Maughan Uniting Church

Psalm 14:1-7
2 Samuel 11:1-15
King David…Courageous victor over the giant, Goliath…
King David…Anointed by God as King of Israel …
and, as we read to day…
King David…the murderous and adulterous seducer of Bathsheba.
To say the least, David’s…is an interesting life.
A Big Life.
Big enough for a great biography; perhaps…a life big enough for two biographies?
Who enjoys reading biographies?
A biography about an interesting figure, and one that’s well written, can be enthralling.
But, there are two types of biographies, aren’t there?: authorized and unauthorized.
If the subject is someone you admire and you want to be inspired by their life, then the authorized biography makes for a good read. You hear about the person’s great achievements, their vision, their positive qualities. But, their failures, their embarrassing moments, their character flaws, and any shameful events are generally spun into something more positive, or else ignored altogether. What we read is what the subject wants us to read.
In contrast, the unauthorized biography presents information that the subject of the biography doesn’t want us to know – including the shameful episodes, including the character flaws.
The Old Testament contains within it…two biographies of the life of David, sitting side-by-side: what could be termed the authorized and the unauthorized biographies of King David.
Reading these two biographies you could be forgiven for wondering if they’re talking about the same person!
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The Rev Liellie McLaughlin

Sermon 19 July 2009

SCRIPTURE READINGS:  

Mark 6:30-34

Mark 6:45-46

Mark 6:53-56

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

Jesus Walks on the Water

Sermon:

How does God speak to you: directly; indirectly; via a verse; a good sermon; in a dream or in prayer?  What is the message God gave you for today?

This question, of communicating with God, reminds me of a time when I lived in Belgium.  It was a time of working hard to get to a Bible study with my children.  We didn’t have a car, and the children, (aged 3 and 5), and I had to journey to the Bible-study, via 2 bus-trips; one train journey and one underground-ride – and then run 4 blocks to be on time.  I felt very proud of our achievement – despite the fact that this journey would start at 7.30 am and we’d get to Bible-study at 10 am.   On one of these trips I met a young 20 year old reading her Bible on the train – and I was astounded – never saw anything like it!  We started talking and she was inspirational – she told me about her life journey with Christ and I told her of my effort to get to the Bible-study which was so important to me.  In huge anticipation she leant forward and asked: And so – what is the message God gave you for today?  I was dumbfounded – I had never thought about conversing with God about my day on a daily basis; and if you think I’m just hard on myself because those Wednesdays were so busy, I can assure you that I didn’t ask God on Tuesdays or Thursdays either.  Up till then, I thought one prayed when looking for direction about jobs; marriages; big decisions or for sick people of bad situations – never thought about asking God about a message for the day!

So this sermon is about communing with God amidst the mess; the messenger and the message. (more…)

The Sunday of Stewardship – 28 June, 2009

The Rev Liellie McLaughlin

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Stewardship is a difficult topic – after-all how we use our gifts; our money; our talents and our time is a serious question of who we are.  Maybe it would be good if we start with a joke. 

The strongest man in the word was visiting a village to demonstrate his skills.  One of these was to get hold of a lemon and to squeeze it – and this man was so strong that he could squeeze the lemon down to the size of a walnut.  He proudly showed the crowd and then asked if anyone in the audience wanted to try and do the same.  At first no one came forward, until a little old lady put up her hand.  He gave her a fresh lemon and she squeezed and squeezed – until there was some smoke coming out of her hand and she opened it.  Nothing left – except a piece of rind!

The strong young man, and the crowd was so surprised – and the young man asked: how did you do that?

Well, the little old lady answered:  I belong to a small church and we have to be very careful with our money – so we have learned to squeeze every drop out of a cent before we give up!

Maybe this story can help us look lightly at the stewardship issue because maybe we can all associate with the strong young man.  We do things out of our own strength.  We plan; we give; we deduct; we do.  And maybe we forget with whose strength we do these things;  and we forget with whose grace we achieve.

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The Good Samaritan: Sermon 14 June, 2009

The Rev Liellie Mclaughlin

Luke 10:25-37

Theme Introductory question: Do you feel that being a Christian is to be like Spiderman – ready to solve everybody’s problems?  Has your Spiderman costume got a few tears as you tried to dart from problem to problem?

Caring for our neighbour

Do you get bombarded by appeals for help?  On TV there are countless organisations asking you to sponsor children overseas; we see the tragic tsunami and we grieve; we send money to the victims of the bushfires, and here at church we make tea for the homeless people and gather beanies and socks for Byron place – we sit and pray with the people attending the Welcome centre; but we struggle – is this enough?  Who are we called to – the child with the big, brown, begging eyes on our TV screen; our neighbour whose wife has Alzheimer’s or the sick person in our church?

Let us look at the story today from three points of view:

• the priest and Levite;
• The Good Samaritan as symbolised by Jesus and
• our own response.

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