Sermons
How do, or how should, kings act?
Today is the last Sunday in the liturgical/church year. Next Sunday a new year begins with the first Sunday of Advent. The last Sunday of the church year is called Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday. When I think of kings or of people reigning my first thought is always to the historical figures who have held those titles. Yes I know Canada has a new head of…
How should we be?
This Sunday is Restorative Justice Sunday but, in the end, I was not able to come up with a sermon up to the task; so, I went in a different direction. The Lectionary texts prodded me to think about what we should do. This was the beginning of the process that got me to “How should we be?” with a brief consideration of Francis A. Schaeffer’s book and subsequent film…
Vindication?
Today is Remembrance Sunday. It isn’t Remembrance Day, that’s November 11, of course, but St. Mark’s has a tradition of marking Remembrance Day on the last Sunday before November 11. As I read the texts for this Sunday, in more than one translation, one word kept coming up for me, “vindication.” Vindication is one of those words I use correctly, but did not have a good, pithy definition, so I…
What makes a saint?
What makes a saint? Today isn’t actually All Saints Day, but it is All Saints Sunday. I’m sure there are lectionary purists or specialists who would abominate this, but the world in which we live doesn’t have the same connection to the church year that it once did. We can fulminate against it as much as we like, but it is unlikely the world is going to change for us….
What does it mean to “reform”?
The word “reform” at its simplest is to form again, that is, to take what is scattered or disarrayed and return it to its original form. The word “reform”, when we are talking about it on Reformation Sunday, takes aspects of the definition above but adds the connotation that the current disarray is a bad thing. Martin Luther and the reformers before and after him believed that the Western Church…
Let me go!
“Let me go!” A common request heard in families with more than one child. There is something about older siblings that seems to lead to opportunities for the younger siblings to ask, or shout, “Let me go!” It isn’t only siblings, uncles, or “uncles,” or cousins, or . . . there seems to be an endless array of bigger and/or older people who are likely to hold on to a…
We have much to be thankful for . . . don’t we?
Today is Thanksgiving Sunday, so it is generally considered a good thing to preach about Thanksgiving. It might even be a tradition, and while I have been known to ignore the so-called secular calendar events, this is one I feel we can spend some time with. I like Thanksgiving. I like that we celebrate it when our prairie farmers are finishing up the harvest. I like being reminded to be…
When did we get grace?
Grace: the unmerited favour of God. Grace: the unmerited favour of God. So when did we get grace? What did we do or say to get grace? What do we do to get more grace? These are all questions worth asking. I think it was Philip Yancey who commented that “grace” is one of the few theologically significant words that hasn’t been debased by popular usage. I agree with him….
Treaty people
Today was Orange Shirt Sunday. It is the Sunday the Presbyterian Church in Canada remembers our role in residential schools in Canada; we remember and we repent. Residential schools were part of the Canadian government’s attempt to erase the indigenous people from Canada. It is occasionally dressed up to be less offensive, but a cultural genocide is never pretty and cannot be made so. This sermon is my attempt to…
Don’t just walk on them
According to the podiatrists and folks who fit runners for proper shoes, we don’t pay enough attention to our feet. I think they are probably correct. I tend to not think about my feet at all until something goes wrong; I doubt I’m the only one. The general indifference to our feet, and probably feet in general, makes our Old Testament lesson so striking. It says, in part, “How beautiful…