Sermon Archive

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,...