Sermon for Easter Sunday 2nd May 2021: Mark 16, 1-8.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens and Zoom

It has been an extraordinary year since Easter 2020. The pandemic is still with us. In some parts of the world it is still out of control – India and Brazil especially are being humbled before this virus as social structures and familiar patterns of life are brought to an abrupt close. The word devastating would be an understatement.

All countries have been ravished by this virus, and where there are signs of recovery we are still cautious, because nothing is certain, nothing is predictable.

In those countries where there are some signs of emergence, it is easy to think of the language of new life, of renewal. A little more family life is possible – hugging a grand-child or an ailing parent in a nursing home for the first time in a year. Shops begin to trade again albeit perhaps in some restricted ways. The language of the pandemic has brought a new globally recognized vocabulary all of its own, such as ‘click and collect’.

In our usual human haste plans are being made for summer holidays again. Greece is particularly keen to re-invigorate its tourism as so much depends on it – so many people’s livelihoods linked to seasonal work. Governments have to balance public health with the economy.

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Sermon for Palm Sunday – 25th April 2021: Matthew 21, 1-11

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens and Zoom

I would like to touch on three themes briefly this morning: Lazarus, The Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and the Bridegroom.

Six days before Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem for the week long celebration of Passover, St. John tells us that Jesus visits Bethany. This was a village about 2 miles from Jerusalem, on the other side of the Mount of Olives. The village name means in Hebrew either ‘The House of Dates’ or ‘The House of the Afflicted’.

This is the village of Mary and Martha, sisters, and their brother Lazarus. All three were known to Jesus, and he was known to them – quite well, we must assume. Sometime previously Lazarus had died. There is some thought that Lazarus might have been a leper.

The most noteworthy point is that at some date before this recorded visit Jesus had visited Bethany, very much at the behest of Martha and Mary, and had raised Lazarus from his grave.

This event must have travelled easily into the surrounding area, including Jerusalem, and had reached the ears of the religious authorities. What Jesus had done in Bethany was a deep threat to religious stability in the city and in the Temple. So much so that when the authorities actually do decide that Jesus has to be done away with, Lazarus is also mentioned. He too should die – after all, this walking miracle was as dangerous as anything else Jesus might get up to.

The raising of Lazarus is a turning point in this whole Jerusalem based drama. That Jesus has returned to Bethany near to the Festival is bad news.

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Audio Sermon for Palm Sunday – 25th April 2021

Audio Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent -11th April 2021: Ephesians 2, 1-10; John 3, 14-21

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

In the year 1894 Rudyard Kipling introduced us to Baloo the Bear – in fact he introduced us to Baloo, because Baloo the Bear, rather like Koala Bear is tautologous – Baloo is the Hindi word for ‘bear’.

Baloo is one of the central characters of Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’ and is the chief ward of the man-cub Mowgli. Walt Disney created one of his cartoon masterpieces when in 1967 he introduced this Kipling story to a far wider audience of both children and adults. It is not only the original story that is so gripping, but Disney employed some very talented song-writers, and the songs from that film are memorable, enduring, and highly repeatable.

Once before I have used a song from the film, but that time is was the one sung by the wily serpent with hypnotic eyes, Kaa.

Baloo’s song is one of the most favourite – ‘Look for the bare necessities’ – a play on the two spellings in English of the word ‘bear’ and ‘bare’ – ‘the simple bare necessities, forget about your trouble and your strife.’

The song continues,

So just try and relax, yeah, cool it
Fall apart in my backyard
‘Cause let me tell you something, little britches
If you act like that bee acts, uh-uh
You’re working too hard
And don’t spend your time lookin’ around
For something you want that can’t be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin’ about it
I’ll tell you something true
The bare necessities of life will come to you.

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Sermon for Third Sunday of Lent – 4th April 2021: John 2, 13-22

Nelly Paraskevopoulou – St Paul’s Athens

May God be on my lips and in all our hearts

The story from the Gospel of John about Jesus clearing the Temple is one of my favorite moments in the Bible, describing the life of Jesus Christ. The image we are given about Jesus is very different from other events.  Jesus is angry. He is very angry and rightfully so. Many people feel they can identify with this very human expression of emotion and this might make them feel closer to the Son of God but also Son of Man. It is easier to identify with this emotional Jesus, than with Jesus performing miracles, Jesus teaching and even more Jesus on the cross. By identifying with the person of Jesus Christ, maybe the rest of His life can become easier to understand and hopefully follow, as much as our limited human condition permits.

But why is Jesus so angry? Jesus is angry because the temple of Jerusalem, His Father’s house, is being misused. Instead of being a house of prayer it had become a market place.  The priests had found a way to make money from their fellow Jews, by selling animals to be sacrificed.

As readers of the Bible have noted, events in the New Testament often have their counterparts in the Old Testament. In Psalm 2 the Son’s wrath is warned against, predicting in a sense the event of Jesus’s divine wrath.

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Audio Sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Lent: 28th March 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – 21st March 2021: GENESIS 9:8-17, MARK 1;9-15

Wilderness Story –  Deacon Christine Saccali

May God be on my lips and in all our hearts Amen

The desert waits

ready for those who come,

we who come obedient to the Spirit’s leading

or who are driven

because they will not come any other way.

The desert always waits,

ready to let us know who we are-

the place of self discovery.

And whilst we fear, and rightly,

the loneliness and emptiness and harshness,

we forget the angels,

whom we cannot see for our blindness,

but who come when God decides

that we need their help,

when we are ready

for what they can give us.

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Audio Sermon for Sunday 14th March – Mothering Sunday.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens