St Mark's Camberwell

02/06/2026

Flannery O'Connor is one of the great American writers of the 20th century. Her characters like her life was are often difficult, intractable and problematic. Very rarely are they people with whom you'd want to spend any time with. But the say and do things which stick with you.

In her novel 'Wise Blood' we meet one of her more repellent characters, Haze Motes. He has rejected Christianity, but in a mockery of it tries to be a revivalist atheist. Standing on his car bonnet, before a group of people going into the movies, he proclaims:

Well, I preach the Church without Christ. I'm member and preacher to that church where blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way.*

One of the other characters in 'Wise Blood' is a preacher of fake street miracles. When I read 'Wise Blood' that line by Haze Motes jumped out at me. We preach a Jesus who healed the blind, enabled the lame to walk and raised the dead.

But do we believe? Oh, we believe it, I believe it, but do we believe it? O'Connor seems to be asking the church that question, through Haze Motes. He is defiantly an unbeliever. Are we practical unbelievers?

In a letter O'Connor once wrote: "[a]ll my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless, brutal, etc."** The thing about the grace of Jesus Christ is that it breaks into us. Do you believe in Christ? You were dead and now you're alive. What's dead didn't stay that way.

This week Xander Irving started our next series on "Christ the Miracle Maker" as we go through the early chapters of Mark. Xander told us that Mark tells us four important things about Jesus straight away: He is a man. He is the son of God. He is the Messiah. And he is good news.

The good news of Jesus Christ is sight for the blind, jumping for those who can't walk and the raising of the dead, including ourselves. Our call is to be the church who believes in Jesus.

Our world can seem 'hard, hopeless, brutal, etc'. I bet you don't have to work hard to think of people or situations, at home or further away you'd hope to Jesus' grace come down.

What we will see in Mark is that Jesus is the very good news who acts grace upon those situations.

Are we members of the church where the dead aren't raised? Or are we members of the church where Jesus Christ, the very good news of God, raised the dead?

See you on Sunday if I don't see you before!

With blessings,

Tim Collison
Vicar

*Wise Blood, Kindle Edition
** Wikipedia, article on Flannery O'Connor

This newsletter drops into email inboxes on Monday. It's published here on Tuesdays. The newsletter includes a prayer of the week, plus extra info about St Mark's which is not shared on Facebook. If you'd like to sign up for it to receive it straight to your inbox you can here:

Would you like to know more about what is happening at St Mark’s? An easy way to connect more and know what is happening is to sign up for one or both of our weekly emails. You can do so here.

26/05/2026

Tim's Weekly Email

I can remember getting a detention once in 7th grade. I'd blown my nose, and my friend had expressed their feelings on this grossness loudly. My teacher gave us both a detention. When we objected on the grounds that it seemed manifestly unjust to receive a detention for this, she replied "I'm sure you've done something to deserve a detention today." She may well have been correct, but it didn't seem like the sort of environment which would guarantee future compliance.

What determines your behaviour? Is it your expectation of punishment if you don't comply, or does it flow out of your identity? We've finished our series on Colossians this week, finishing with Colossians 3:18-4:18. Which has the 'household instructions', which can ring out of time and tune in today's environment. But these instructions are not something Paul has added as some kind of postscript, but are meant to come out of our identity in Jesus Christ. Again and again in Colossians Paul reminds us of who Jesus is, and what he has done for us, and that now we are meant to live in that identity.

We're meant to follow those instructions, but not out of fear of an encounter with some type of heavenly human resources angel who will ask why we're not meeting our KPIs, but because of the new life we have in Jesus Christ. I shared from a Patricia Raybon article on the great black spiritual "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", about how the song was a subversive act of resistance. (https://www.christianitytoday.com/2022/02/were-you-there-crucified-my-lord-patricia-raybon/)

This hymn was written by slaves, who were subversively pointing out to their masters that they were not living out of their identity in Christ. Patricia Raybon writes:

If you were there for this Jesus you preach about all the livelong day, why do you chain me up? Whip and r**e my sister, mother, and daughter? Rip apart my family? Work me without mercy? Feed me dregs? Insist that I’m a brute and inhuman? Refuse me the right to read, write, and study? Live in your fine home with carpets and rugs but house me in a shack with a dirt floor? Then demand I sing about the Savior you claim to love?

The song is simple, haunting and true. It asks the people who had enslaved them to consider not only whether they were living out Paul's commands to treat slaves well, but were they actually understanding what it means when Paul says in Colossians "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death" (Col 1:22) that the the "you" is plural and includes all the people God has made? Were they understanding that when Paul writes "As you teach and admonish one another" (Col 3:16) the "you" includes everyone? That no one is excluded from the brotherhood?

When we sing "Were you there Lord" we're meant to consider our lives lived in the identity of what Christ has done. It's a question we should ask ourselves and St Mark's: "were we there?" Is our identity in Christ shining through in how we live with those are in relationship? We constantly need to remind ourselves that in Christ Jesus we were there, that we have died with him, and been raised with him and that should so shape our lives, we hopefully won't have people singing subversive hymns to us.

I do want to make it clear that this passage is not an excuse for people to abuse people. It's not a justification to stay in an abusive marriage or toxic workspace. Paul tells slaves in 1 Cor 7:21 that if they got the opportunity to free themselves they should. Paul says himself in Colossians 3:18: "Wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord". It is never fitting in the Lord to stay with someone who is abusive, or violent. It is never fitting to be a toxic employer.

What is fitting in the Lord for all of us is to live in the identity we have in Jesus Christ.

See you on Sunday if I don't see you before!

With blessings,

Tim Collison
Vicar

This newsletter drops into inboxes on Monday. It's published here on Tuesdays. The newsletter includes a prayer of the week, plus extra info about St Mark's. If you'd like to sign up for it to receive it straight to your inbox you can here: https://stmarkscamberwell.org.au/subscribe-to-st-marks-emails

Would you like to know more about what is happening at St Mark’s? An easy way to connect more and know what is happening is to sign up for one or both of our weekly emails. You can do so here.

19/05/2026

Tim's Weekly Newsletter

How do you find what is hidden, and make it obvious? How do you take what no one else can see and make it a reality?

We are eternal beings, and inside us is hidden eternal life. We may sometimes try to avoid the 'weirdness' of Christianity. But some of what we believe is so discordant with the world around us, that what seems entirely normal, and right to us, seems 'weird' to everyone else.

Our belief in eternal life is one of those things. We do not believe that death is the end. Because we have been raised with Christ. Trevor in his sermon yesterday, told us that what Col 3:1-17 tells us about Jesus is:

"We are organically united with [Jesus]. Every event in the saving career of Jesus belongs to us. We have died with him, we have been raised with him, and we will reign with him."

This is what it means to have our lives 'hidden with Christ in God'. We have our earthly lives, where we still fall into the list in vs 5-7. But we also have a new life, one that is eternal, one that is hidden with Christ (Col 3:3).

And this new hidden life, is pushing out the old. We are able to get rid of the old, not through our power, but through the power and peace of Jesus. Because this new, hidden life is pushing out the old, we can put on the clothing of 'compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience' (Col 3:12).

Sometimes it seems like the list in verse 5 are the hidden things, and what is in Christ are the obvious things. Paul wants what is hidden - our eternal life - to become increasingly what is obvious, replacing our obvious sins.

The truth about Christianity which is so countercultural is that our hope in Jesus, our hidden lives with him, actually enable us to stand against our desires to be sinful. Enable us to say that we can be different to the world around us. Because we are united with Christ, he is able to transform us into the people we will be in glory.

Paul finishes by telling us that we can be thankful because of that. As Trevor pointed out - each of the final three verses in this section direct us to be thankful. How are you thankful for what God is doing in your hidden life?

With blessings,

Tim Collison
Vicar

This newsletter drops into inboxes on Monday. It's published here on Tuesdays. The newsletter includes a prayer of the week, plus extra info about St Mark's. If you'd like to sign up for it to receive it straight to your inbox you can here:

Would you like to know more about what is happening at St Mark’s? An easy way to connect more and know what is happening is to sign up for one or both of our weekly emails. You can do so here.

12/05/2026

Tim's Weekly Newsletter

A long time ago I used to help run the year 9 & 10 program at Summer School. Summer School was CMS NSW's annual conference. Each year we'd theme the program. One year we stole the iconic theme from the first Blues Brother's Movie: "We're on a mission from God". While I disagree with Elwood's (Dan Aykroyd) consequentialism (the end justifies the means), I think it's a succinct summary of the the Biblical narrative, from Genesis to Revelation.

The Biblical narrative is almost in a rush. I know the Bible seems like a long book. But when you read through it, it rushes. Abraham is told to go with this family. Well, he was Abram, when he was told to go, but go he went. Joseph goes to Egypt (unwillingly, but still). God's people leave Egypt, heading for home. God sends people to lead them and call them to be a light to the nations. Jesus comes, living for us, dying for us, and being raised to life again, and sending out his disciples.* You might be like "Tim! The prophets! They're a bit long and confusing". It's true they can be long and confusing. But their interruption to the rush is because the rush has been interrupted. The prophets are always asking God's people: "what happened to your mission from God?"

We're on a mission from God. Jon, our link missionary, preached on Romans 10:12-17, yesterday. He pointed us to Paul's reminder that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom 10:13). That God's salvation is for all people. It's not just for Christians. It's a short passage, but it contains the narrative of the Bible: we're on a mission from God. Or it might be more accurate to say, that God has invited us to share in his mission. That God has for people, in Jesus Christ, the best possible life, and he invites us to share in making that message known.

We took a break from Colossians for this sermon, but Jon reminded us of it: that God made us alive in Christ when we were dead in our sins, by forgiving them (Col 2:13). This is the best news possible. So we are called to be on mission. One of the best ways to understand mission is what David Bosch writes:

'Mission denotes the total task God has set the church for the salvation of the world, but always related to a specific context of evil, despair, and lostness... "embraces all activities that serve to liberate man from his slavery in the presence of the coming God, slavery which extends from economic necessity to Godforsakenness" (Moltmann 1977:10)' (Bosch, Transforming Mission, p.412-413).**

We're on a mission from God. As Jon reminded us, we have beautiful feet (Rom 10:15), because we can take the good news to those who have not yet heard about Jesus (Rom 10:14). Part of the good news of the Gospel is that we're not alone in this. It can sometimes feel like we are called to be the 'beautiful feet' on our own. To be, sometimes, the only person in the lives of those close to us who might know Jesus. And it is true. God does put us as missionaries amongst those close to us - family, friends, and work colleagues. But one of the theological things Elwood and 'Joliet' Jake (John Belushi) Blues get right is that 'we're on a mission from God'. We don't do this alone.

As followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are together in the Gospel. We are not isolated heroes on iconic, lonely, quests. We are followers of Christ, together. Our theme verse at St Mark's is Col 1:28 "He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ". "We proclaim", "We admonish", "We teach". Not "I proclaim. I admonish. I teach". "We". God rarely sends people or invites us into his mission as lone rangers. Abraham went with hundreds of people. Jesus had 12 apostles. Go and flick through Paul's first verse in his letters and notice how often he has people with him. In Gal 1:1 - he has 'brother's and sisters' with him.

Our calling as followers of Jesus, here in Camberwell, and beyond is to listen to the Holy Spirit on how God has called us to be on a "Mission from God" here in Camberwell. And what we are doing together, not just alone.

With blessings,

Tim Collison
Vicar

*I apologise, somewhat sincerely, to my theological lecturers for this rushed and reductive reading of the Old and New Testaments...
**The two theological books with the biggest impacts on me in the last decade are this one, and Fleming Rutledge's "The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ". As I was reading my notes from "Transforming Mission" to find this quote, I was reminded of another person Bosch quotes, Lesslie Newbingen, "I can never be so confident of the purity and authenticity of my witness that I can know that the person who rejects my witness has rejected Jesus." oof.

This newsletter drops into inboxes on Monday. It's published here on Tuesdays. The newsletter includes a prayer of the week, plus extra info about St Mark's. If you'd like to sign up for it to receive it straight to your inbox you can here:

Would you like to know more about what is happening at St Mark’s? An easy way to connect more and know what is happening is to sign up for one or both of our weekly emails. You can do so here.

05/05/2026

Tim's Weekly Newsletter

Shadows are not the thing itself, but a two dimensional representation of a real object. On Sunday I preached on how shadows can be attractive things in themselves. They are two dimensional, and can be controllable. But they are not real.

I was preaching on Colossians 2:16-23, and in verse 17 Paul makes clear the 'shadows' he is talking about are religious requirements added to the person of Jesus Christ for our salvation. Paul reminds the Colossians to keep turning back to Jesus, the source of reality (Col 2:19). I'd wanted to speak a little in my sermon about the other shadow world, but felt it was possibly a little eisegetical*, and felt I could expand on it here anyway.

There is another shadow world. The one that exists as a two dimensional representation of our real world. The one that that shapes our daydreams, and hopes. I quoted from G.K. Chesterton's hagiography** of St Francis on Sunday, and want to quote from it again, because it also speaks to this shadow world.

"We know what sort of sentimental associations are called up to us by the phrase "a garden"; and how we think mostly of the memory of melancholy and innocent romances, or quite as often of some gracious maiden lady or kindly old parson pottering under a yew hedge, perhaps in sight of a village spire. Then, let anyone who knows a little Latin poetry recall suddenly what would once have stood in place of the sundial or the fountain, obscene and monstrous in the sun; and of what sort was the god of their gardens."

Like most of you, I don't know much Latin poetry. But Chesterton is noting that what would have stood in a Roman Garden was a statue of Priapus, the god of gardens and orchards (and fertility). There is a genre of Roman poetry concerned with this god, and I imagine you would most likely find it unpleasant. If you are unsure why, look up 'Priapus' in a physical dictionary.

I'm rarely a fan of quotes we need to unpack, but Chesterton is insightful about the shadow world. He is talking about how Jesus Christ so overthrew the pagan world, that we imagine things entirely different than we did before. When we think of a garden, we think of beauty and peace, and a reflection of Eden. This is not what Romans would have thought of.

God made a good world (Gen 1:31), and we often choose to worship the shadows of those good things.

God made a beautiful world, but we have made beauty a commodity to be purchased

God gave us good work, and we've made it a path to personal acquisition and power

God God gave us s*x, and we've invented po*******hy

I'm sure you could multiply these examples yourselves. As Tim Keller said, we've taken good things, and turned them into god things. Instead of choosing the good thing, we choose the shadow. The Instagram filter which smooths out the flaws in your skin, improves your pout, and reduces the size of your nose is only a shadow of the good face God gave you. The daydream about what you'd do with ten million dollars is a shadow of the desire for security in God.

This shadow world is instantly accessible through your phones and in the world around. It is a shadow world, a flat two dimensional representation of the good God has actually given us. This is why Chesterton's reminder of how a love for Jesus so overthrew paganism that it reshaped our imaginations is important.

When we fill our imagination with shadows we fail to see the good that God has given us. The antidote to this is to develop spiritually rich imaginations. Justin Bailey*** gives us a definition of the type of imagination I'm thinking about "Imagining is a strategic, intentional, and embodied activity that suspends actuality for the sake of reality." He helpfully breaks this definition down, but I'll unpack it with a real example.

Pick something in your life where you'd like Jesus to have a deeper impact. Imagine what it would be like if he had that impact. You're imagining something you currently can't accomplish, but could imagine happening. You have aimed your imagination at something: Jesus Christ working in you. Your imagination comes out of your own experience, and gives solidity to what you are imagination. When you do this you are "imag[ining[ things that do not exist, but our ultimate goal is to grasp the world more securely (Bailey)."

In Galatians 5:22-24 Paul talks about the fruits of the Spirit. You could do this exercise with one of them. Is there one where you feel the Spirit could grow you? Imagine what it would look like to be more forbearing***. How would your life change? How would the people around you respond? How could Jesus make you more forbearing? What would need to change in your life? Paul, of course, in Gal 5:25 points us to the truth of these imagined changes can happen: the Holy Spirit.

Our world seems to be returning to shadow gods like Priapus, pale reflections of the actual garden God created. Our call is to ask Christ to so shape our lives and imaginings that what we imagine is the reality of God's achievement for us in Jesus.

What if we replaced our daydreaming with that type of imagination? If our daydreams became about the impact of the Kingdom of God, not how our own kingdoms could be better?

See you on Sunday, if I don't see you before,

With blessings,

Tim Collison
Vicar

*at St Mark's we aim for exegetical preaching, that is preaching which comes out of the text. Eisegesis is the act of reading into the text.
**it's a hagiography, but as an exercise in cultural critique and enjoyable read, it's worth picking up. I can lend you my copy if you like. But you'll have to be careful with it - it was a gift to my grandmother, which she gave to me for my ordination.
***this idea and the shaping of the example come from his book "Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age".

This newsletter drops into inboxes on Monday. It's published here on Tuesdays. The newsletter includes a prayer of the week, plus extra info about St Mark's. If you'd like to sign up for it to receive it straight to your inbox you can here:

Would you like to know more about what is happening at St Mark’s? An easy way to connect more and know what is happening is to sign up for one or both of our weekly emails. You can do so here.

03/03/2026

24/12/2025

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. (Luke 2:6f)

If you'd like to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the turning point of history, you're welcome at our 11 pm service tonight, or either of our services at 8 or 9:30 am tomorrow.

We'd love to share the joy of Jesus with you.

15/12/2025

From Archbishop Ric Thorpe: "I am deeply saddened by the appalling act of violence and terrorism that occurred at Bondi Beach this evening. That such a tragedy should strike during Hanukkah, a celebration of light, peace, and hope, is a profound evil that has no place in our society.

Our prayers and thoughts are with the victims, their families, and the entire Jewish community, especially those targeted in this senseless act. To our Jewish brothers and sisters, we stand in unwavering solidarity with you during this time. This was an attack on your community, but it is also an assault on the shared values of harmony and religious freedom that we all hold dear.

We condemn this hatred in the strongest terms and pray for the peace of God to comfort all who are grieving. May we reject division and instead work together to protect the safety and dignity of every person in our nation.

‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ (John 1:5)"

21/10/2025

Our Bright Party is back this year - with a slight name change!

Commencing Oct 31st 6:30pm for children up to 13 years of age! There will be dancing, games, food and fun - so dress up your children in their brightest possible costume and bring them along between 6:30pm-9:00pm for a fun night run by St Mark’s Youth Team.

23/06/2025

Our Assistant Minister Tim was preaching on Romans 16 yesterday, and so our Families and Music Minister Pieter wrote a song based on the names!