Sermon Archive

This Sunday's sermon was written and delivered by Elder Siem Vandenbroek. Johnny Cash sang with a deep, resonating voice. One of his songs was “A boy named Sue”. The man in black, as he was called, would take his guitar and give a grand solo performance that had quite a following. The song, “A boy named Sue”, deals with our topic: What is in the name? Well, the problem is that Sue is a nice name for your daughter, but not a proper name for your son. This father wanted to be on purpose nasty to his son and named him Sue, knowing full well that this would make him somewhat of a laughing stock for his classmates and boys on the street. The song goes way back to the 60’s and 70’s, to the more restricted ideas of that time, at which we would look now somewhat differently today. At that time this boy had to live with the name Sue and indeed, as the song spells out, he was made the joke of the neighbourhood. But then he learned to live with the disadvantage and started to fig...

Text: Matthew 6:1-13 What exactly is prayer anyway? It is such a central part of our spirituality as Christians, and yet I would venture to say that most of us don’t really know what it is… At it’s heart we say that prayer is talking with God… yet how many of us get very uncomfortable when someone asks us to pray to open a meeting? Chance are we tend to ask either the minister, or those who outwardly seems to be a lot more comfortable with saying the right words of a prayer than we are. Although I will say, given the stock market rollercoaster over the past week, prayer may have been a bit more on people’s mind… and flowed a bit more easily… but let’s be honest. It’s easier to get the minister to do it. This really came into sharp focus for me in the very first year that I was ordained… serving as an associate minister at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Cornwall. Within the first month of my arrival, I was invited over to a dinner at the home of one of the congregation’s matriarchs. ...

Text: Exodus 14:19-31 – The Crossing of the Red Sea Note: Earlier in the service, a film clip showing the crossing of the Red Sea scene from the film the Prince of Egypt was shown. My comments presume that people had seen the scene. I have to admit; in my opinion the scene of the crossing of the Red Sea in the Prince of Egypt blows any previous film to cover the subject out of the water. Sure, it’s an animated film… but in that way it can do and capture things that live action films can’t… like keeping that sense of wonder and mystery as part of it. Maybe that’s why I personally enjoyed it so much. I remember seeing this for the first time when it was released in 1998, and a few people said after walking out of the theatre, a few people joked “so who is Charleton Heston anyway?” A few weeks ago, we met Moses as the reluctant shepherd living in exile. We have come a long way since then. Now all the people of Israel are gathered at the shore, at the edge of the sea… caught between certai...

Text : Matthew 18:15-20 I have a relative who infuriates me sometimes when it comes to matters of faith. She’s not terribly keen on acknowledging anybody around her in worship. Even when passing the offering plate around or the bread for community, she avoids eye contact when at all possible. God forbid if she actually has to look at the person next to her, much less acknowledge that someone else is in the sanctuary. “The service is about me and God” she says… and anything that gets in the way of that is to be avoided all cost. People coughing, children crying or talking, usually evokes a dirty look. “Me and God” –that’s it. Nobody else matters. Yet it’s not really her fault. It’s how she was raised… generations of people who have been taught that our faith is exclusively between ourselves and God. It’s entirely personal, and it’s going to stay that way. The individualism that we have been raised and take for granted has only been a dominant part of our society since the 1700s. It’s no...