Hiding in Plain Sight
July 26, 2026
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
We are all being formed by what we learn to notice. In Matthew 13, Jesus invites us beyond distraction and into a deeper way of seeing, revealing a Kingdom that keeps appearing in the unsavoury, the inconvenient and the overlooked. This sermon explores how learning where to direct our attention may become one of the most life-giving and transformative practices of faith.
“Surely the Lord is in This Place”
July 19, 2026
Genesis 28:10-19 & John 1: 43-51
We spend so much of life looking for God in extraordinary places. But what if the deepest spiritual awakening comes not from climbing higher, but from seeing differently? As we journey with Jacob we discover not only a God who has always been closer than we imagined but why this way of ‘seeing’ might be one of the most important callings of our time.
The Truth We Hide From
July 12, 2026
Genesis 25 & 27
We’re hungry for the truth – the truth of our politicians, public figures and the people we put on pedestals. That is, until the truth is about us. In one of the most infamous family stories, Jacob, Esau, Rebekah and Isaac reveal a surprising truth about God: the truth about us is never the end of the story. Somehow, God keeps bringing blessing through the people we’d least expect.
Which begs the question: what if the truth we most want to hide isn’t what keeps God from blessing us—but the very place from which God chooses to bless the world?
Where Wisdom Waits
July 5, 2026
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Why is wellness a multi-billion-dollar industry? Why do we keep up with the Joneses? Why, as our bodies ache, do we long for “the good old days”? In the end, we’re all reaching for a rest we first tasted as infants — and it’s exactly what Jesus names in Matthew 11: a rest not found in an otherworldly paradise or the performance of perfectionism, but found in proximity, in relationship. And so, we’re called not merely to turn to Jesus, but to become, ourselves, places where others can finally stop and find rest for their souls at last.
Another Way
June 28, 2026
Genesis 22:1-14
There’s nothing quite like a story about child sacrifice to mark the end of maternity leave — and yet, I wouldn’t have it any other way. We dive headfirst into one of the Bible’s most disturbing passages to find, just beneath the horror, a God who has always been in the business of subverting death. From ancient child sacrifice to a hopeful room in Seddon, this sermon traces the thread of a God who refuses to let violence have the last word.
Befriending the Dark
March 1, 2026
John 3:1-17
What would happen if we saw darkness not as something to turn from but to be transformed by? In a culture (and a faith) addicted to light, certainty, productivity, and being right, John 3 offers a different way. A way of unknowing, where darkness becomes the place not only of honesty and deepening of faith but where we might finally see God face to face.
*Rev Alisha will take a short break and return with fresh reflections on June 28, 2026*
The Way of the Wilderness
Feb 22, 2026
Matthew 4:1-11
From swept floors at Lunar New Year to the long fast of Ramadan and Jesus’ forty days in the desert, this week we follow the long thread of truth woven through human history: that renewal begins with release. This reflection explores Lent as an embodied practice, marked not just in calendars but in bodies, where we learn to loosen our grip on false power and easy answers. Here, the wilderness does not help us escape suffering, but teaches us how to face it honestly so that new life might rise on the other side.
Letting the Light Out
Feb 15, 2026
Matthew 17:1-9
We’re drawn to stories where impossibility doesn’t have the final word — where something luminous emerges anyway. This reflection weaves the Transfiguration story with human lives shaped by struggle to ask what it really means to see. Not to escape the world, but to recognise how inner light takes form in flesh, and how salvation might be less about answers and more about vision.
Heaven, Here
Feb 1, 2026
Matthew 5:1-12
What if heaven isn’t somewhere we go later, but something we keep encountering together? Drawing on the Beatitudes, shared rituals, and moments of public gathering, we see how blessing takes shape among the grieving, the gentle, and those who hunger for justice. From mountaintops to city streets, heaven is revealed not as escape, but as presence — meeting us where we are, as we are.
The Story That Costs Us Something
Jan 25, 2026
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Australia tells a story about a fair go, mateship, and equality, but that story is incomplete without truth about this land and its First Peoples.
In that space between who we say we are and who we are still becoming, the story of the cross invites us into reconciliation shaped by costly, self-emptying love. Reconciliation, after all, is not a slogan, but a way of being formed by love — which is why the stories we live by matter, because they shape the people we become. And the work of reconciliation is not only about restoring what has been taken from First Peoples, but about recognizing that the healing of this land is bound up with the healing of all who live on it.
What Are You Looking For?
Jan 18, 2026
John 1:29-42
What if the thing you’ve been searching for has been quietly looking for you all along?
We live in a world that tells us what to look at, what to fear, and who to blame — and in the noise, it’s easy to lose sight of what we’re actually longing for. Drawing on John’s Gospel, the naming of Jesus, and the imperfect faith of Peter, this reflection asks what might change if we stopped hiding and let ourselves be seen. Not by algorithms, outrage, or achievement — but by love made flesh, inviting us to stay, to belong, and to become.
Becoming the Change
Jan 11, 2026
Matthew 3:13-17
In times of fire, fear, and division, the Gospel does not offer easy fixes — it offers transformation.
Between the Victorian bushfires, the escalating dehumanization of both Jews and Muslims fueled by political and public rhetoric, and the erosion of democracy in the so-called “land of the free,” it’s hard to deny that we are living in a time of danger and destruction. And yet, through the mystery of baptism, we are reminded that change is still possible — not by fixing the world, but by allowing ourselves to be turned around.
Because Christ did not come to change the world… Christ came to change our hearts.
A truth that does not deny the real consequences of violence, but a truth that addresses the underlying crisis crippling our world: forgetting our belonging and our belovedness. A remembrance that awakens us to who God has already formed us to be — the very change we yearn to see in the world.
Something Out of Nothing
Jan 4, 2026
Isaiah 25:6-10a Revelation 21:1-6a
We begin at a threshold — where Isaiah’s feast of rich food and wiped tears meets the ache and uncertainty of the present. Through scripture, memory, and the ordinary holiness of communion, imagination emerges not as escape but as resistance — the way God keeps making something out of nothing. In a world shaped by fear and scarcity, we’re invited to trust God in spite of the evidence and watch how the evidence changes.
So as a new year opens, what do you imagine?
For it is the power through which we can participate in God’s feast at last.
The Scandal of Christmas
Dec 25, 2025
Luke 2:1-20
What if Christmas isn’t about escaping the world, but learning how to stay?
This reflection explores a God who chooses fragile, finite flesh over power and prestige, and a peace that arrives not by force, but by presence.
In a world marked by unpeace, Christmas invites us to remain and believe—with courage, attention, and trust —that our flesh might be the very place where something holy is being born.
Becoming Sanctuary
Dec 21, 2025
Luke 1:26-56
Following last week’s violence at Bondi, the story of Elizabeth and Mary invites us to pause rather than rush to solutions. Drawing on themes of sanctuary, waiting, and presence, this ancient text shows us how God’s work often unfolds slowly—especially in times of grief, fear and uncertainty. As our bodies are left shaken awake, we are invited to become people where the slow, steady, scandalous work of salvation can be born at last.
Holy Wild
Dec 7, 2025
Matthew 3:1-12
Forget the Christmas cookies and cozy nostalgia—Advent summons us into the wilderness where God turns the world, and us, upside down. John the Baptist shows up wild-eyed, camel-clad, and unfiltered, calling us to a turning that actually changes us. If you’re feeling stuck, suffocated, or too comfortable, the wilderness may be exactly where God is waiting with fire and new life. So get ready to be shaken awake, turned around, set ablaze, released of the chaff in your soul so you might embody a life more wild than you could ever imagine.
Awake My Soul
Nov 30, 2025
Matthew 24:36-44
We live in a culture that tells us hope comes in a coca-cola coloured Santa Claus, sparkling lights, the perfect Christmas lunch, and, of course, an Australian Cricket win. Yet real hope breaks through in the humdrum, mundane, and ordinary of life. In our first week of Advent, we are called to stay awake to a hope that saves — freeing us from systems and cultures that constrain us, and pointing us instead to a God who calls us to expect the unexpected.
A Meeting at the Margins
Nov 23, 2025
Luke 23:33-43
In a world bent on seeing red, we’re invited to see the way God truly sees us — and I mean all of us — beloved and holy. On this Christ the King Sunday, true power is revealed not from a throne or a crown looking down, but from the cross. Here, Christ’s vulnerability meets our own and invites us out of the fear, shame, judgment, and condemnation of society, the church, and even ourselves — so that we might live and breathe paradise today.
Be Still
Nov 16, 2025
Luke 21:5-19
What if the biggest threat in our modern world was not polarizing politics, waging wars or the cost-of-living? What if it was in the inability to be still? Through stories of remembrance, the rubble of Luke’s world, and the wisdom of the mystics, we discover the still point where God and soul meet. A union that emerges not in our striving… but in our surrender.
The Fire of Freedom
Nov 9, 2025
Luke 20:27-40
What if resurrection isn’t just about life after death, but about liberation from everything that keeps us bound — now and forever? Luke 20 invites us to see resurrection not as a theory to defend, but as a fire to live by — the same flame that burned before Moses and still calls us to courage today. For this is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob whose very name is liberation.