Sermons

It is the First Sunday of Advent today. It is the first Sunday in the liturgical, or church, year. As you probably know, each of the four Sundays in Advent are themed, or have an appellation. This Sunday is the Hope Sunday. Hope. It seems painfully ironic to have a Sunday about Hope these days. COVID-19 ...

I was torn between referencing the end of the liturgical year and something about kings for this week’s title. This dilemma will make more sense when you listen to the sermon called, “This is the king I want.” Other than making a remark or two about geo-political kings the bulk of the sermon is me ...

We know a lot of things. I can say that about virtually any adult and certainly about any adult I know. We know what time we need to be at work, how much we can spend on groceries, our middle name, all sorts of things. But what don’t we know? You might not know my ...

Today we didn’t have a sermon but instead had an update on what PWS&D (Presbyterian World Service & Development) is doing provided by Okelo Aballa, a member of the PWS&D committee. There are two copies of the update below. The longer one includes my introduction and my remarks after Okelo Aballa’s talk and the shorter ...

Well, yes. This week’s sermon title is another question, as so many of my sermon titles are. This week the question is “Whose is it?” The sermon is drawn from our Gospel lesson, Matthew 22:15-22, the famous “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” passage. The phrase “render unto Caesar” and its variants have moved into ...

There is a stubborn belief out there, and by “out there” I mostly mean in my own head, that the way we change is by changing our thinking. This is a half-truth, maybe not even a 50-50 split, which means if we pick up on the wrong half we can get into trouble. It is an ...

Knox Presbyterian, Briercrest I was momentarily tempted to run this post with black borders but in the end, I thought that might be a bit much. Last night, October 13, 2023, was the Service of Dissolution for Knox Presbyterian in Briercrest, SK. A Service of Dissolution is the final service when a congregation has determined that they ...

It is Thanksgiving in Canada this weekend. Over the years we have had a wide range of celebratory meals around Thanksgiving. One memorable year we had sixteen (I think) at the table. Hadley and I were married but didn’t have any kids yet so the rest of the crowd was students. I close my eyes ...

I’ve talked about this sort of thing before. There are some stories in the Bible where I’m not sure where I fit nor what I think about the story. The story of Jonah, especially the second half, is one of these stories and the Parable of the Landowner is another one; the Lectionary gives us ...

Some weeks, the moment I read the Lectionary texts I know exactly where we need to go on Sunday. Some weeks it is a bit more of a search. This week was one of the latter. It wasn’t that I had no idea where to go but rather, I had an idea that wouldn’t come together ...