The sermon traces the present unrest back to the split between Ismael and Isaac, and rather than taking sides in the modern dispute, Jesus Christ is presented as offering “another way”—the path of faith, and a new Spirit. The noble aim of the sermon is to help hearers understand the world they inhabit through Scripture and to gesture toward a hopeful way forward.

However, this framing exposes a deeper theological problem that cannot be resolved by tone or goodwill. In fact, the framing raises a fundamental question: is the gospel being proclaimed in Melbourne, or is the city just receiving a political history lesson using Christian language? Is Genesis 16-18 primarily about a sociology of conflict, or is there a revelation of God’s covenantal faithfulness embedded in the text?

I say history lesson here because the sermon functions primarily as interpretation of a family feud. Genesis becomes a collection of origin stories that explain why the world is the way it is today. Human impatience and mistrust are identified as the drivers of conflict. Galatians is then introduced as a theological pivot that reframes identity and belonging beyond ethnicity and law. Jesus is presented as the one who makes unity possible and offers a better path for humanity. Throughout the sermon, emphasis falls on comprehension, insight, and ethical orientation. The hearer is helped to see why things are the way they are and how Christians might live more peaceably within that reality.

What is striking though is how covenant operates within this framework. Covenant is present everywhere in this sermon, yet nowhere does it function as the redemptive work of God for his people. Instead, it functions as the expression of God’s purposes for justice and unity for humanity’s moral inspiration. God’s covenant with Abram is framed chiefly as His intention to form a people who will live rightly and bring blessing to the world. When human beings fail, the problem is described primarily in terms of impatience, moral shortcuts, and misdirected trust rather than guilt before a holy God. Abram’s “failure” is misjudgement, trying to work things out for God, not the sin of the breaking of covenant promises made to him. Redemption, therefore, appears in this sermon more as corrective rather than the costly sacrifice the covenant promises.

This is a decisive shift. In Scripture, covenant is not merely divine design or aspiration. It is God binding Himself by oath to save a people despite their failure. Covenant carries theological weight because God assumes responsibility for its fulfillment. In Genesis, this weight is made explicit when God alone passes through the pieces in Gen 15. Genesis 16 records Abram’s “failure” and Gen 17 records for us God’s binding promise again. The point of the narrative is not unity, but God’s unilateral faithfulness to sinners who cannot keep covenant. That logic reaches its fulfillment in Christ, who bears covenant judgement and fulfils covenant righteousness in the place of His people. By reducing covenant to purpose rather than promise, redemption inevitably becomes a matter of human understanding and moral orientation.

This reductionism shapes the sermon’s central concern. Disunity is identified as the fundamental problem of history and society. Unity is elevated as the horizon toward which Scripture and redemption are moving. Christ is named as the one in whom that unity can be found. Yet it is at this point that the sermon’s deepest irony emerges. The sermon addresses society’s divisions without addressing humanity’s condemnation.

Now, I know that sounds unbelievable, but Christ is presented as the destination of reconciliation rather than the means by which sinners are brought there. Christ is spoken of as the unifier, the heart-changer, the one who offers a new way forward , but not as the curse-bearing Seed. Faith, correspondingly, functions as posture or loyalty rather than as a resting reception of forgiveness secured by God.

The sermon presents disunity as society’s greatest problem that can be overcome through Christ—yet by failing to proclaim Christ as the God-sent Saviour and substitute, the sermon withholds the only means by which unity can actually be achieved.

This is not a minor omission. In Scripture, unity never precedes reconciliation; it flows from it. Where reconciliation with God is absent, human unity remains a human aspiration.

Remembering that this sermon was preached in a Presbyterian church, it is valid to question would the Reformers, our forebears, have recognised this sermon? Now, I am not about to romanticise the sixteenth century, nor conduct a test of stylistic conformity. Afterall, the Reformers differed widely in temperament, rhetoric, and pastoral strategy. But they did share a remarkably unified conviction about what preaching is: the public proclamation of God’s saving action in Christ, announced to sinners as an accomplished reality by God through His fulfillment of covenant promises He made.

My guess is they would have recognised the biblical material used in the sermon. They would most likely have appreciated the concern for unity, justice, and peace. They also would have acknowledged that Scripture speaks into the present. But, my guess is, they would also have recognised something serious was missing with this sermon: the sermon does not place the hearer before a God who is acting now through His preached word. “What”, they would have asked, “has God done for guilty sinners in this sermon?”

For the Reformers, covenant (supposedly the instrument in this sermon) was never merely God’s purpose for history or His intention for human flourishing. Covenant was the means by which God bound himself to save an elect group of sinners as a people for His own inheritance and then assuming the burden of their sin and securing their redemption through Christ. Succinctly put, preaching was not primarily explanatory or interpretive; it was declarative. God was not the subject of reflection. He was the subject who spoke.

My argument with this sermon is that God is frequently referred to, but rarely heard. Faith is encouraged as trust and orientation, but not as demanding repentance. Unity is held out as the goal, but reconciliation through sacrificial blood is never announced as the means.

It may be argued that this sermon is laden with care and sincerity, but is that enough? Are sinners being brought face to face with their own sin? The gospel, tragically, remains unheard at the very point where we are being informed it is most needed by society.

In conclusion, let’s summarise this sermon in blunt terms. It begins by treating the Abrahamic promise of land as historically consequential, with ramifications that echo into present geopolitical conflict. Yet once the sermon shifts to the New Testament, land is relativised in favour of faith-defined belonging and Spirit-shaped righteousness. Covenant thus moves from territorial promise to moral project. The land retains explanatory significance, but covenant no longer retains its promissory weight the land pointed to. According to this sermon, what began as a familial rift brought on by surrogacy has resulted in entrenched conflict that can only end when, through Christ, we see each other as brothers and sisters, transcending historical and ethnic divisions.

No confrontation takes place regarding personal sin and standing before God. Sin remains an undefined term, and guilt, redemption, repentance and forgiveness, and imputed righteousness (all subjects that Biblical covenants look towards) receive no mention. Yet, they provide the structure within which God’s light shines to create a true unity of restored sinners to Himself and one another. Without the proclamation of these realities, covenant collapses into moral aspiration and unity remains ungrounded.

 The sermon may be watched here: https://scotschurch.com/sermons/mothers-of-promises-mothers-of-problems/