Sermons
New clothes for a new year?
I don’t think about clothes very much. I understand clothes and I can tell the difference between good and bad, well-made and poorly-made but I don’t make much use of that knowledge, at least when it comes to my own clothes. One of the things I do pay attention to when it comes to my clothes is when they no longer fit. When they don’t fit, I get replacements. There…
Loveful? Lovely? Love?
I like a good sermon title. I like a good sermon title that works with a “series” or whatever you want to call some kind of thematically connected sermons. That being said “Hopeful?,”Peaceful?,” “Joyful?,” all work quite well but I’ll be the first to admit “Loveful?” does not work well . . . or really work at all but simply couldn’t resist. I’d say sorry but I wouldn’t mean sincerely….
Joyful?
Another Sunday, another question. I like questions. I am sure I have said it here before. I like questions because they open the possibility to answers. As I have also certainly said here, I by NO means have the answers to everything. I see value in asking questions. I also see the church as a place where there are answers. Not to every question, more’s the pity, but to at…
Peaceful?
Peace seems to be something everyone is in favour of, as long as the other party makes whatever changes need to be made. At the moment, the world is not a very peaceful place. There are more armed conflicts in more places than any of us can keep up with. Political and civil discourse is anything but civil and seems to be getting worse all the time. Violence of action…
Hopeful?
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Hope! For some reason I said it is the first Sunday of Lent when there are NO Sundays of Lent, there are only Sundays in Lent. As I mention in the sermon, I am very grateful the church year begins with the hope. I am especially grateful this year when it is very hard to be hopeful for many people….
What do we think of kings?
Let’s face it, most of us don’t think of kings (or queens) at all. Why would we? As Canadians we have a king as our head of government, whatever that even means, and while many of us were fine with Queen Elizabeth II I have yet to find anyone who is glad we have Charles III as “our” king. As someone with a high interest in general history I think…
But what do we do?
How often do you find yourself asking what you should do? Maybe never but probably at least now and then. I don’t know about you but I am most likely to ask the question “What should I/we do?” when I am faced with a situation that seems to demand I do something. I read about genocide in the Middle East, rising fascism, wars, rumours of wars, and on and on…
What is sacrifice?
This Sunday is November 10. It has been my pattern to observe Remembrance Day in the church the Sunday before November 11. The theme of sacrifice is common in religious circles. You occasionally encounter devotees of one religious practice or another who will tell you it is only theirs that practices or believes in sacrifice; this is nonsense, but I’ll save that rant for another time. It is an irony…
Is it really that simple?
The older I get, the more grateful I am for simple things and things that are simple, there is a difference between those two. When I was a younger person I liked the complex and convoluted. I don’t know if it made me feel superior to people to be able to keep straight a multi-point argument and then refute it. For that matter, I don’t really know how I was…
He came to do what?
I didn’t think this was going to turn into a sermon on humility but it did. I often don’t know exactly where a particular text or group of texts are going to take us. If this makes it sound like I don’t know what I’m doing you are partly correct. I know what I am doing but when the Holy Spirit shows and says, “It’s time to do this instead”…