Sermons
Sometimes it is easy . . . or is it?
Most of us have things we say often. My kids have heard me say some variation of “Nothing of value comes without work” or “Nothing that matters is easy” probably more times than they want. The idea isn’t a bad one, it is true, most things we want take some work to get. No one is born with an innate ability to play the piano or make speeches or perform…
Are we really trees?
Of course, we aren’t really trees. If nothing else we all move around too much. (If you are thinking of reminding me about Ents, go right ahead.) I decided to use the metaphor of a tree because if there is one thing a tree does, without thinking about it, it is growing. The trees we aren’t really being are fruit trees; so by now, I’m sure you will know the…
We aren’t forgotten
No one wants to be forgotten. For that matter, no one wants to forget someone else. I know there are exceptions to this and every rule, but for the most part, I think this is true. The “not being forgotten” part is pretty self-evident. The evidence for not wanting to forget other people is the conversational gymnastics we will go through rather than admit we have forgotten someone’s name. This…
The Trinity. Any questions?
There are a few Sundays repeated every liturgical year. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and Transfiguration, to name a few. Today is another one, namely, Trinity Sunday. I mention, somewhat jokingly, in at least one of the sermons that if there wasn’t a Trinity Sunday no one would preach on it. Why? The simple answer? the Trinity is hard to understand. In this case, “hard” equals impossible. The Trinity is fundamentally beyond…
It’s Pentecost!
The Day of Pentecost is two things. First, it is the birth of the Christian church. Admittedly, the church that began then was considerably different than the church we see now but they are connected in an unbroken chain. Second, it was a new manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It was a new manifestation, not a new Holy Spirit. It can be a challenge for us to remember a couple…
A gift
I have never met a person who hates gifts. I have met a lot of people who don’t always like all the stuff around gift giving–the expectations, disappointments, forced gratitude–but the idea of “gift” is okay. We often don’t know what to do with gifts and that’s even more likely when we don’t see a gift for what it is. I grew up with a particular view of the Holy…
In or out . . . who knows?
Virtually every human being wants to be part of a group. There are people who prefer solitude above everything else, but they are very much in the minority. We want to know we are “in.” There is not much wrong with the desire to be included but we cannot lose sight of the reality for some to be “in” there are others who must be “out.” The “in or out”…
Mothering Sunday
Today is the second Sunday in May. More importantly, it is the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This year there is some crossover between the two. The second Sunday in May in Canada is Mothers’ Day (or Mother’s Day if you prefer). This is a tricky Sunday. One of the trickiest parts of it is how many people reject the reality of the trickiness. I have heard, too often, things like,…
Why talk about eating?
Eating. Eating is something we all do, maybe too much or too little but we all do it. Eating is something everyone in the Bible did too. If Jesus’ ministry was three years and he ate three meals a day (365 X 3 X 3 = 3285) he ate a lot of meals. So what? My rhetorical “So what?” question was asked on your behalf. The reason I preached about…
It’s about seeing . . . but how?
The sermon title this week is “Do we need to see?” which is obviously a rhetorical question but it comes from what I think is an important deeper question. The impetus for my thinking on the whole thing comes from our Gospel lesson this Sunday, which is the well-known story of Jesus’ disciple Thomas needing more proof than eyewitnesses to believe Jesus was alive. The story has given us the…