Sermons
We Don’t Get Discouraged – Rev. John Borthwick
This Sunday I didn’t preach as we had a guest preacher, Rev. John Borthwick. You will get his biography as I introduce him and I commend his sermon to you as an excellent meditation on Paul talking to the church in Corinth, 2 Corinthians 4:1-12. “We Don’t Get Discouraged” – Rev. John Borthwick, St. Mark’s Presbyterian (to download, right-click and select “Save Link As . . .”) Blessings,
Community and life
The texts this week led me in a different direction than I think I have ever gone for this Liturgical week. The most “obvious” directions to go are usually following/obeying the Law (Psalm 1), how the apostles worked with the Holy Spirit to replace Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15-17, 21-26), eternal life (1 John 5:9-13), or perhaps Jesus praying for us (John 17:6-19). I was more than willing to go with…
Is that a command?
Commands are funny things. We give them all the time, to electronic devices, pets, and our automobiles but we don’t like getting them very much. Commands have a heavy connotation of coercion. We are seldom commanded to do something we want to do anyway. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is filled with commands and commandments and statutes. It seems an impossible task to keep them all . . ….
Why wait?
I didn’t realize it until after I came up with it but the sermon title could reasonably be considered an attack on purity culture. It isn’t. Not to say I don’t have some things to say about purity culture and its essential misogyny and fundamental destructive orientation but if I ever preach a sermon about it . . . that will be another day. Rather the sermon title is drawn…
How else do we know?
First of all, a word of explanation, followed by an apology. This Sunday may sound different in the “physical” audio but will also begin much differently than usual because I did not preach at St. Mark’s in Moose Jaw but rather at Trinity Presbyterian, in Grenfell. Grenfell is about a hundred kilometres east of Regina. I had a lovely time with a congregation of lovely people. The sermon below is…
Peace? Really?
This Sunday’s sermon title is one of those that doesn’t work particularly in print. The phrase (or whatever it should be called when I don’t want to repeat the word “title” again) Peace? Really? could be incredulously hopeful, which is not what I was aiming for. The intonation I was envisaging (en-hearing?) was almost derisive unbelief. I try to not preach from phrases of Scripture. It is tempting but it…
What changes?
We all change. I have heard it said that it is when we stop changing that we begin to die. I’m not entirely sure about that but it does add a bit of encouragement to be open to change. The three texts the Lectionary has given us are all about change. They aren’t the most obvious texts addressing change but I was very interested to see how they do. I…
Who would we be?
Has anyone ever asked you which character in a book or movie you would like to be? Have you ever done the exercise of imagination by putting yourself into a story? A Bible story? I’m sure it has a technical name which I’ve forgotten but it can be a very useful technique for getting a different perspective on a familiar story. If there is a more familiar story for well-churched-Christian…
We hold them both
Today is Palm / Passion Sunday . . . again. I don’t want to come across as complaining about today because I am not complaining. I am being faithful to the feeling of “What do I do with today?” The last Sunday in Lent, the last Sunday before Good Friday is a tricky Sunday. How do you as a worship leader and preacher balance the two demands? How do you…
A new covenant
We don’t use the word “covenant” too often these days. We have contracts, agreements, memoranda of understanding, etc. but we don’t enter into covenants very often. In some wedding ceremonies, the word is used to describe the agreement the happy couple is entering, but that’s about the only place we are likely to encounter it. The Bible on the other hand uses the word a lot. It depends on which…