Sermon Archive

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 As the season of Lent progresses, we draw ever closer to cross. The stories of the betrayal and arrest of Jesus are coming. It becomes increasingly more difficult to watch, and we are tempted to simply jump over it all and head straight for Easter morning. Admittedly, I have been trying to draw the joy, the good news, out of the stories that we have heard over the past few weeks instead of focusing upon the doom and gloom that seems so prevalent in the season. Yes, the temptation is there to simply skip ahead to Easter, but we can’t… there is this cross that lies in the way… and at some point we need to take a closer look at it. After all, we cannot have Easter without the Cross. Maybe to shed a bit more light on it, this week I’m shifting away from Mark’s storytelling, turning to Paul’s letter writing. This, admittedly, may or may not be helpful… Paul’s writing style is the bane of most language arts teachers that I know. Part of it gets lost in translation...

Text: Mark 8:31-38 One of the things about the sequence of stories in Lent is that if I am not careful, I could myself into a theological corner. Last week, of course, the proclamation was less about resisting temptation but embracing Lent as an opportunity to prepare for the joy at Easter. Lent, of course, has a reputation of being the most sombre, solemn, and frankly downright gloomy seasons of the church year. Where Advent is a time for hope in preparation for Christmas, Lent tends to be more a time of feeling sorry for ourselves, humbled at what God did for us through Jesus on Good Friday. The question is, does it have to be? As Mark reminded us last week it was far more important of the proclamation that Jesus made: that the time is now! The kingdom of God is right in front of us, all we need to do is open our eyes and see it… and live in the joy of the good news. This is Mark’s proclamation of the gospel. Yet this week’s reading… also from Mark… seems to have a much more grim ton...

Text: Mark 1:9-15 Today is a rather unique challenge. As part of our work with the Nurture Committee, we wanted to have an opportunity to have “family” worship services… to be a bit intentional of having everyone involved and present for the whole service. I remember when I was in Sunday school, my least favourite time of the worship service was the sermon. God has a wonderful sense of humour… I will do my best to keep this part interesting… but it will be a challenge. Why? Well… Today is also the first Sunday in Lent, which short of Good Friday is perhaps the gloomiest of all possible days in the church calendar year. Given that Presbyterians have a reputation of being a bit glum, in theory we should be right in our element… but I would hope otherwise. I’ll be honest, I think I have to practice in front of a mirror to get the right, dour expression. Maybe this is a good thing, but I can never hold it for very long without my face getting sore. So… a bit of a history lesson first: The ...

Text: Mark 9:2-9 I remember once going out to a comedy club just a month or two before moving from Calgary to the West Coast. I was about to start my training for ministry at the Vancouver School of Theology. We were a group of friends who had been together since high school, and had maintained friendships despite our diverse paths through University. It was a chance to kick back and to do some reflecting, especially with everything new that was changing around all of us. We did some storytelling, some laughing, and some genuine sharing… but at one point in the conversation, my friend Russ looked up from his beer with a funny look on his face. “John, this is scary…” he said, “We’re too young to have good old days!!” He was right, all of us were about 22 years old… There is a natural human tendency to want to relive those past experiences, those high points in our lives that we recall with both great fondness, and a bit of regret that those days are gone. We call it nostalgia, longing f...

48th Annual Meeting Sunday Text: Isaiah 43:18-25 Annual meetings are kind of odd affairs in churches in some ways. They are the one opportunity for the congregation to get together, to review the year gone by, as well as looking to the future with hope. Yet how a congregation approaches a day like today can reveal a lot about identity, as well as sense of purpose. On the flip side, the thought of being at one more meeting when we’re as busy as we are is not all that appealing. I have been in some congregations where the Annual Meeting is seen as an opportunity to be somewhere else. In one such case, the minister would get upset at the people who didn’t show up, but took it out on the people who were there… and he wondered why people weren’t coming out. Just to make myself clear: no matter how many people we have on any given Sunday, I am glad you’re here. I have never found it helpful to lament over how many people don’t come, and be pleased with the ones who do. I was once told that w...

THE “COMMON” MIRACLE Text: 2 Kings 5:1-14 There is a human tendency to always look for the big and spectacular events. With the Winter Olympics starting this weekend in Turin, Italy, the next while will be filled with the miracles showing the limits of human achievement. The opening ceremonies were an amazing testament to spectacle, and I have little doubt that the closing ones will try to have the same impact. I was still living in Calgary during the 1988 Winter Olympics, so I have some up-close personal experience as to what these games can be like. These are events on a world scale… with not just millions but billions of people watching from around the globe. If you’re going to put on a show, then it’s time to really pull out all the stops… and the Olympics are just about the best excuse we have going these days. Maybe it’s good timing, and maybe it’s God’s grace… but the story from 2nd Kings today is a story of contrasts. It pits the big and mighty against the downright common. It ...

Text: Isaiah 40:21-31 I remember in high school learning about the First Law Newtonian physics that goes like this: “An object in motion tends to stay in motion, an object at rest tends to stay at rest.” That actually cuts the notion a bit short… the full principle is “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction, unless acted upon by an external force.” The word for this is “inertia.” Even with the advent of relativity and quantum physics, it’s still a sound principle. Yet what does physics have to do with anything, especially coming from the pulpit this morning? After all this is a service of worship, not a high school science class! For those of you who have just come through your exams, I’m sure you’re probably wondering the same thing. Inertia is not just a principle in physics, it seems to be true in a number of different settings… especially social ones. I was once at a General Assembly wh...