10 May 2026

Honouring Mothers

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The 4th Commandment directs us to “honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which Jehovah your God is giving you.” I hope you have a chance today to do some of that honouring. But of course, this commandment goes far beyond just one day of the year and beyond just one earthly mother. More broadly we can reflect on how we honour motherhood in general, and how those qualities of motherhood come into our spiritual practices. Whether your mother is still here or has passed on, whether your relationship with your mother is deep, conflicted, or non-existent, it is possible to honour spiritual motherhood.

Previous Sermons

16 August 2026

People Need People

The Teachings of the New Church assert that "People are not born for their own sake; they are born for the sake of others."

9 August 2026

Make a Choice

When confronted with hard choices sometimes the easiest thing to do is to make no choice at all. Yet this choice is often the worst choice of all: in trying to keep our options open we lose out on all of them.

2 August 2026

Fostering Empathy

A crucial part of loving other people is to be able to see ourselves in them, and to feel and share what they are feeling. Yet in order to do this well we also must remain distinct from other people.

26 July 2026

Rising Above “Us vs. Them” Thinking

It's incredibly easy to divide the world into "us" and "them." We do it with things as simple as music taste and fashion choices and as profound as religion and faith.

19 July 2026

Order Within the Chaos

Life is often messy. Many people struggle to stay on top of all their obligations, much less all the other bits and pieces of life. With this experience it can start to appear that there is no real order or purpose to life, no strand tying it all together.

12 July 2026

Orientated Towards the Lord – Part 2

Last week we talked about one of the broadest ways of organizing ourselves towards the Lord: making sure that love leads, that what is right  and true supports that love, that our own enjoyment follows next, and that external knowledge doesn’t become our focus. This Sunday we will delve further into the details, as we try to understand how good and truth, when organized properly, gives us spiritual strength.

5 July 2026

Orientated Towards the Lord

The book of Numbers gave meticulous instructions for how the Children of Israel were to arrange their encampment. The Tabernacle was to be situated in the centre with specific tribes assigned to each side; each tribe camped according to smaller subsets and family units.