Sermon Archive

Text: Genesis 32:22-31 I think after three straight weeks of the parables of Jesus, it’s time we took a break and returned to the Old Testament for a little while. It’s not a story that we know particularly well, and yet it is something that can be helpful to strengthen our relationship with God. The trouble is, it’s a wrestling match… and not a nice one either. This is not the kind of WWE soap opera style “SmackDown” that we might come to expect from the sports entertainment industry… this is a real fight… a fight where lives are at stake. One of the combatants is Jacob… the other one… well it could be God. We come back to the stories of Genesis in mid-stream. Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah, eventually had two sons of his own: Jacob and Esau. When they were growing up, Jacob had tricked both the first-born Esau and his father to gain the blessing and birthright that was so important to their early cultures. Needless to say it created a bit of a rift, and Jacob had fled fearing the wr...

Matthew 13:31-33; Romans 8:26-39 After three weeks, you would think that the pool of gardening stories would be wearing out its welcome. Yet it still seems appropriate, given that many of us have been tending to our gardens this week, trying to do something to help our greenery and shrubs survive the ongoing heat of summer. In our readings today we find that Matthew keeps on with his agricultural parables… as always, they take unexpected directions… and give us a glimpse of the kingdom of God. This week, instead of just one, there is a rapid fire progression of them. Although given that this is the third week of parables, it may actually be helpful to take a real step back and look at what a parable tries to do. For Jesus, Parables were all about the Kingdom of God… or rather like glimpses of it. Knowing that to completely comprehend the fullness of God is impossible, Jesus sought to present small snapshots, small insights of it. Yet as Paul later discovered, no amount of words can com...

Text: Matthew 13:24-30 I have a confession to make. When it comes to gardening, my thumb is rather black. I can listen to agricultural guru Ed Lawrence on CBC radio… I can garner all the advice I can on raising and nurturing plants, and I will still kill everything off inside of a week. As a recent example, some of you might have noticed that I had a rather hardy-looking plant with yellow-flowers in my office for a few weeks beginning in June. It was a gift… despite my warnings to the contrary… but with some encouraging words I accepted it and tried my best to keep this bit of greenery in my office. You may also notice now said plant is no longer there. Initially, I thought it was because I forgot to water it, but the plant seemed to thrive so well… but that changed, especially when it started looking so sad beside my computer monitor. I made sure the soil was moist, but the poor thing continued to look even more despondent. Then I realized that it might not be getting enough light, an...

Text: Matthew 13:1-9 Today we live in a day and age where the Biblical stories are becoming less and less familiar. Those core stories are no longer part of the “cultural collective,” where even a mere hint of a word brings to mind many images from the Bible. Yet this is not a problem for the storytellers, there are as many Biblical allusions and ideas in modern literature and film as there ever were. One only has to go out and see films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the latest Star Wars film to catch a glimpse of this. The stories are still there, and are still being told in different ways, but fewer and fewer people know that these stories come to us from the Bible. Yet in light of today’s scripture reading, that is not necessarily a bad thing. The parable of the sower is so well known, literally thousands of sermons have been written on these few short verses in the gospels. Sometimes I think it is possible to be too familiar with a story. We hear the same tale over and over...

Matthew 11:16-19;25-30 I must admit, I’ve been looking forward to this text for a few weeks. A while back, when I realized that I would be preaching on some of the most difficult texts the Bible had to offer, there was this light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” These are words of comfort, words of hope. This verse is certainly very familiar, and is used in a number of different circumstances in church life: words of invitation and assurance… words of welcome at Communion… words of comfort at funerals… Even at the beginning of summer, when we have been working hard all winter long, these seem to be rather appropriate for this holiday weekend in July. Compared to the difficult stories told over the past two weeks, it is a welcome and refreshing change. Although, after several weeks of wrestling with some of the most difficult texts that the Bible has to offer, I’ve been in this mo...

Text: Genesis 22:1-14 As North Americans, we have been conditioned and sheltered from the stories of tragedy. In a culture in which Disney and Hollywood fairy tales have painted optimistic pictures of the happy ending, we find little room for stories that make us uncomfortable. When we hear grim and tragic tales, we look for a way out as we squirm in our seats. Some people are so swallowed by tragic circumstances, that finding a way out is all but impossible. For the rest of us, the temptation is there to ignore and avoid it whenever possible. Dump the paper in the recycling bin, change the channel, turn off the radio... Isolate ourselves, and shut out the cruel world around us. We create an island of make believe in which we can take refuge... but the world crunches on without us... Church, it seems, is no different. For many, it is a place where we come for refuge, a place where we can hear the comforting Word of God. Yet when the Word of God tells stories of tragedy, we find ourselv...

Text: Genesis 21:8-21 There is a darker side to human nature that we would all care to forget about, and pretend that is not there. We would like to think that we are good people, and that we are not capable of those monstrously evil things that we have experienced through human history. Yet it is important that we do pay attention to it: we acknowledge it in history, we hear about it in both story and song. In literature, it is known as tragedy… the ancient Greeks were very good at it, and Shakespeare gave it life some five hundred years ago. Today we have the very timely example of the latest Star Wars film. Revenge of the Sith bears a much closer resemblance to Greek tragedy than it does to the standard cinematic blockbuster formula. The transformation of Anakin Skywalker into the Sith-Lord Darth Vader has shown us that these stories do resonate with us. These stories are compelling… because they draw us into those dark places in our own soul, and reveal them to ourselves that stuf...