Sermons

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…
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Beyond another list

We like to tell ourselves we don’t like rules but really, most of us do. We like rules because they make for a predictable world and who doesn’t want that? I don’t know anyone who is looking for anarchy on the roads for example. No one wants traffic lights to mean whatever anyone wants them to mean. Red meaning stop is a comforting thing to every driver. The possibility that…
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Just turn around already

I am sure most of you reading this are fully aware that “repentance” is based on the notion of turning around. This Sunday we are looking at the life of King David again and at a particular point where he was given the opportunity to turn around. All of us are given various opportunities to turn around, from the trivial to the most important. Taking a wrong turn on your…
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Let’s talk about another myth

This week we are talking about another myth; a very dangerous myth. The myth of “autonomy” has been a destructive idea for many, many people. The definition of autonomy we are using in these sermons is “the sense of not being accountable to anyone.” The text that got me thinking about this is our Old Testament lesson for this Sunday, 2 Samuel 11:1-15. This generally sordid story of adultery and…
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Change happened

Many of us don’t like change. I’m one of them. Change, in my mind mind, equates to chaos and general upset, neither of which I like. But whether or not we like change, we have changed. We have gotten older, our weight and hair quantity may have changed along the way, our opinions about all sorts of things . . . all of these have or will change. This isn’t…
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Not quite a rhetorical question

 It was good to be back. I missed last week due to illness, which I think is the third time I’ve missed a service because I was sick since I started doing this . . . in 1995. I haven’t been filling a pulpit or two for every Sunday of the past 23 years but for quite a few.* The texts took me to an interesting, if not peculiar, question,…
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A story about a father

Happy birthday Canada! You are looking pretty good for 151. This Sunday coincided with Canada Day so we sang the national anthem at both services but I look at Canada Day much like Mothers and Fathers days, if the texts don’t take me toward it, well, that’s fine. All that to say, this Sunday’s sermons were about Jairus and his daughter. The story is a familiar one to many of…
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Not dry at all

I love history. The two sermons makes it pretty clear I love history. There was a time when I was planning on being a professional historian, assuming that’s a real job, but things went in a different direction. I am frustrated there are so many eras in human history I know nothing about. But that’s me. What about everyone else? Does anyone have a responsibility to know anything about history?…
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We don’t always know what we want

It is a truism that we frequently don’t know what we really want. We almost always have an answer when someone asks us, “What do you want?” but it doesn’t always reflect reality. This isn’t because we are dumb, it is because we ask for the first thing we can think of that might address any underlying needs. If we spend some time thinking about it, we realize that when…
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