Sermon Archive

First Sunday in Advent Text: Mark 13:24-37 There is a scene in one of my favourite movies that begins with the lead character sleeping in front of a computer. The images on the computer rapidly flip past image after image, set to an automated search. Thomas Anderson is looking for something, what it is, he is not quite sure. All we see is a name that keeps appearing on the screen, “Morpheus.” If we know a little bit about Greek literature, we know that “Morpheus” is the master of dreams. We’re not given too much time to ponder this fact, and the irony that this character is asleep looking for one named after the master of dreams. Suddenly, the screen goes black, and the words “Wake up, Neo” appear on the screen. These words prove far more prophetic in the story’s plot than we can imagine. Some of you may have already guessed it: this scene is from the 1999 blockbuster film “The Matrix.” As slick and as high-tech as this film was, and even as violent as it is, the film is absolutely fil...

For Reign of Christ Sunday Text: Matthew 25:31-46 Today is one of those important-but-you-might-miss-it-if-you-blink kind of days. Today is the very last Sunday in the Christian calendar… This is “our” New Year’s Eve if we really think about it… and yet certainly when I was growing up the Reign of Christ Sunday was something that wasn’t even on the radar. I would suspect that would be the same for most of us… and yet, there is a real value in marking that end in the arc of time that we call the Christian year. Today really is like New Year’s Eve without the hype. Yet in a month’s time, the newspapers will be filled with introspective looks at the year gone by. I can’t help but wonder why don’t do that as Christians? Why don’t we stop and pause, and look over the last cycle, starting way back in Advent, and then looking at where we are now? In a sense that’s what Matthew is trying to do when he draws us into these images of the end of time… It’s a reflection about the end of the cycle; ...

Text: Matthew 25:14-30 Parables throw us off balance. They challenge us… they turn our expectations upside down… or at least if they don’t, they should. Jesus taught in these metaphors as a way to shake us up, and give us a glimpse of how God actually sees the world. It is amazing that after even two thousand years that what Jesus taught remains so revolutionary, so challenging that we might even find it offensive to the way that we have been raised. Yet perhaps it also speaks as to how much we tend to “gloss over” the more radical elements of what Jesus had to say. Maybe it shows us how much we have “domesticated” Jesus to fit our own standards and ideals. Yet Jesus taught in these parables to shake us out of our own standards and ideals. It also shows us how each generation needs to carefully re-examine their own ideas, because somewhere along the way we may have missed the point. Today’s parable is very jarring if we really think about it… it should shake us up and make us uncomfort...

Text: Matthew 5:1-12 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” There is a scene from the Monty Python film The Life of Brian that makes light of this particular line from the Sermon on the Mount. It is satire to be sure, but there is a lot of ironic truth in this scene. Very close to the beginning of the film, we see Jesus standing atop a hill delivering these familiar words of the Sermon on the Mount. The camera pans way back to a group of entirely suburbanite-looking Israelites, straining to hear what Jesus is saying. They can’t hear very well, and while this sermon is going on they begin to argue amongst themselves. One of them stops for a second and asks what Jesus just said: —I think it was 'Blessed are the cheese-makers'. —Ah. What's so special about the cheese-makers? —Well obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products. [1] The point that “Blessed are the Peacemakers” is complet...