Sermons
Oh! So it’s wisdom!
This Sunday’s sermon is a little different. There was sufficient illness in the congregation so the decision was made to cancel the in-person service and go with a Zoom-only service. This means broadcasting from my home. This is not a particular difficulty; this is what we did for the COVID-19 pandemic. I mention this, not because it makes a tremendous difference to you but as the beginning of explaining why…
How do we do that?
The clipart for today isn’t all that great, but then again, I am not a clipart expert. Are there clipart experts anymore? There certainly were when I first got into computers, especially doing desktop publishing but the world and I were much younger then. The sermon title is above and I think it could use a bit of explanation. The “that” in the title is the behaviours we are encouraged…
Story time or gifts?
As it turned out we got both “story time” and “gifts.” The story was the rest of the sordid story of one of the lowest points in David’s kingship. The gifts centred around a single gift, namely the gift of the prophet. I am consistently amazed at how the compilers of the Lectionary bring texts together in such a way that they speak to me every Sunday. This Sunday the…
Being strong or being strengthened
Is there a difference between being strong and being strengthened? They connect in a significant way, they both deal with strength but do they deal with it in the same way? The short answer is no. The long answer is my sermon which I am not going to transcribe here☺ Being strong is a thing you have or have accomplished; you could even say it is a finished thing. You…
Rest – a sermon by Alicia Monson
We had the delightful opportunity to have the Synod of Saskatchewan’s summer student, Alicia Monson. Alicia took the entire service including the sermon so you won’t hear me in the recording but her. Alicia did a fine job of preaching about rest, never an easy subject, but always relevant. Enjoy Alicia’s work. “Rest by Alicia Monson” St. Mark’s Presbyterian (to download, right-click and select “Save Link As . . .”)…
Blessed in Christ
One of the things about the Lectionary is it is a three-year cycle. This was quite the revelation when I left the “free church” behind and moved to a Lectionary/liturgical church. Believe it or not, there was a time when I couldn’t imagine preaching from the same four texts every three years. What if I repeated myself? What if I said everything I had to say about them the first…
What good is being a prophet or having visions?
I believe this sermon sees a first for me. I don’t think I’ll go back to check but I’m pretty sure this is the first time I have ever begun a sermon with, “So.” But I stand by the opening–and will be very happy if anyone has anything to say about the opening for good or ill–because it sets a particular tone which I think is helpful when we ask…
Jesus and a woman
Fair warning about this sermon, there is quite a lot of me in it. It still comes from the Gospel lesson for today but I talk about myself more than I do sometimes. At least I think it is more than usual, if this is about par maybe someone could tell me? I was hoping to go in the direction of how we treat people. The story of a woman…
Saved . . . how?
The process of being “saved” in the theological, or churchy, sense is an interesting one. I don’t know if I have the capacity to go into all the different scenarios out there to become “saved.” The things you need to do to be saved run the gamut from being baptized as an infant to saying a special set of words to devoting your life to a cause. I grew up…
How about that
There is a phrase that some people use when they are surprised by something, “How about that.” I like the phrase for a few reasons but I like it best because it is so multi-purpose. “How about?”, “How about that!”, and “How about that” each have different meanings. The phrase can express surprise, incredulity, disbelief, enjoyment, . . . it is very useful. I don’t often leave Scripture with “How…