Sermon Archive

A reflection for the First Sunday in Advent As most of you probably know, Sarah and I are expecting our second child… soon. Very soon. As in so soon I had to make contingency plans for this morning just in case I couldn’t be here! If this isn’t me preaching this sermon, then you’ll know why I’m not here… Officially Sarah’s due date is December 12th, which happens to be my daughter’s fifth birthday. We have scheduled her birthday party to be early, so that if soon is sooner rather than later, we can deal with it. Granted, as I’ve indicated to many of you who have asked, soon can’t come soon enough for Sarah. But this is something that is happening soon. We don’t know precisely when, but it’s soon. I can’t think of a more appropriate welcome into Advent. Advent is the Season of “Soon” it’s not the season of Christmas, it’s not the season of “now” it’s the season of “Soon.” Something that we don’t do very well. We would rather it be “now” –we’re more comfortable with “now” we get “now” –b...

Text: Isaiah 65:17-25 After having come through Thanksgiving, Anniversary, Reformation Sunday, and Remembrance Sunday, today is a bit odd in the fall months. It seems that the majority of Sundays recently have had a major themes… and certainly looking to next week and the Sundays well into the New Year have themes of their own. Reign of Christ next week, and then the four Sundays of Advent… the twelve days of Christmas… and then Epiphany beyond… Today is somewhere in the middle of that “already and not-yet” season. It is already Christmas according to the music and decorations in the shopping malls. It is not yet Christmas… because we haven’t even got to Advent yet! It already feels like winter… and not yet… because it’s not yet December 21st… but sunset now comes before most of us get out of work on the weekdays! Already and Not Yet. Selfishly I am also in the midst of the “already and not yet” of a sort. I am already a father in that I have a high-energy five year old who has helped ...

A Reflection for Remembrance Day Text: Psalm 46; Matthew 5:1-12 I have a picture on my desk in my office, and as messy as it can be at times, this picture has always remained where I can see it. I don’t remember exactly when it was taken, but I know that it was prior to the Margaret Terry Room being renovated. In the picture are seventeen people, all of whom served in the Second World War, and all of them members of this congregation. By the time that picture came into my possession, a good number had already passed away… and with each passing year, I am looking into the eyes of fewer and fewer of them. From the seventeen faces in that picture, I can now count the people who are still with us on one hand. It is a lament, to be sure, that the generation that brought us through the most horrific conflict that the world has ever seen is steadily shrinking year after year. Over this past year, the very last Canadian veteran of the First World War died… and in four years time, we will mark ...

A Reflection on Reformation Sunday Texts: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Luke 19:1-10 I hope you’ll excuse me for playing a little bit of dress-up today. It is Halloween, after all… or more appropriately “All Hallows’ Eve” –the night before All Saints Day. In superstitious mediaeval times, it was believed that on the evening before All Saints Day, that the dead literally walked amongst the living. So everybody got dressed up, and showed hospitality to anyone who came to their door, whether they were living or dead. Today, it has very much evolved into the big yearly candy-grab, and I can tell you that at least in our household, there is one person who would get up there and push the sun down to the horizon if it means she could get out there faster. But today, within the walls of this church, on All Hallows’ Eve, we remember the act of a solitary German monk, who on this day four hundred ninety three years ago, challenged the great monolithic church about its practices. Some accounts have him ...

Text: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Luke 18:1-8 Sitting on my shelf is a book called the “Essential Jesus” where the author takes many of the sayings of Jesus and distils them down into a format that is easy to memorize. To date, it has given me the best version of the so-called Parable of the Persistent Widow that I have yet read. In the pew Bible, the story is short… but if anything a bit wordy… but when taken down to its elements, it is rather direct. It goes something like this: A widow with no shame confronted a judge with no conscience Time and again she pleaded for vindication before him. He finally gave in, because if even ethics didn’t bother him, she did. Luke included this parable in his telling of the story of Jesus as a metaphor for encouraging early Christians to persevere in what were often very difficult times. When Luke was written, Jerusalem had been destroyed, and Christians for the first time had been persecuted in Rome under Nero. Darkness was gathering… and these fledgling c...

Text: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 It’s funny. We all have our thanksgiving traditions… but we often forget that Thanksgiving as a holiday is something that is almost exclusively North American. In the United States, the last Thursday of November is Thanksgiving Day… for us, well… it’s tomorrow. While they bear the same name, Canadians are far less concerned with stories of Pilgrims, Plymouth Rock, or how to grow corn. Instead, when the celebration “came north” it was moved earlier in the year because of an understandably shorter growing season, and was specifically oriented around the harvest. In Canada, thanksgiving has far less to do with the national identity as it does with simply being grateful that stuff actually grew in this harsh northern climate. My parents still valiantly try to grow Tomatoes in Calgary, and while they may claim some success… the reddish green marbles they start covering to avoid the August frosts would beg to differ… You may also notice that I’ve not mentioned anyth...

Text: Lamentations 1:1-6; Mark 13:1-6 There is a story of a radio conversation between a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland one dark and blustery October. It goes something like this: Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision. Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision. Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision. Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course. Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course. Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR COUNTER-MEASURE...

Text: Jeremiah 32:1-3a; 6-13 Last week I made a remark that Jeremiah was kind of an odd duck. In times that were good, he proclaimed doom and gloom, and in times that were bad he was Mr. Happy Sunshine. Sounds like he might have been pretty annoying to be around because you could never really predict what he was going to say. Last week we had the gloomy and depressed Jeremiah, raining on everybody’s parade. This week we have the opposite... a much more optimistic Jeremiah. While I think we would prefer an optimistic Jeremiah, he really does seem to carry it a bit far. As I said, Jeremiah is a man of opposites. When the nation around him is happy and optimistic, Jeremiah is lamenting their eventual doom, and yet when it all falls apart, when things are genuinely at their worst, Jeremiah transforms into that happy cheerful person who is extremely annoying to be around. You know the type. Not only is Jeremiah annoyingly optimistic, he does things which are patently stupid. As this passag...

Text: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 I have to admit that this week was a difficult week in terms of trying to figure out what God was calling me to preach on. It doesn’t come as a voice from above in a deep booming voice that says “THOU SHALT PREACH JEREMIAH!” It doesn’t work like that. Much of the time it comes from something that emerges from my own study and reflection that meshes well with the the week itself. In terms of a personal discipline, there are a series of suggested readings that become a starting point. I don’t always follow it, especially if there is another story, or another text that bubbles up as I am preparing things… but how can I say this? We should not move on to other scripture readings if we don’t happen to like the set of suggested readings. It shouldn’t be a case of “Oh, I don’t like that… let’s pick something more familiar!” –or in today’s case, something that’s much more uplifting. But that’s not a good reason to skip over a text and replace it. I have found that God o...

Psalm 139 This past week, I paid a visit to the Augsburg Fortress, a Christian Book and supply store in Kitchener. I needed to pick up some supplies for the fall, and as always, browse their book section. It can be dangerous, in that I could spend an awful lot of money very quickly, but at the same time it’s good to see what sorts of new resources are out there. I’ve been particularly interested as of late as to anything to use as a special resource to help nurture our Spirituality. One book in particular caught my eye, entitled “Your Spiritual IQ: Five Steps to Spiritual Growth.” Admittedly I was a bit put off by the title, because IQ or “Intelligence Quotient” is generally regarded as one’s innate intelligence., which is not changeable by external means. If you have a Spiritual IQ, it means that some people are naturally more Spiritual than others, and there’s no way to change that… it seems to contradict the “Five Steps to Spiritual Growth” in the subtitle. However, even with that,...

Luke 14:15-23 What if you threw a party and nobody came? Seriously? I suppose it’s a bit on my mind today because for the first time in 11 years, my birthday falls on a Sunday. Not that I particularly want a party. Supposedly last year was my “big” one, but the last birthday that bothered me was when I turned 25. Since then, I’ve learned to take them as they come... but they do give us a good reason for us to celebrate. My in-laws are particularly good entertainers. Their house is largely set-up for hosting parties... and it is something they do rather well. But here’s a question. What if you decided to throw a party and nobody is able to come? What would most of us do? Cancel it! But then here is Jesus telling us a parable of the kingdom of God... and there’s a different ending. Often called the parable of the banquet, it tells the story of someone who made plans for a big party. A whole raft of people were invited, the preparations were made, and everything was set... but when it c...

Text: Luke 12:13-21 There is a book I have on my shelf called “The Essential Jesus” that tries to take the written sayings of Jesus and distil them into a form that would be easy to remember, similar to the way that Jesus himself might have expressed them. The intention is not to replace the parables, but allowing us to hear them with fresh ears. I can’t say that the Parable of the Rich Landowner is one that is particularly well known. We know the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son… but not the Rich Landowner. Maybe it’s because it’s a parable that really makes us uncomfortable, because it touches on those uncontrollable events in life that always seem to get in the way of our own personal plans. Rendered to its essentials, here’s how this parable sounds: A rich landowner made some long-term plans “I will sow and I will reap I will plant and I will gather I will fill my storerooms to capacity I will have more than I could ever want. That night he d...

Text: Amos 8:1-12 We have a habit of presuming that the prophets really don’t have a lot to say to us. Even when we see them as foretelling the coming of Christ, it’s still a “way back then” kind of approach, and that it really doesn’t mean much for us today. Yet the irony is, if we take that angle, we miss all of the subtleties, all the genuine power of what they have to say. As a prophet, Amos rarely seems to have anything good to say about Israel’s spiritual life. We started exploring him last week, and it reflected the times in which he lived. As I mentioned last week, Amos arrived on the scene, after the great empire of David and Solomon had broken into two smaller kingdoms, Judah to the south, and Israel to the north. While Amos lived on the border of these two states, his attention and anger was directed at the north kingdom of Israel. Yet the time in which Amos lived was not a time in which one would expect these kinds of rants. By any standard or measure, it would seem that I...

Text: Amos 7:7-17 Amos and Hosea are a couple of prophets that really don’t get a lot of attention, really. Considered to be the largest of the so-called “Minor Prophets” these two books can be really unpleasant to read if you don’t know the context. At face value they are a collection of angry rants, which provide lots of fuel for fire-and-brimstone kind of preaching… which as Presbyterians we tend to shy away from. But I think the reason that we shy away from these texts is that perhaps we understand them slightly better than the fire bellied preachers… It’s a terrible stereotype, but the image that we get is that this type of ranting sermon, was an odd, but misplaced source of comfort to those who liked to listen to them. The world is evil, and God’s judgement will rain down upon them, and destroy all those wicked people… out there. We’re safe in here, and let all that nasty stuff happen to other people. The problem is, neither Amos nor Hosea are talking about “other people.” They a...