Sermons
God’s presence
What does it mean to be in God’s presence? For Moses, in the Old Testament it might be lethal. Our Old Testament lesson this week comes from Exodus, to be exact it is Exodus 33:12-23. It is the story of Moses asking God to show Moses God’s glory. God say, “Okay, but if you actually look at me, look at my face, you won’t survive.” God’s solution is to put…
Thanksgiving and gratitude
Today is Thanksgiving Sunday so it seemed a natural thing to reflect on being thankful. I found myself led past the usual people and things for which I’m thankful as I reflected on our Old Testament lesson in comparison to the Philippians reading. We find it easy, or at least I do, to be a bit disdainful of the Israelites behaviour when Moses seems to disappear. I have found myself…
Confident in what?
Confidence is an interesting thing. We need to have confidence in ourselves and in our institutions. Governments, especially minority governments, need to have the confidence of the house. When people lose confidence in banks, bad things happen and “confidence men [sic]” might trick us out of our money. So is confidence good or bad? Well, it all comes down to what you put your confidence in. When you put your…
Sons, vineyards, and Presbyterians Sharing
This Sunday is Presbyterians Sharing Sunday and it is a Sunday set aside to remember we are part of something larger than our individual Presbyterian congregations. If you are reading this and are not a Presbyterian but a member/adherent/attender in another denomination I am sure everything will be perfectly familiar to you, if under a different name. If you are not connected to a denomination but attend an independent church…
An annoying story
I know, I know . . . I even say it in the sermon, we really aren’t “allowed” to be annoyed or irritated by stories in the Bible. But c’mon, the story about the landowner with the vineyard and his HR practices can be really annoying. There is something in Jesus’ story in Matthew 20 (verses 1-16 to be exact) that grates on a lot of us. It seems fundamentally…
Weakness and forgiveness, related to each other?
Weakness and forgiveness don’t really seem related to each other, at least not immediately. I’m not convinced I really drew the two ideas together very well this week but there was something about the juxtaposition of Romans 14:1-12 and Matthew 18:21-35 that grabbed me. What I was trying to do was help us see how we frequently, if not invariably, mistake who is who in discussions of weakness and strength…
Love and debts
If there are two words that don’t go very well together I think the words “love” and “debt” are good candidates. We aren’t in love with our debts and if we are emotionally healthy we don’t think the people we love owe us love in return. So what might I be thinking when I bring the two words together? I’m thinking we need to do something with our epistle lesson for today,…
No separation anxiety here
Separation anxiety: a form of anxiety experienced by a young child and caused by separation from a significant nurturant figure and typically a parent or from familiar surroundings¹ The dictionary definition above specifically references “a young child” but I am certain adults can also suffer from separation anxiety. I think homesickness might be a form of separation anxiety and homesickness can strike a person at any age. But, I can…
We’re children of God?
I missed an opportunity in this Sunday’s sermon to make a joke or two about us being childish but in retrospect I don’t think the sermon was diminished by the lack. It is a bit odd for us to think about ourselves as children though, at least once we make it into adulthood. Particularly when we reach the stage of adulthood where our parents are no longer with us. Because…
Sowing isn’t a one-time thing
Today I had the opportunity to re-visit another thing I got wrong about the Bible when I was younger. I have said it before, but it bears repeating, to the best of my knowledge I was never intentionally misled into falsehood, poor hermeneutics or heresy by someone who knew they were teaching me error(s). However, the fact remains, my early Bible teaching, to say nothing of theology in a broad sense,…