Sermon Archive

Text: Galatians 3:23-29 One of the laments I heard periodically in a previous pastoral charge was that “We haven’t had enough baptisms lately. We haven’t had people join the church. We should be doing more to get new members on our church rolls. Maybe we should make things easier to join.” I found myself disagreeing with them… In part because I think one of the hardest things to do is to join the church… Sure… the ceremonies seem easy… We’d have people stand up and declare their intention to become part of the congregation. At first, the congregation seemed willing enough to have new people join… quite enthusiastically actually. Everyone would smile and seems pleased to these new people in their midst. But then weeks later, after repeated attempts, the new member has not really become a member. No group was found that adopted her. She made no real friends, despite repeated attempts. A few months later, someone asks, “Whatever happened to that nice young woman who joined the church last...

Text: Luke 7:36-8:3 This is the second week in a row that we’ve celebrated the Sacrament of Baptism. I have to admit that it’s the first time in my career that I’ve ever had that happen. Timing wise it would have not been able to work out that we would have both on the same day. In retrospect, that’s not a bad thing at all… if anything it keeps the gift of baptism front-and-centre quite literally for a bit longer than it normally would be for us. It speaks to the gift that God gives us, and when we celebrate it together, serves as a reminder as to what God does for us… plus it’s a reminder to us that God’s gift comes first. Everything else we do as a part of our faith flows out from this sense of gratitude of what God has already done. I think that’s often something we forget. An awful lot of time and energy is invested in trying to earn our way into God’s good graces… and conversely, looking down our noses at those that don’t measure up to the standards that we begin to create. The en...

Note: Due to the length of the service on June 10th, I edited this sermon on-the-fly to allow for time. The entirety of what I intended to preach is what follows. -JC Text: Galatians 1:11-24 Preachers are often well known for their personal hobby horses. That one favourite topic that we like to rock back and forth on until the wood rots, or the horse itself collapses out from under us. The late Jerry Falwell was well-known for them, the Apostle Paul had his own recurring themes as the “light to the Gentiles.” And yes, I have my own that I seem to get stuck on… I fully admit that… but I would like to think that it’s something that emerges out of the text, rather than my personal agenda. At least, that’s the defence we use when we are accused of riding our own hobby horses. So I’ll be blunt, here’s one of mine: I believe that we do our faith an incredible disservice when we place figures in the Biblical story on a pedestal. I believe that we do our faith an incredible disservice when we ...

On Sunday, June 3rd, Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church had a pair of guest speakers who preached on Psalm 22 as a way to reflect on the work of the Compass. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to their written work for posting to the sermon archive. Instead, I include here an article written by Ande MacDougall-Clumpus for a journalism class while he goes to school at Dalhousie University in Halifax. We had intended to place it in the newsletter, but due to size and space restrictions we could not do it justice. As such, here is the article in its entirety for the entry in last week's Sermon. --The Rev. John Crowdis Driving down any residential street in Lorne Park, a community in Mississauga, Ontario, one will see three-story houses with two-car garages and manicured lawns; it is difficult to spot an estate with a value of less than half a million dollars. SUVs, BMWs and Audis fill the driveways in these neighbourhoods, and children wearing designer clothes populate the local ...

Text: John 17:20-26 There’s a song from singer Bruce Springsteen that topped the Billboard charts in the summer of 1985. It was called “Glory Days” –a song remembering the good old days from way back in high school. It’s kind of ironic, that in 1985 I was just in high school, and this year marks the 20th Anniversary of my own graduation… So admittedly this feels a little weird. In the song, Springsteen weaves this tale of a guy longing for the good old days when he and his friends got all the attention, whether in sports, whether they were popular in school. It literally was their moments of glory… and they spend the rest of their lives longing for what has gone by. For Springsteen, this is not necessarily a good thing… I think all of us have had these moments of glory at one point or another in our lives. A moment of recognition for hard work, a winning play in a sporting event, a moment where the public spotlight for one reason or another falls on us. Andy Warhol called it our “15 mi...

Note: This sermon was originally written and preached by the Rev. Sarah Fanning at Parkwoods United Church, on Sunday May 6, 2007. With her permission, I retooled the text for context and adapted it for Christian Family Sunday at Clarkson Road. I am indebted to her help during what was a very busy week. Texts: Acts 11:1-18 , John 13:31-35 Why is it that for me to be ‘up,’ someone else has to be ‘down?’ Why is it that for me to be important, somebody else has to be unimportant? Why is it that for me to feel valued, somebody else has to be devalued? Why is it that for me to be loved more, somebody else has to be loved less? Is it just human nature to feel like that? Or is it part of the baggage we pick up at an early age and carry with us throughout our lives? Tom and Dick Smothers used to get incredible mileage out of, “Mom always liked you best!” Is there anyone who has brothers and sisters who hasn’t felt like somebody else was getting more than their share of the pie? More ice cream,...

Texts : Reflecting on Psalm 23 , John 10:22-30 and Revelation 7:9-17 It has become a part of the traditional readings, the fourth Sunday after Easter is often called “Shepherding Sunday.” Some of you might remember this theme from last year. All of the readings evoke some of the most comforting images of our faith, drawn from some of the most familiar passages in Scripture. For many of us, the sheep and shepherd imagery was what we were raised on as children, so much so that now the 23rd Psalm has become almost universal at funerals today. We remember it from our childhood, from when we were starting out in life, and it gives us a sense of comfort when we grapple with life’s end. Yet in the same way with well-known, dearly loved images such as this, there is such a thing as being too familiar with it. I’ve been preaching about that a lot… it seems… But I think it’s good for us to come back to these old standbys… these foundational images of our faith that give us comfort… not just to ...