Sermons
Is it hard being rich?
It is almost an odd question, isn’t it? How could it be “hard” to be rich? Being rich makes everything easier, doesn’t it? Money is how we grease the wheels of progress. The right amount of money to have is “more.” I think it is hard being rich and while I have my own reasons for thinking this, Jesus gives a pretty good reason himself in today’s Gospel lesson. “Then…
God speaks
Today was World Communion Sunday so I thought I’d talk about God speaking. It is a bit of a truism, even a cliche, for religious people to say God speaks. It isn’t only the Christian faith but all faiths have a belief that God speaks. Exactly how God speaks is more of an open question but the basic notion is agreed on. The difficulty is that God doesn’t speak the…
Truth and reconciliation
Today is September 29. Orange Shirt Day is September 30 so it is no surprise that the Presbyterian Church in Canada names this Sunday Truth and Reconciliation Sunday. I don’t often divert from the Revised Common Lectionary, by which I mean I virtually never divert from the Lectionary. The Holy Spirit in her graciousness has consistently led me to uses of the Lectionary texts appropriate to whatever special day it…
More wisdom
I don’t mind using the same picture two Sundays in a row, so I used this one again. As I mentioned at the beginning of today’s sermon, September in Lectionary Year B is almost wisdom month. There is nothing wrong with spending some time with the idea and reality of wisdom. I think the primary thing I want people to take from this sermon is the reminder that wisdom and…
Wisdom and self-control
I quite like the picture for wisdom but I couldn’t find anything I liked for self-control so the second part of the sermon title doesn’t get a picture. Wisdom and self-control seem to go together but they sort of don’t too. This confusion, possibly only for me, makes this a tricky week to preach out of the Lectionary but the more I pondered the two ideas the more I liked…
What is faith?
I have a paragraph about sermon titles below but it is only peripherally related to the sermon. I wanted to think about what faith actually is. I don’t think very many of us hold to Mark Twain’s, I think, aphorism, “Faith is believing what you know isn’t true.” So what is faith? In the end, I think I ducked the question a bit. The sermon came out of the Epistle…
What is religion anyway?
Today’s sermon title is rather odd. Even if it is a rhetorical question it is still odd, at least when a preacher asks it. But I did ask it. And I do ask it. This Sunday’s message comes from Trinity Presbyterian, in Grenfell, Saskatchewan. As you may have noticed here and there we (St. Mark’s Presbyterian) have entered into an agreement with Trinity where I go there to preach on…
Not actual military!
There was a time when I wanted to be an historian (I still do a little bit) and in particular, a military historian. It’s a long story about why I wanted to do such a thing and an equally long story about why I didn’t so I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, I am not an historian of any stripe, I am simply someone interested in…
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…