Sermons
Joy and happiness are not the same thing
The third Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of Joy. What could be more fitting for this season than a Sunday devoted to Joy? Not much to be sure but what images come to mind when someone reminds you “Christmas is the season of joy” or says “Christmas is such a joyous time”? If you are like me you picture kids unwrapping presents or carolers or something like that. There…
Advent – Peace
Let me begin by saying it is good to be back. My time away was wonderful and I am happy to recommend an Atlantic crossing to anyone. It felt odd to begin the church year with the second Sunday in Advent but I have been in this position before so it isn’t completely new. Nor is the general topic of this Sunday. The liturgical year has us talking about peace…
No such thing as a one-sided coin
It struck me about five minutes ago that these are my last sermons in this Liturgical year. I’ll be away from both Knox and St. Mark’s Presbyterian churches until the second Sunday of Advent. Both congregations are in excellent hands so nothing to worry about there but if you come here for the next few weeks, all you’ll see is what is here now. But enough of that, what did…
Servant?
A short word before we get to anything else. This Sunday Knox Presbyterian had the great privilege of witnessing a member joining by confession of faith and four, yes you read that correctly, FOUR baptisms. It made for a delightful service but you will notice quite a lot of extra voices during the sermon. I don’t think you will have any difficulty hearing me but if you do, let me…
Answering the question
We are all human beings which most of the time is pretty wonderful. There are some aspects of our humanity that can get us into trouble if we don’t pay attention to them. One of these things is our desire for answers. Human beings hate uncertainty. Very few of us are happy with things being “up in the air.” We want answers and we want them now; if the answer…
Prayer and talking
This post’s title is what I was getting at with the sermon title but fuzzier so the actual title was “Prayer and speech”; let me know which you think is better. We are finished with James for this church year and we finished up with a discussion about and around prayer. The last half of the last chapter of James has some of the most familiar and misused words in…
No end to wisdom
We are revisiting wisdom again this Sunday. Our Lectionary readings include more from Proverbs, plus Psalm 1 but we are going to look at James. James is a book I thought I was familiar with, and I suppose in all honest I was, but I am finding out some new and really good stuff every week we are there. This week was especially good because it forced me to look…
Not all proverbs are true
That’s a little provocative, as blog posts go when you tend to talk about the Bible. Which proverb am I talking about? The Old Testament reading for this Sunday is Proverbs 1:20-33, am I singling one of those out? As a matter of fact, I am not. Proverbs are found all over the place, not just in the Bible. We frequently think they are true, when we understand them. “A…
Considering alternatives and finding none
We often want options, some of us always want options. When we get news we don’t want or are in a situation we dislike we want an option. This is only natural and all too human. But what do we do when we don’t have an option, an alternative? For that matter, what do I do? I wish I had a heroic story or two about my rising to an…
Let’s talk wisdom
Wisdom is one of those tricky words. It is frequently conflated with cleverness or even pragmatism and it really isn’t related to either of those. We are talking about wisdom today because our Old Testament lesson, about Solomon, and our Epistle lesson, Paul telling to live wise rather than unwise lives, are very much thematically linked. At least the theme that arose for me out of our texts for this…