessions).  If any are interested in seeing what we do and particularly if you are considering being a Synod representative, I’m happy to talk about this.

We have more than normal on our prayer list at the moment.  Some are struggling (and have been for a while now) with colds and flu; others are in long-term treatment or palliative care, and wonderfully, some are now out of hospital.  There are also many for whom we are praying who don’t want their names on the list. 

Our prayers are great comfort to those who are unwell and particularly for their families.  Not only do we hold that God promises to hear our prayers and we are charged to, ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5), this is our Christian way of connecting with our sisters and brothers who are suffering or caring for those suffering.  Thank you for your prayers.

The new roster, from this Sunday 29 June to 21 September is now active and is on the various church notice boards; there continue to be opportunities for people to add their names.

This Sunday our readings include Galatians 5 in which St Paul reminds us that the fruit of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives is love, joy peace, patience, kindness, generosity faithfulness and more.  I pray that and those around you may know these in your life.  

 Rob

29 June 2025

Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC 

Birth of John the Baptist - Sunday 22 June 2025

Dear Friends,

Winter has certainly amongst us.  Last Sunday was the smallest Sunday church attendance we have had for at least 10 years; thankyou to all who decided not to share your various colds and viruses.  I do hope and pray that you all recover quickly.

The 12 of us gathered shared an extended version of the children’s talk about God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But to prove that I did prepare a proper sermon I have sent it to Stephen for posting on our website.

This also raises again the issue of livestreaming of our services.  I will ask Parish Council to investigate this.  We had to cancel the planned Parish Council Meeting.

Please pray for our new Men’s Group with its first meeting in the Church Hall on Wednesday.  This group, with John Gavranich as lynchpin, has grown too large to meet at The Reserve and now plans to meet in our hall once a month.  We have a core of about 6 including Rob Nolan.  Our focus is generally ‘life after grief and loss’ but we frequently wander off-topic, and the common themes appear to be coffee and fellowship.  Others are welcome and John Gavranich or I can provide more information. 

We have room for more such groups.

This Sunday we are looking at John the Baptist and God’s preparation and use of John as part of God’s plan for our salvation.

As I close, the impact of the latest conflict in the Middle East is becoming apparent.  Please pray for the innocent victims and families of all involved. 

May the love and hope and peace and joy of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be yours,

Rob

22 June 2025

Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC 

Trinity Sunday 15 June 2025

 Dear Friends, 

Winter has certainly arrived! I enjoyed looking at the snow photos from down south as I thanked God for calling me to live in South Queensland. 

Trinity Sunday is an opportunity that we in the church don’t take often enough; this Sunday we ask the question, ‘Who is God?’ Who is the God who calls ‘god-self’ Father, Son and Holy Spirit? And what does this mean for us as we relate to God? People in the world around us have already made up an answer for themselves or just ignored this question; we will look at God’ answer. 

Although we talk of God being a Trinity and speak of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in our prayer book; for most of the time in our readings and sermons we focus on one or other of the three persons of God; most of us have a favourite person or element of God we relate to. This Sunday we will look at how the ‘Three Persons’ of God say they all relate to each other and relate to us. 

Hmm, no pressure on the preacher for this Sunday; perhaps the children’s talk will give us the clearest picture! 

A new Men’s Group is announced in our Notices. This group, with John Gavranich as lynchpin, has grown too large to meet at The Reserve and now plans to meet in our hall once a month. We have a core of about 6 including Rob Nolan. Our focus is generally ‘life after grief and loss’ but we frequently wander off-topic, and the common themes appear to be coffee and fellowship. Others are welcome and John Gavranich or I can provide more information. 

We have room for more such groups and Pentecost reminded us that we are to continue the work we saw Jesus do providing God’s eternal hope to those around us.  As I close, the impact of the Air India plane disaster is becoming apparent. Please pray for the families of all involved in many countries as they mourn and grieve. 

May the love and hope and peace and joy of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be yours, 

Rob

15 June 2025

Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC 

The Day of Pentecost Sunday 8 June 2025

Dear Friends,

Happy Birthday!

This week we celebrate the era of the Holy Spirit of God. The coming of the Holy

Spirit was the birth of, the beginning of, the Christian Church and this Sunday we

celebrate. 1992 might be too many candles for a cake but given the Holy Spirit coming

with fire upon the disciples, candles would be appropriate!

Jesus’s Ascension into heaven, his return home, is appropriately the end of his time on

earth. The time which began at Christmas when Jesus ‘came down to earth from

heaven’; the life which continued for about 30 years including about 3 years of

ministry; the life which ended with Good Friday, Easter and then Ascension, has

successfully ended. Jesus is home. Jesus is now doing as he promised, preparing a

place for those who are following him in heaven.

As Jesus was about to ascend into heaven, having commissioned his followers to carry

on his work into the whole world, he reminded them that they are witnesses of God’s

teaching and work in the world through Jesus. So, we have God’s power, personally,

in our own lives but there is more.

Jesus travelled only relatively small distances over his three years of ministry and he

was a ‘one-man-act’. To take God’s salvation, God’s reconciling love into the whole

world, God chose to commission us, hundreds of us, thousands of us, millions of us as

God’s witnesses. And to empower us God has filled us with God’s power, the same

power that was in Jesus – the Spirit of God. God wants us to know and to connect to

and to use the power of the Holy Spirit – in our own lives and in the work that God

has planned for each of us.

May God’s love and hope and peace and joy be yours,

Rob

8 June 2025

Reflection by The Reverend Rob Sutherland CSC Sunday 1 June 2025

Dear Friends,

Welcome to winter!  After a couple of days in Canberra with rain and wind swirling and driving the leaves it was nice to get back home and to not need a jumper, jacket and gloves.  As I get older my love of being in airports and planes has vanished, but I did have a window seat on the way home and the view as we flew through several layers of cloud was spectacularly beautiful.

I was in Canberra to contribute to the development of a new Wellbeing Agency for veterans and families as recommended by the Royal Commission into veteran suicide.  As God’s people and God’s church, I believe that we have much to learn from and to offer into this situation.

The wise see clearly that everyone who joins our Defence Forces will at some stage leave.  Some people leave early through injury or many other reasons.  Most leave after somewhere between four and 20 years of service and move on to productive lives in our society.  A small number spend almost their working lives in the ADF.  In the end, what matters is not how long we stay, not even what or how well we did in the ADF, but how well we return to the outside world.  This is the problem for many veterans; they lived well in the ADF but struggle to live outside it; and live outside the ADF they must.

Jesus’s ascension into heaven, his return to live again with God the Father is showing us the same thing.  What matters is not how long we live in this world; I’ve buried babies who I hope will be in heaven. It’s not what or how well we do; I’ve heard the confession of inmates in prison. What matters is how we return to eternity.  Everyone who God has formed, everyone into whom God has breathed life, everyone who has been born will die.  Jesus shows and leads the way; through death; through resurrection; shows the way to eternal life in heaven.

Christmas, Good Friday and Easter are critical steps along the way, but Jesus’s journey is only successful with ascension into heaven.  In God’s power, Jesus leads and calls each of us to follow him the heaven.

May God’s eternal hope be yours,

Rob

1 June 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 25 May 2025

EASTER VI - 25 MAY 2025

Dear Friends,

When all around us, even things that have been secure seemingly forever, when things around us change I am heartened that we have God and each other and our church.  God is unchanging; his love, mercy, patience, peace and even his arms outstretched waiting to hug us; our God never changes.  If we, God’s church, God’s imperfect earthly church, base ourselves in our relationship with God (through God’s Holy Spirit) then our church even if all else changes, will still be a source of the goodness, love and blessings that God offers in this world.  Our human relationships too will always be imperfect, but God blesses us through them.

This week I have had many conversations with people struggling with human relationships and also struggling with God’s church.  The Diocese of North Queensland is asking the Supreme Court for permission to sell church property so it can pay compensation to the victims of sexual abuse by church members.  The Bishop of NQ has said the issues involved are very painful for parishioners and church leaders and for the bishop, but he believes that justice for the victims must be the priority.  I have committed to pray for the diocese, for the people, for the bishop of North Queensland and for the victims as they move forward.  As I have thought and prayed this week, I have tried to put myself into the shoes of each of these people.

The potential is for many worshipping communities in North Queensland to lose their buildings and land.  Bishop Keith tells me that his fundamental concern is not for any building but that worshipping communities might be able to continue to worship. 

Not so long ago, we were a worshipping community without a building.  I love our church building and the land upon which it sits but this was a church, this was the body of Christ long before there was a building.  I am grateful to all who contributed generously that we might have this building but I value God’s people and God’s worship and God’s ministry much more than this or any building.  I hope and pray that we and the national church will remember what God is calling us to be.

May God’s love and hope and peace and joy be yours,

Rob

25 May 25

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 18 May 2025

Dear Friends,

Thank you to everyone who was nice enough to ask if I would be running in the Moggill Marathon this Sunday morning. When I had my hip replaced a few years ago my surgeon ‘banned’ me from running and while I miss it, I was never quite up to marathon distance – I’m of course using the excuse that ‘I have to be in church.’ In our Sundays after Easter and before Jesus’s ascension into heaven, we have the opportunity to reflect on the meaning and impact of Jesus’s death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter morning. Over the past few weeks, we have thought about Jesus’s interactions with the people who saw him after the resurrection. Some, like Thomas, refused to believe that Jesus was alive until they actually saw and touched him. Others believed but didn’t know what it meant. The other helpful perspective is to look back at what Jesus and the Old Testament prophets said about God and about the Messiah and the way to eternal life with God. We no longer have to guess the outcome of Jesus’s life so now we can look back for the meaning of his life and what God offers and requires of us. This Sunday is often called ‘Shepherd Sunday.’ Most of our readings and the psalm are about Jesus as God’s ‘Good Shepherd’. In our ‘wide brown land’ we are more used to sheep being mustered with the help of sheepdogs, horses or motor bikes. Having, as a child, worked with sheep and sheepdogs this imagery is not helpful and not what God is offering. In Australia we force sheep, often through fear, into a direction, into a pen or paddock or truck. In Ancient Israel the shepherd, on foot, led the sheep; led them to pasture and to water and protected them from danger. The sheep followed the shepherd for their own good and this is the image Jesus is using; God offers to lead us to heaven; not force us into his kingdom. Only people who choose to follow Jesus will end up in heaven. May God’s love and hope and peace and joy be yours,

Rob

18 May 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 11 May 2025

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we will of course be thinking about our mothers.  Mothering Sunday used to be a special day in Lent but now we follow the day chosen by the USA. 

It’s an emotional time.  Mother’s Day is both wonderful and joyful and also stressful, difficult, even painful at the same time.  All human relationships are complicated and multi-faceted.  Even Jesus’s relationship with his mother Mary was hard for Mary and, I’m sure painful for Jesus. 

Mary at one time came to try to stop Jesus from preaching.  Jesus was being called, ‘insane’.  Mary also lived with the knowledge that the church authorities wanted to arrest Jesus.  Poor Mary chose to stay and watch as her son was crucified.  I’m certain it hurt Jesus to know the pain that his ministry, his being who God called him to be, was causing his mother.  This relationship between Mary and Jesus should give us permission to not have perfect relationships between mothers and children.

God gives us imperfect people with whom to have relationships; their love and ours will never be and feel perfect; at its best it is ‘perfectly imperfect.’  So, this Mother’s Day give yourself God’s permission to have imperfect relationships with or as mothers.

This ‘complicated’ Mother’s Day may God’s love give you the power, courage and humility to forgive and to accept forgiveness; may Jesus’s example and love help you to both accept and to keep trying to give our imperfect human love to our mothers and our children.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

11 May 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 4 May 2025

Dear Friends,

Between me writing this and us gathering on Sunday to worship we have an election.

I love a good democracy sausage and I take my personal responsibility as a voter

seriously, but I also completely trust that God will put in place both the individual

members and senators and the government that best suits God’s p urp oses.

This Sunday we will be thinking about St Mark who was a disciple of Jesus, and

Apostle, and Evangelist and we are told a martyr. The message that our Bible

readings give us are focused on God’s message, that we should tell p eop le about

God’s good news, about the hope that God offers.

For the past five weeks, we have been surrounded (bombarded) by people and groups

and parties trying to offer us good news, if we vote for them, in this election.

Fundamentally, they are all trying to offer us hope, hope that they can make things

better for us.

This is a useful backdrop for our reflection on St Mark. Should we use the

communication methods that political parties and candidates use? What is the

message, the hop e, the ‘good news’ (or Gosp el) that we have for p eop le?

We could view life in this world as God’s election camp aign. God doesn’t force or

trick anyone into following him. No one will accidentally end up living in God’s

perfect world with God forever. We each get to choose our God and therefore our

eternal home. We can choose to follow God, to be who God has made us to be or to

choose to reject God.

Jesus tells us, warns us, most people in this world are going to choose not to follow

God and choose not to live in heaven; it’s a free choice. God isn’t going to, and we

therefore shouldn’t try to, force anyone into heaven but if you were asked by someon e

what God’s good news is, what would you answer?

May the assurance of Easter hope, love, and power of God continue to be your

absolute joy,

Rob

4 May 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - ANZAC Sunday 27 April 2025

Dear Friends,

ANZAC Day can be a very conflicting time for us, confusing mentally and spiritually.

I was most heartened by the large numbers of people who turned up in the rain for the Dawn Service at Bellbowrie and the march and service at Brookfield.  Both were very community-oriented with the helpful commitment from schools and scouts and guides, Army cadets as catafalque party and school students playing Last Post and leading our singing.

So, as a community, we are ‘remembering them’ but, despite good addresses by Rick Maher, our local RSL Sub-branch President and meaningful actions such as wreath laying, we have not had time to ponder what God is saying about ANZAC Day and what our role might be, as a church, as Christian women and men, going forward.

Sunday in church will be our opportunity to remember, to be grateful, to mourn but also to think about ANZAC Day, ANZAC Day and us.

We are still in the season of Easter until the end of May.  We will use most of the Sundays in May to consider the meaning for us of Easter, but we will use 4 May to reflect on St Mark, Evangelist and Martyr.  About once a month I want to try to have a ‘special Sunday’ focusing on a saint or a Christian event of significance.

Before we move on, I want to express my great thanks to everyone who worked so hard to produce meaningful and beautiful Easter services.  This all started with a very productive working bee and ‘Mary Anointing Jesus’ sermon in the week I was away.  During Holy Week and Easter our music, our liturgy, our setting up and cleaning up and so much more contributed to a very effective week of worship – thank you everyone.

As we contemplate the love and commitment of our veterans and the sadness of war, may the Easter assurance of hope, love, and power of God continue to be your absolute joy,

Rob

27 April 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - Easter Day 20 April 2025

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the most wonderful time of the year!

The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, the one who willingly followed God’s plan for salvation which saw him crucified, dead and buried has indeed risen, has come back to life again.

We are completely right to be celebrating.  Death which we all know is our inevitable journey, death has been defeated.  When Jesus said that we are to follow him, he now proves that the way to heaven and eternal life, although it will mean that we will still die, also means that those who believe in and follow Jesus, can live beyond death.

In God’s power and for God’s glory, for those who believe in Jesus, death is not the end; God has shown his power to resurrect those he chooses.

This is worthy of the greatest celebration!  The world around us may not know what they are celebrating – really are they celebrating the coming of a rabbit? – but I’m happy that at Easter they are celebrating.

Isaiah reminds us that God’s good news is not for the rich or the powerful or for those who appear to have it all now.  Easter is great news for those who long for God’s rescue from pain and suffering and poverty and oppression and grief.

As I celebrate, as I rejoice, as I praise and thank God for his power and his love; I try to explain to those around me the meaning of the symbols.  I will enjoy hot cross buns as a reminder of Jesus’s death on a cross, he died for me with my sins on his shoulders – without the cross there is no Easter victory.  As I enjoy Easter eggs I happily remind people that this is not some pagan fertility rabbit symbol but the empty egg is a symbol of an empty tomb.

Easter eggs are a reminder that my hope of living with God in heaven has a real, historical, factual basis.  Jesus really did rise from the dead nearly 2000 years ago in Roman occupied Jerusalem.

May the hope, relief, and love of God be your absolute joy this Easter.

Rob

20 April 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - Palm Sunday 13 April 2025

Dear Friends,

It was so nice to have a few days off and God certainly blessed our family with wonderful weather: a lot nicer than our original planned leave dates during a cyclone.  Thank you to everyone who did so much while I was away; the results of the working bee and the markets and the raffle are so impressive that I might go away more often!

Now we have all the joy looking forward to Holy Week and then Easter.

Whilst I love the joy and celebration of Easter – it’s probably not possible to over rejoice at the hope of Easter – whilst I love this, the Holy Week journey leading to Easter is truly important.  There is little logic to Easter and Jesus’s victory over death unless we consider it as the fruition his deliberate, compliant and knowing journey to ultimate suffering and death. 

Some will be able to join us for the services throughout the week but for the many more who can’t, at the end of GNT, I have included key readings and a suggested activity for each so that you can travel the Holy Week journey at home. 

On Palm Sunday, we will have a joyful Holy Communion service.  With palms we welcome Jesus as our hoped for but misunderstood saviour.  This is the day when our Christmas hymn ‘O’ little town of Bethlehem’ comes to fruition; on Palm Sunday – the hopes and fears of all the years are met in … Jerusalem.

Wednesday Morning Prayer and Bible discussion will be our time to contemplate all which leads up to the passion.

Thursday evening Holy Communion will remind us of Jesus’s Last Supper with his friends including his servant like washing of the disciples’ feet.

Good Friday is perhaps our most solemn day.  We will have a special service of ‘Ante-communion’; that is, we leave the consecrated bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, on the altar (rather than sharing it as usual). 

Easter morning begins early with the New Fire Service in which we light the new Paschal Candle we follow this with breakfast and then our usual Holy Communion Service.

The symbols of Holy Week and Easter are helpful – even if our world misunderstands and misuses them.   The palm leaf which becomes a cross symbolizes the journey from Jesus welcome to his crucifixion. The Easter egg represents Jesus’s tomb. In our world, normally something which is empty disappoints us, but with Easter eggs this is the reverse.  An Easter egg which is empty when cracked open is the appropriate symbolism of Jesus’s empty, life promising tomb.

The final page of this GNT gives instruction on making your own Palm Cross.

May the hope, misunderstanding, love, pain, sadness and absolute joy of Holy week and Easter be yours,

Rob

13 April 2025

READINGS AND REFLECTIONS FROM VENERABLE ROB SUTHERLAND CSC

 HOLY WEEK

Palm Sunday

Reading Luke 19:28-40 Jesus’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,

“Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!”

39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Reflection

Apart from Easter Day, this might be the most unusual day in the Christian year.  The whole city of Jerusalem was in anticipation and uproar but why?  Today it’s as surprising as if a 30 year old ‘tradie’ rode into Brisbane from the Gold Coast in the back of a borrowed ute driven by one of his friends. The response was as if a star of some sort was coming to town but the vehicle to be expected would be a Rolls Royce convertible with police motorcade.  To understand the response in Jerusalem we need to think about how desperate for relief from their suffering the people of Jerusalem were.  Perhaps the desperation of people in Gaza or in Myanmar or in Ukraine is closer to the hope for a saviour that was being expressed.

Not a warrior, not a superhero, not a billionaire, not a politician but people were so longing for salvation that they welcomed this man on a donkey.

To whom are you looking for relief from your suffering?

Maundy Thursday

Reading John 13:1-17 & 31-35 (you can read also John Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16 & 17 which all happen at the Last Supper)

Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet

13 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The devil had already decided[a] that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet,[b] but is entirely clean. And you[c] are clean, though not all of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers[d] greater than the one who sent them. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. 

The New Commandment

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him,[j] God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Reflection

Each of the Gospels gives us different amounts of detail of the night before Jesus died.  The disciples gathered with Jesus in a special dining room for dinner.  Before dinner, Jesus takes the role of the servant and washes the disciples feet.  During dinner, Judas gets up and leaves to go to the priests to betray Jesus.

After supper, Jesus has the first Christian Communion Service with his disciples.  Jesus takes some bread and breaks it into pieces and tells the disciples to eat this as his body.  He then takes a cup of wine, gives thanks to God and tells the disciples as they drink it that this is his own blood that will be poured out for them so that their sins may be forgiven.  Of course, they don’t understand.

Then Jesus in his after dinner talk to the disciples gives us some of his most profound teachings to prepare them for what is to happen.  What is to happen that night is Jesus being betrayed, arrested, tried, tortured, tried again and then prepared for crucifixion.

The disciples all abandon Jesus; run away!

From what aspects of the God’s appointed journey for you are you running away?

Good Friday

Reading

The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus

18 After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place because Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” 5 They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.”[a] Jesus replied, “I am he.”[b] Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus[c] said to them, “I am he,”[d] they stepped back and fell to the ground. 7 Again he asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.”[e] 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he.[f] So if you are looking for me, let these people go.” 9 This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken, “I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.” 10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. 11 Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Jesus before the High Priest

12 So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. 14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.

Peter Denies Jesus

15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. 17 The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 18 Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

The High Priest Questions Jesus

19 Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. 20 Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.” 22 When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus answered, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” 24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Peter Denies Jesus Again

25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

Jesus before Pilate

28 Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The Jews replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” 32 (This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

Jesus Sentenced to Death

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no case against him. 39 But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” 40 They shouted in reply, “Not this man but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a rebel.

19 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. 3 They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” 5 So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate[g] said to them, “Behold the man!” 6 When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.”

8 Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. 9 He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” 12 From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against Caesar.”

13 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat[h] on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew[i] Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” 15 They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

So they took Jesus, 17 and carrying the cross by himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew[j] is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth,[k] the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew,[l] in Latin, and in Greek. 21 Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’ ” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” 23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says,

“They divided my clothes among themselves,
    and for my clothing they cast lots.”

25 And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31 Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath, especially because that Sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. 32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. 35 (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows[m] that he tells the truth, so that you also may continue[n] to believe.) 36 These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, “None of his bones shall be broken.” 37 And again another passage of scripture says, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”

The Burial of Jesus

38 After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission, so he came and removed his body. 39 Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. 40 They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. 42 And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Reflection

This can’t be true: this can’t be happening: Jesus, the hope of the world, the Messiah from God, the one we all welcomed on Palm Sunday as our hoped for saviour, can’t be put to death on a cross by the government and by the religious leaders.

Many, many people want to ignore the reality of sin and the reality of our worshipping or following or hoping for life from other people and things rather than God.

There are many messages for us in Jesus death on the cross. 

First, God takes sin and our rebellion, our not loving God completely, God takes this seriously.  These things make us unfit, unworthy, unclean, unable to enter God’s perfect home, heaven.  The world would have God change so that our standards are accepted by God, so that we can continue the suffering of this world forever.  God says, “I will not change my standards.  Sin makes people unfit for heaven.  The penalty for sin is eternal separation from God.”

Second, God loves us, his creation, so much that God offers to pay the price for our sins personally so that we can be declared pardoned, innocent, clean.  God the Father loves us so much that he is prepared to send Jesus, his only begotten son into this world to live and to suffer and to die that we might by his suffering and death, that we might be saved.  God loves us that much.

Third, Jesus loves both us and God the Father so much that he is prepared to take on this task of becoming human and living and suffering and dying according to God’s plan.  Jesus gives everything even his life out of love for us and for God.

Finally, God, Father, Son and Spirit are completely committed to the human situation, to our worldly existence. There is nothing in this world that God asks us to do that God has not also done; birth, life, living on earth as a child of God, suffering and even dying; God has done all these.

Jesus did not withhold even his own life from God; our Good Friday question is, ‘what are we holding back for ourselves and not giving to God?

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 6 April  2025 -LENT V

Dear Friends, 

School holidays are here; I hear students and exhausted teachers rejoicing and parents  already stressed. It seems as if everything is all happening at once. Thank you to everyone involved in our working bee to clean up as much as we could  after the rain before Easter. We are a church which exists as an engaged and involved  community and working in our grounds and maintenance is who we are. It’s great to have the markets back using our carpark and grounds. This has happened  at quite short notice; it is very welcome, and we will consider what opportunities this  provides for us and choose which ones we use going forward. 

Thank you to everyone involved in the Easter Raffle; I don’t have a final figure for the  funds raised but I’m guessing it is about $2,500. All of this goes towards our church  maintenance (and we have some big expenses coming).  

This Sunday we consider Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus who after a dinner for  Jesus anoints his feet with very expensive perfume. Although Mary is criticised by  Judas, she contributes, does not withhold, gives her most precious possession as part  of her worship of God. John’s Gospel has this the day before Palm Sunday; so, for us  today is the beginning of Jesus’s journey towards the cross.  

Also, so nice to have Cathrine Jones back playing for us after her successful surgery. Holy Week commences next Sunday on Palm Sunday, 13 April with Easter the  following Sunday, 20 April. Details of our Holy Week and Easter Services, including  the joint churches Palm Sunday ‘Easter Exploration’ in the Moggill State School Hall  are in the Notices. The following Sunday 27 April we will have our ANZAC Service. Notices for the Easter Exploration and Candidates Forum are attached to the GNT  email. 

I shall be on leave from Saturday 5 April returning Wednesday 9 April. 

Jesus said to Mary, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me  will live, even though they die;” 

Grace and peace and hope and life, 

Rob 

6 April 2025 

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 30 March  2025 -LENT IV

Lent IV – 30 March 2025

Dear Friends,

The past week of celebrations of ‘who we are’ have been quite wonderful.  Hope, love and indeed joy are genuinely part of who we, both at St Michael’s and also as God’s church, really are.  Hope, joy and love are parts of God’s self-expression; they come from within Godself. We are made by God to need and to long for these things; God promises to give them to us and will if we move forward with God in his ministry.

This Sunday we consider ‘the Prodigal Son’ which although there is family breakdown and plenty of sinning, is a story, a parable, told by Jesus fundamentally about love, God’s love, and joy and hope.  This parable, perhaps more than any other, sums up the relationship that God offers to each of us.  It is used in Lent as a reminder of our need and encouragement to repent and turn back to God, our God of extravagant richness of love.  To leave this parable in the realm of ‘Middle Eastern stories from 2,000 years ago’ would be sad.  It is an incredible story expounding God’s great love; God wants us to personally know and partake of this love.  Jesus told this story to the Pharisees who refused to pass God’s love on to those they considered unworthy – sinners.

Holy Week, starting on Palm Sunday 13 April, and Easter, Sunday 20 April, will soon be upon us.  Details of our special services in this period are now in our notices.  We are also joining with the other Moggill churches for a Palm Sunday afternoon activity at Moggill State School.

Thank you to our Easter raffle ticket sellers.  I don’t personally sell tickets for a number of reasons but I am grateful to those who are enabling our wider community to contribute towards the maintenance of our buildings – all funds raised by the raffle are set aside for maintenance – thank you for your time and enthusiasm.  Over $1,500 has been raised so far.

This Sunday as we continue our Lenten journey, will reflect upon God’s love and joy and hope in music and symbol and words, as we continue to explore who God wants us as a church, (that is as priest and people,) to be.  The harder part, which we can only do in God’s power, is being God’s church.

I shall be on leave from Saturday 5 April returning Wednesday 9 April.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God … but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

30 March 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 23 March  2025 -LENT III

Dear Friends,

It is so nice to officially be here!

My great thanks to all involved in our/my Commissioning Service on Thursday Evening.  I know that many more wanted to be here and the practicalities of work, family, traffic, travel, mid-week, night-time, school night etc were against it but it was a lovely, warm and friendly occasion.

As I was able to say on Thursday, it was surreal being commissioned into a church that I have been in for the past few years, but there are some advantages in the process.  Some of these are legal and technical but perhaps greatest was the opportunity to have our bishop and archdeacon and other local clergy visit us.  I don’t think they will quickly forget our worship, our music and particularly our hospitality; we reminded them who we, the people of St Michael’s Moggill/Mt Crosby, really are.

I am humbled and a little daunted by the generous words of welcome.  I do want to thank everyone involved.  It was a lot of hard work at short notice on a work/school night; I truly appreciate everyone’s involvement and support. Thanks also to those who have spoken or written or texted your messages of support and thank you to those who have prayed both for the occasion and for our ministry together (please don’t stop praying).

For this Sunday, I have changed the Gospel reading so that we can further reflect on the passage which Bishop John preached on Thursday evening.  I think God’s challenge for us going forward is in that simple passage, in the friends who brought their ‘mate’ to Jesus and in Jesus’s actions.  I think we are all in this story – even those who observed the miracle and gave thanks to God and went and told others about God’s miracle that they had seen are part of God’s work.

I finish with words from Isaiah read on Thursday;

The spirit of the Lord God is upon [us] because the Lord has anointed [us]; he has sent [us] to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, … to comfort all who mourn.  Isaiah 61

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

23 March 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 16 March  2025 -LENT II

LENT II – 16th MARCH 2025

Dear Friends,

What a difference a week makes!  This time last week we were still wondering when and where and what Cyclone Alfred was going to do.  We, in our part of the world, country, state and city, have been spared the worst; for us most of the repair and clean-up has nearly been completed.  In our house; we now have power back on, the candles smelt nice but a little hard to read by; and we have now had a couple of comfortable nights with everything working.  I think all we need is a rubbish collection.  Please remember and pray for those south of our city, some still without power, who still have lots of cleaning and rebuilding.

Before we too quickly move on from and forget Alfred, it’s useful to reflect.  I heard from on of the Emergency Service leaders (in a queue for coffee) that if the cyclone had crossed the coast as a stronger system, we would have been looking at much, much greater damage, probably considerable loss of life and significant, widespread damage to all of our infrastructure.  Let us thank God for sparing us such devastation.

Sometimes we only truly appreciate what we have when it is taken away from us.  Losing or nearly losing much that we take for granted around us – power; fully stocked supermarkets; clean drinking water; secure, safe, dry homes and much more – gives us the opportunity to appreciate and to thank God for what we have.

This week we also said farewell to our much loved Ann Higgins.  We had a beautiful funeral in our little church and a lovely morning tea in the hall.  We publicly thanked God for Ann’s life including all of her work within our church.  We prayed for and with Rob and his precious family.  Please keep them, and all within our parish family who are grieving, in your prayers.  ‘Thank you’, to all who helped with Ann’s funeral.

This coming Thursday, the 20th of March, Bishop John Roundhill is visiting us to ‘commission’ me as Priest-in-charge.  We will have a formal service in the church at 7:00pm with supper afterwards.  Everyone is welcome.

‘In him [Jesus] was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and no darkness has ever overcome it.’ John 1:4,5

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

16 March 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 9 March  2025 -LENT 1

Dear Friends,

I’m writing a little earlier in the week so that we can get this distributed before the cyclone that is (very, very slowly) coming our way.

If at all possible, we will have church at 8:30 on Sunday morning.  If Alfred is even later than expected or if flooding or closed roads prevent us from gathering we will send out an email but if at all possible, even in an amended form, we will gather to worship on Sunday.

My message between now and then is to ‘stay safe’.  I’m sorry that we had to cancel the evening Ash Wednesday service; as it turned out we probably could have safely held it but we didn’t know this at the time. Safety first!

Now that we are in the season of Lent, this storm is worth considering in that perspective.  God led Jesus into the wilderness where he was without all of the normal distractions, so that Jesus could just focus on God his Father.  All the things Jesus left behind were good things in themselves; family, friends, teachers, work, daily life are all God made, God given and good.  God took these away for a while so that without distraction Jesus could listen to and learn from God.  In the wilderness, Jesus was tested and prepared for the work that God had prepared for him.

So, let us use this opportunity when God has removed some of our normal ‘good’ distractions; let us use it to listen to God; listen to God’s still voice.  Let us use this time, no matter how late we may think we are in life, to let God prepare us for what God has planned for us next!

May God’s peace and love and hope and light protect and lead you and your families.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

9 March 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 2 March  2025

Dear Friends,

We certainly packed a lot into last Sunday.  One of the things I love about this parish is the positive attitude that people bring to what we do.

I am grateful to all involved in the preparation and the conduct of our successful Annual Meeting, also to those who agreed to be elected and appointed to Parish Council and to everyone who gave the hour of their time to attend. 

Congratulations, and my thanks for being prepared to continue:

·      Priest’s Warden - Bronwen Thomas was appointed

·      Peoples’ Wardens - Sam Towers and Rob Law were elected

·      Sam and Bron continue as Synod Representatives

·      Parish Nominators – Miranda Mortlock, Sam Towers and Rob Law were elected

·      Parish Council Members – in addition to all of those above, Helen Donovan and Richard Ponsonby were elected. 

There is provision for the Priest to appoint another member of PC if we need this.

The timing of the announcement that the Archbishop is appointing me formally as part-time Priest-in Charge here at Moggill was helpful.  This will not change much but from a Diocesan perspective, some things are simpler; I now officially belong back in Brisbane.  I am grateful for the increase in work hours and stipend.   I hope this will enable me and us to be more engaged within our community and in pastoral care.  This also gives us status as a parish; we are no longer a ‘vacancy’.

We love being part of St Michael and All Angels and I appreciate the affirmation of my ministry here.  My thanks also for the special, ‘Anniversary of Ordination’ cake (and cross) last Sunday.

On a sadder note, Ann Higgins died in St Vincent’s Hospital on Friday.  Rob was with her as she stopped breathing.  We don’t yet have a date or details for Ann’s funeral.  Please keep Rob and their family in your prayers.

We have a busy season ahead.  Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent is this Wednesday 5 March; details of our special services and activities will be in the notices going forward.  We are also working on some combined churches Holy Week activities in Moggill.

‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ says the Lord. ‘Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet will they live.’ John 11:25

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

2 March 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 23 February 2025

Dear Friends,

Our Annual General Meeting will be held after church this Sunday.  Please feel free to either attend or free to not attend.  We have neither compulsory attendance nor voting.  (I can’t promise the same for our upcoming Federal Elections.) 

Our business is straightforward, our reports brief and our elections simple.  Most importantly, feel free to continue with your coffee during the meeting.

This is about open-ness and including all on our journey.  We have sufficient nominations for all positions but room for some more!  The actual decisions on the numbers to be elected lie with those who attend the Annual Meeting; you get to decide how many wardens and Parish Councillors we will elect.

I found the current Parish Council very effective and all have indicated a willingness to continue.  This is part of us being a community together. Even if you elect the same or a very similar parish council, your votes are affirming for those who represent you.

I have chosen to remember Saint Matthias this week, in part to break up this long pre-Lent section of our church year (Easter this year is almost as late as it can be); it is also the anniversary of my ordination as a deacon in 1997. 

The principal reason is that we have much to learn from the ‘saints’, from those whose lives and actions are included in our Bibles.

Matthias gets only a very brief moment in the limelight in Acts Chapter 1 but the early church believed his role was important so we will see what we can learn also.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

23 February 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 16 February 2025

Dear Friends,

Like all those around us, I hope for and pray for God’s richest blessings for my family and for yours and for our nation and for our world.  At every wedding, I pray God’s richest blessings for the newly married couple.  We assume and usually hope that God’s blessings are wealth and health and success and happiness.  Jesus indeed promises us times of feasting and joy and honour, but these times, he says, will be in heaven.

Much of the Bible and particularly Jesus’s teaching in the Gospels is for people who are not experiencing good times.  It is this that makes the Bible and Jesus journey and teaching relevant for both us and for those around us.

People outside our church just as much as each of us who are members of it have differing views of what a church should be.  It has always been the same.  People tried to tell the prophets and Jesus and then the Apostles what the church should be and what sort of Messiah or Christ or Saviour or God Jesus should be.

Our Old Testament Reading and our Psalm this week speak of us being trees planted beside a river and able to withstand the tough times.  Jesus actions, his healing and his words are to be comfort for those who are struggling through the dark times in this world.

We as a church are called to be a place where we and others can bring our ‘bad times’ and can find that we and our tough situations are welcome.  I hope we will have many times of celebration but fundamentally I hope that we are a place where hugs are given and tears wiped away, a place where we can share with others how much God has done for us.

After he had healed the Gerasene Demoniac

Jesus said to him, “Go home to your own people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you.”

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

16 Feb 25

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 9 February 2025

Dear Friends,

What an ‘interesting’ week! 

My thoughts and prayers continue for those in North Queensland.  Some rain continues, and the clean-up will take quite a while, but as many have told me, it could have been far worse.  I am heartened to hear how the community has supported itself.  Most who evacuated were able to stay with family or friends and the support in the Evacuation Centers has been described as brilliant.  I know Townsville; I know those flood prone, ‘black zone’ suburbs, but it’s not just Townsville; this affects many including farms all around. 

I’m saddened that teenager, Charlize Zmunda could die from a shark bite at the beach where I have recently holidayed.  Bribie Island is a beautiful, much-loved part of God’s world.

We have had Fr John Cuffe’s funeral – beautiful, moving, sad, joyous, hopeful.

There were plane crashes – I’ve flown on US Army Blackhawk helicopters, and I’ve flown into Reagan airport – and financial market upheavals.

It can be tempting to think that God is losing control. 

When people tell me what God should be doing, I go back to the Bible to see what God has said.  God promises good times with no more pain, suffering or tears, when all will be wonderful, but God promises these in heaven. 

Jesus told us that this world and all that is in it will pass away; reminded us that we, like him, will all die; showed us that in this world he was going to stir up people and allow wars and natural disasters but, in these, we would see God’s light shining.  This world and it’s darkness are temporary; heaven is eternal. Jesus has personally led the way.

For me, I hold to God who has promised to be with me as my shepherd even when he leads me through the valley of the shadow of death. Let’s not forget that Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness; a light which no darkness has ever overcome. May Jesus your shepherd, lead you and comfort you and be your strength and hope through this world’s darkness and into heaven.

In him [Jesus] was life and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness and no darkness has ever overcome it.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

9 Feb 25

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 2 February 2025

Dear Friends,

We enter the coming week with the funeral for Father John Cuffe; details are included in the notices.  I understand the sadness that Fr John’s death has brought to many and it’s OK and fully human and normal to be sad.  Jesus, Jesus the human being, wept when he encountered the reality of the death of his friend Lazarus.  Jesus wept even though he knew that Lazarus was both going to die and that Jesus was going to bring him back to life. Knowledge is of the mind, sadness is of the spirit, soul of heart.

We can rationalize the death of John Cuffe saying, ‘he lived a good long life;’ ‘that his pain and suffering from his cancer are over;’ and ‘it’s OK he had faith in God’.  All of these are true and important, but they are just cerebral; John’s death is still sad.

Grief and sadness are complicated; these are not of the mind but of our very spirit or soul or heart.  In part the sadness in our spirit reminds us of how much John was loved and how he is missed.  Jesus, leading by example, gives us permission to express the feelings that come from our spirit, soul or heart; Jesus gives permission to be sad.

John’s death does however give us cause to remember the hope that we hold onto at the same time and in our sadness.  John held firmly to a belief that God will bring him into eternal life in heaven.  Life forever with God where there are no more tears or pain is John’s hope.  He believed the way to heaven is the way that Jesus has led; this way is through death, through death to resurrection, through death and for Christians, bypassing judgement, into heaven.

The death of Fr John Cuffe gives us the opportunity to both remember and to believe.  We too will die, and God offers to all who believe and love and trust and follow Jesus, God offers us too eternal life in heaven.  This was/is John’s faith.

Whilst still sad, I thank God for John’s ministry, his vulnerability, his example, his faith and for the opportunity that his death gives us to think of our own future.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

2 Feb 25

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 26 January 2025

 Dear Friends,

Australia Day blessings!  I know that today has become much more divisive and controversial than it perhaps was in our past.  I understand the pain of those who feel that this is ‘invasion day’; I listen to those with many other views and feelings.  Perhaps we should listen more closely to these voices so that we might, as a church, better understand people around us and our role as a church.  Australia Day could and should be our ‘Who are we? Day.’  There will be many announcements and celebrations today, many to congratulate.  I hope that we are able to reflect and to ‘rejoice that we are one and that we are free’.  In these things we are so much better off than most of the world.

To me, this weekend is almost like New Year’s Day.  The holidays are over and everything should be fully back and functioning.  Yes, the 40 kmh speed limits now apply in school zones; I shall try to avoid driving anywhere between 8 and 9:30 am.  For us as a parish, everything is now back to normal including Morning Prayer and Bible discussion on Wednesday mornings.  I do enjoy the questions that these discussions evoke.

Our Parish Annual Meeting will be held on Sunday 23 Feb after the 8:30 am service.  There are the required formal notices about this at the back of the church.  Whilst I don’t want to limit discussion and ideas, I aim to keep the meeting flowing.  We will have some reports; I encourage comprehensive brevity; and we need to elect wardens and a parish council.  If there are issues that you wish to raise publicly at the Meeting, I am happy if you wish to discuss them before the meeting.

With the world around us getting back to work, this Sunday, coincidentally, our readings are looking at Jesus starting to ‘get down to work.’  In Luke 4, Jesus goes to church (the synagogue) and reads from the Bible (the book of the prophet Isaiah) and preaches (speaks).  It’s helpful for us to know that even Jesus thought that going to church, reading the Bible and discussing God’s Word are important for a functioning relationship with God; but it wasn’t without controversy.  As usual, if something in our relationship with God is important, we will find Jesus setting the example.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

26 Jan 25

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC

Dear Friends,

I love this time of the year.  I love many things about mid-January.  Although the traffic is increasing as people return to work, travel on our roads is still great.  Many around us are on holidays and this seems to shine through as a more relaxed attitude to life of people everywhere.  It is hot and humid but, in holiday mode, we are better dressed for summer.

I also love the feeling of anticipation.  We are preparing in so many ways for the year ahead.  It’s the season for getting ready for things like school, (look at how many families are school shoe shopping).  It’s time to get many things done for which there won’t be time later – I’ve painted our side fence, and we have planted the next lot of vegies. In some things we need to wind up last year’s efforts before moving on – our Parish treasurer has just presented Council the completed accounts from 2024 as a basis for considering the budget for 2025.

In the church’s liturgical calendar it is similar; this is the time, following Christmas, when we think about Jesus’s preparations for his coming ministry.  Last week we contemplated John’s baptism of Jesus and this week we have a ‘pre-ministry’ miracle that only appears in John’s Gospel.  What are we to make of Jesus turning water into a massive amount of exceptionally good wine?

On a sadder note, Fr John Cuffe died on Friday morning.  John and his ministry were much loved within our parish and more widely.  His passing ends his considerable pain.  I have included a notice with funeral details and of the support being provided for Kim.

I have loved our ‘holiday season’ but I’m now keen to really get into our year.  We have one last ‘quiet week’ but from the Australia Day weekend, as a parish, we are back into everything.  We have ladies’ and men’s breakfasts on Saturday 25th and we will have midweek services on Wednesdays from the 29th.

From this Sunday, you will also see the notices for our Parish annual Meeting.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

19 January 2025

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC

Dear Friends,

John answered them,

“I baptise you with water; but one more powerful than I is coming ..

He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

So, Christmas is once again over; the decorations are down and packed away and, although we are still in the midst of the holiday season – yes, the traffic jams are not in the city but on the way to and from the Gold and Sunshine Coasts – it’s certainly time to get ready for the active year ahead.

It has been interesting to discuss with some the question that those around us have asked, ‘What does Christmas mean for us personally?’

I hope you have unwrapped all of your Christmas presents – most of mine have been washed and folded and ironed and are being gratefully used. Have you unwrapped your Christmas present from God?  God has given us a personal relationship with Godself. Are you gratefully using it?

The next few Sundays are our time to reflect upon what Jesus did after Christmas, before he began his earthly ministry.  Now that Christmas is over, we will look at what Jesus did with God his Father and with the Holy Spirit to prepare, to set a foundation and to establish himself for God’s work, for his ministry. So doing is a good basis for us to prepare ourselves for God’s work this coming year.

The first of these Sundays we remember Jesus’s baptism.  Before John agreed to baptise Jesus, in Matthew’s account, John questioned why Jesus needed to be baptised.  It’s a good question which also evokes, ‘Why do we need to be baptised?’  This Sunday we will have to opportunity to reflect upon our own baptisms, what we (or others on our behalf) promised; we have the opportunity to recommit to our baptism.

This coming week I will finally retire from the Army.  It’s a little confronting to realise I have spent over three quarters of my life in the Army. There is a little personal readjustment involved but from a parish perspective, I look forward to having more time to engage with and to be involved, as priest-in charge of St Michael’s Moggill/Mt Crosby church, in our community.  I look forward to seeing where God leads us.

God has brought us out of darkness into his wonderful light;

shine as a light in the world, to the glory of God the Father.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

12 January 2025

Reflection from the Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 22 December 2024

Dear Friends,

Joy to the world! The Lord is come;

let Earth receive her king;

let every heart prepare him room,

and heaven and nature sing, …

In the world around us it’s beginning to look (and sound and feel) a lot like Christmas. I love the

festiveness, the cheerfulness the positivity and the hope but I question if the ‘joy and the hope’ are

because the Lord is come or because we just want the ‘trimmings of Christmas’, to have a good time.

In 2001 I deployed as chaplain to Bougainville to support the multi-national Peace Monitoring Group

over Christmas. Baggage restrictions were pretty tight but I was able to bring a few small Christmas

presents from my family. The hundred other members of the PMG seemed to have a similar smattering of small things awaiting opening on Christmas Day. We had to queue to use the phone home (no mobiles) but most of us managed a few minutes speaking with those whose love we were missing. The Army cooks did a great job but I think we were alcohol free.

Many in the contingent struggled to see how this could possibly be Christmas but for some of us celebrating Christmas in the small palm leaf chapel with a couple of Army musicians playing and the contingent members from Vanuatu on guitar we were able to celebrate the love of the God we knew. Jesus was just as present, perhaps even more so, without the ‘trimmings of Christmas.’

So this Christmas, as you enjoy the music, the party, the food and drinks; as you laugh with and hug those you love; as you feel and touch the earthly reminders of love, take some time to find the reason for the season – this is ‘Christ Mass’; it is a church service to remember Jesus’s birth.

We are made to live forever with God in heaven but our sinfulness, our rebellion gets in the way.

Into the darkness and pain and fear and empty hopes of this world, God came personally to be and to

show us the way to eternal perfect life with the God who made us. To say that I’m not a great cook is an understatement. I’m one of those whose cooking people look at and say, “don’t worry we will cover it in sauce.” The ‘trimmings’ can be the sauce which hides the reality of our lives which God in his love came to fix. Are we trimming our Christmas to pretend

that our lives don’t need God? Sometimes it is when we don’t have the nice worldly things of Christmas, that we find God’s true love for us; find our reason for joy and hope.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son [to save us]. This Christmas may you know

personally and celebrate God’s love for you; may you know God’s true eternal hope.

Grace and peace and hope and life,

Rob

Christmas 2024

Reflection from the Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - Advent II

Dear Friends,

As we continue in Advent with Christmas, the celebration of God coming personally into the world, fast approaching, there seems to be much to do before we get there.

Last Sunday’s readings were about the ‘end of the world’ or the end of our time in the world and Jesus warning us to be ready, ready for God to rescue, to save us, to bring us home when the end comes.  This week of Advent certainly seems to be about the end of the year and all of the many, many things that need to be done or that are happening and for which we need to be ready before the end of the year comes.

Much at the end of a year is celebration; school concerts and swimming carnivals and dance and music recitals and the end of the school year and many celebrations or parties but each of these brings pressures.  There are so many things to do before the end of the year including planning for next year.

From a parish perspective, with Parish Council we are putting together plans and a budget for next year to finalise at our PC Meeting on 15 December.  Before that I have meetings with Bishop John Roundhill, with The Rev’d Rod Fisher from Brisbane West Uniting Church and with The Rev’d Deb Bird from Kenmore parish.  I have some ideas, activities and possible visits to discuss with each of them.  I’m also hoping to meet with Cr Greg Aderman to discuss possible grants to help maintain our building.  As always, your prayers that we will in these meetings listen to God’s wishes would be appreciated.

From a personal perspective, I have a paper to finish writing before Christmas; I’m planning to be away on leave for the two Sundays after Christmas and I also officially will be discharged from the Army (after 51 years) in January – freedom.

Now, back to Christmas, the Nativity play for Christmas Eve is coming together well.  We still have plenty of room for more young participants, so if you have friends or family that you would like to be involved please speak to me as soon as possible.  We have things for those who just turn up on the night to do but I can write specific parts for people if we know in advance that they will be with us.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

8 December 24

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC  - Advent Sunday

Dear Friends,

It’s certainly beginning to look and feel and sound a lot like Christmas and so, like the world around us, we should prepare.  However, unlike the world around us, we are preparing for something very different.

As the world prepares for summer and year end; for parties and presents and 2025; we are called to prepare differently.  I’m told that 25 December was chosen as ‘Christ Mass’, as the celebration of the birth of the Christ, the Saviour, the Messiah, Jesus because most of the rest of the world was celebrating new life at this time.  In the Northern Hemisphere this is the time when the light, the sun starts to reappear after the depths of winter darkness.

Here in the global south, it’s a time of bushfires and cyclonic storms and of course humidity.  The month before is appropriately a time to prepare for storms (we’ve already had some good practice) and natural occurrences.  It’s also a time to prepare for perhaps a holiday away or lots of visitors at home and for feasting and perhaps for presents.  I need a pre-Christmas clean out to make room for the hoped for new things. And, a new year is coming.

Before Christmas, our church calendar invites us to prepare ourselves for the coming into the world of our Saviour.  The four Sundays of Advent have different themes and this first Sunday doesn’t feel Christmassy.  This first Sunday reminds us of the need for Christmas.  Two weeks ago, I preached about living on the Eve of Destruction and Jesus this morning Jesus continues this theme; the end, our end, is coming!  In the same way that we need a storm, flood, fire, emergency plan, Jesus reminds us that we also need an end of life or end of the world emergency plan. God is about to send the rescue team – Jesus – do we know how to access his rescue?

We sing, Joy to the world! The Lord is [coming] … let every heart prepare him room.  Jesus in the Gospel this morning warns us against having hearts weighed down with ‘dissipation’ – I had to look up the meaning.  This Advent let’s make sure that there is room in our lives, in our thoughts and in our hearts for Jesus.  In our hearts and lives, is Jesus the light in this world’s darkness; the focus of our hope; the source of our joy, peace and love?

I look forward, through singing (carols on 9 December), through prayer and confession, through Bible reading and worship to preparing for Christmas, for the year ahead and for eternity.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

1 December 2024

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC 

Dear Friends,

This Sunday has traditionally been called Christ the King and I find it a confusing metaphor.  We will hear that the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, just before he condemned Jesus to death, declared Jesus to be a king; Jesus responded that his kingdom was not of this world.

This ‘kingship’ of Jesus might be one of those concepts that we won’t fully understand in this world but as St Paul declares, in heaven or when the world ends or when Jesus comes again to draw us to himself, when this happens we shall see Jesus face to face and we will fully understand this and all of the worldly metaphors about Jesus.

Next Sunday we enter the season of Advent, the formal preparation for the coming of the Son of God into the world as a baby born at Christmas.  Just before we get into Christmas preparation mode, as we bring our Christian year to an end; I encourage you to think about who Jesus is, for you, now.

In his lifetime on Earth, Jesus proclaimed himself to be many things including; the light of the world – a light which shines into the darkness and which no darkness has ever overcome; the living water – which springs up in a person to give eternal life; the bread of life – whoever comes to Jesus will not hunger and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty; the good shepherd – who lays down his life for the sheep; the resurrection and the life – those who believe in Jesus even though they will die yet will they have eternal life; and ‘the way [to heaven] and the truth and the life – no one comes to the Father [and to heaven] except through me’.

With these and many other metaphors or images Jesus tried to tell us who he was in relationship to us.  Of course, the fundamental image from beginning to end of the Bible is that Jesus is a saviour (or Messiah or Christ).

Jesus is an undoubted actual figure of history; all the evidence is that he really did live about 2,000 years ago; but who is Jesus for you and for us and for the world now?

I really loved the children’s activity in church last Sunday.  On a piece of card they had a door which opened, ‘the door to heaven’ and when they opened the door they were able to draw or write what they thought was going to be in heaven.  The children recognised that Jesus is the door to heaven, and they came up with some beautiful ideas of who and what is in heaven; what would you write or draw in your picture of heaven?

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

24 November 24

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC - 17 November 2024

Dear Friends,

The wonderful, beautiful, powerful, scary, damaging, lifegiving, spectacular storms that we have had this week seem pretty appropriate with all that is happening in the world around us at the moment.

Around us, we have school graduations and ‘formals’ and end of year functions at every level from kindy, school and work. The past that we have known is ending and the future, with its potential, hope and also uncertainty, is before us.

Next Sunday ends our church year and on 1 December we begin Advent; Yes, Christmas is 5 weeks away! The world or the church or the parish or the school that we have known, and which may have brought us much comfort or stability is changing, but Advent celebrates God’s coming hope.

Around the world and in our own state and in our God’s church, governments or leaders are

changing. In the Church we find upheaval but last night the Rev’d Deb Bird was inducted as the new Priest-in-Charge of Kenmore-Brookfield Parish. Change offers hope but we can also fear change.

It is too easy to, like the world around us, too easy to be fearful. If we are comfortable in our lives, or as we age and have less ability to deal with, to adapt to and to control our lives as things change we are tempted to fear. For Christians, this shouldn’t be the case, of course we feel the same things as the rest of the world but we need not fear.

• First, even if the whole world is changing, our God is unchanging. Psalm 90 is very helpful.

“1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were

brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. ... 4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night.”

Jesus, in the Gospel this week, warned us, that everything would pass away. The world and all that is in it will pass away; we will pass away; but no matter what might change around us God still is the same; God is still in control of all that happens.

• Second, God loves us. From beginning to end, the Bible is the story of God’s love for His

creation and particularly for human beings and particularly for those who love God. John

3:16 reminds us that God loves us so much that Jesus came to save us from the coming

destruction. St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us that Love, God’s love, lasts or abides

forever. A few reminders from Psalms and from Prophets.

Isaiah 41: 10 do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

Psalm 146:3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I’ve included additional notices this week including:

• A message from our Archbishop about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s resignation.

• A notice about Christmas giving

• Christmas Service times are included (and we would welcome more Nativity Play

participants).

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

17 November 24

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC 

Dear Friends,

This Sunday and Monday which we call Defence Sunday and Remembrance Day make me very

proud to be an Australian. You all know that I’m proud of the work that the men and women of the

Australian Defence Force do; I remember this every day (for I’m still in the Australian Army) but

ANZAC Day is particularly our day for remembering those who serve in our name.

These young men and women serve to defend, our nation and their families and others who need

help. They serve to protect the people and things that they love. St John quotes Jesus when he

says, ‘greater love has no man than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ Jesus loves us

enough to die for us, even when we are undeserving and our ADF women and men are prepared to

do so for their nation, for freedom, for their families and for their mates. They are far from perfect

but I’m proud of their love and commitment.

Remembrance Day, the 11th of November commemorates the Armistice that ended the fighting in

World War I. By the time the guns fell silent, over 60,000 Australians had been killed in the war.

This was well over 1% of our population at the time, killed; many times this number were wounded

and suffered from these wounds the rest of their lives. More Australian soldiers were killed than

the number in our entire Army now. Historians suggest that almost no Australian family was

unaffected by these losses.

On 11 November 1918, the guns fell silent, the peace which had been longed for and prayed for

had commenced. Sadly, this wasn’t the last war but the peace was a time of great rejoicing. For

many however, the hard part was just starting. Coming home, coming back to the nation and

towns and homes and families that loved our service people dearly proved very difficult.

We might readily understand the difficulties of those significantly injured trying to return to farming

or building or labouring. In the days before modern machinery trying to do these things for those

now blind, deaf or without functioning limbs is understandable but everyone brought home

internal wounds, wounds of mind and spirit. They came home to a nation and to jobs and to

families that had also changed.

On top of the injuries, illnesses, nightmares and guilt, Australian servicemen and women felt that

they no longer belonged and were no longer welcome. The suicide rate post-war was massive.

Our servicewomen and men still serve out of the best of motives, out of love. They still come home

or leave ADF service with injuries but also wounded in mind and spirit. Too often, they still feel that

they don’t belong in within the nation they served, in our homes and towns and industries.

Jesus offers healing of spirit to such people; Jesus offers love and acceptance. This Defence Sunday,

this Remembrance Day let us commit to sharing God’s love and healing with those who need it,

with those who have served out of love for us.

We at St Michael’s Moggill will remember them – lest we forget.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

10 November 24

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC 

Sunday Pentecost XXIV– 3rd November 2024

Dear Friends,

This is one of those tough times to be God’s people, God’s church.  In the midst of life we are surrounded by death.  With the tragedies around us both close to home and far away, I have again had people asking, ‘Why did your God let such bad things happen?’  It’s a good, a very good question when people are seeing images of the Middle East, images of a car running over a fence at a school in Hawthorne killing an 11 year old student.

The sadness of the reality of death and its impact on families is not lost on God.  In John 10, we read that ‘Jesus wept’ when he encountered Mary and Martha grieving the death of their brother Lazarus.  Jesus himself didn’t avoid death; Jesus rather points our God’s particular blessings and comfort for those who mourn. 

I have, and we all should have, words of hope for those who are facing death and for those who mourn.  There is a time for words but first, we should do as Jesus did, first we should allow the emotion of our human condition to be real.  I try to offer understanding, empathy and love before words of comfort.  We, like every human being, we will all die, only the time and method are unknown.

We need to have words to justify our position and our Christian hope of resurrection to eternal life with God in heaven, but more than that, our lives need to show those around us that we believe our words, that we believe Jesus’s words, believe God’s promises.

Jesus showed that death is the natural process at the end of our earthly lives.  Jesus could have extended his life on earth, his followers offered to fight for him, and of course he could have summoned the powers of heaven.  Instead, Jesus accepted death, a very painful, ignominious death, a  crucifixion.  Jesus died and then God raised him to life and then he ascended into heaven.  Jesus through death shows us God’s plan; he has led the way for us to follow.

Does the world around us, do our families and friends see us accepting death or fighting against it?  If people see us personally fighting too hard against death they can question our faith in God and in his eternal life.

For me the two sadnesses of death are the impact on those left behind and the great sadness of those who choose not to follow Jesus.  I believe that heaven is real and so is hell.  God invites all into his kingdom but only those who don’t reject God’s invitation will have God’s eternal life.  This motivates me to live my life showing confidence in God’s eternal life.  Living a good life is nice but living as a child of God, living as a confident inheritor of eternal life is a more important witness.

This Sunday, we remember All Saints and All Souls.  We are right to mourn; it’s OK to be sad, to weep.  It’s vital in our sadness to know and to show God’s comfort; important to know and to show that we are firm in our faith and our hope and God’s love.

I look forward to this opportunity in our church to remember, to cherish, to grieve and to celebrate the love of those whose love and lives we have shared and to be thankful for God’s eternal love.

Grace and peace and hope,

Rob

3 November 24

Reflection from The Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC 

Sunday Pentecost XXIII– 27 October 2024

Dear Friends,

I’m a great fan of the ‘democracy sausage’; somehow it symbolises a typical Australian approach to life.  Our democracy and the process involved are hard won freedoms and rights that many in our world envy and wish they had.  Our process is fair and open; certainly there are limits that our party system and finances bring, but it is an open and transparent process.  It is serious but the good old sausage sizzle helps us as Australians celebrate our freedom and keep things real.  (I do remember one election day in Canberra cooking sausages for hours at a school fundraiser; I think it took about a week for me to lose the smell of sausages.) 

Our parish is much more than just Sunday morning services.  The men’s and ladies’ breakfast gatherings are an opportunity for us to share fellowship.  Such connection opportunities have been shown to promote overall wellbeing and to prolong mental health as we age.  They also provide time be less formal and more real than Sundays.

There are other even less formal gatherings; please join us or just invite others for a ‘cuppa’.

Next Sunday 3 November we will celebrate and commemorate All Saints and All Souls.  Within the service there will be an opportunity for each of us to light a candle of memory a physical symbol od remembrance of those we love who have died.  As I wrote last week:

God does not want us to ignore or not think about the reality of death.  Death is the natural conclusion to our earthly lives.  Jesus who told his disciples that he is the way to heaven also told them that he was going to be killed.  By dying and then rising from the dead and ascending into heaven, Jesus shows us and leads us into heaven.  As Christians, our hope is not to not die, our hope is that when we die, we too, like Jesus will be resurrected in heaven.  Those in the world around us who do not have this hope of eternal life after death in heaven, those without this hope in Jesus are justly obsessed with not dying – we are not to be worried about dying.

When those we love, those who have loved us, die, we are rightly saddened.  It hurts!  We are right to mourn and to grieve.  St Paul reminds us that the love that they have given us and that we have given them is eternal.  We will celebrate this gift of love, this gift that remains with us and remember that such love is the essence of the nature of God.

I look forward to this opportunity in our church to remember, to cherish, to grieve and to celebrate God’s love.