Sermons
Yes, you can ask for directions
One of the more pervasive tropes in comedy is the man who will not ask directions. Like all tropes, to say nothing of cliches, it has kernel of truth. There are all sorts of men who feel their essential masculinity is called into question if they ask directions, I have never understood how getting and staying lost is masculine but I may be missing something too subtle for me. If…
Sheep and shepherds
It is one of those Sundays where the Lectionary “makes” us talk about sheep and shepherds. I quite enjoy “sheep and shepherd Sundays.” They provide an opportunity to talk about how silly sheep are and tell some funny (I hope) stories about sheep. More importantly, this Sunday is an opportunity to talk about how appropriate the image of us as sheep really is. Not just from the perspective of “we…
Not willfully blind, just blind
We are all pretty certain that we see what is in front of us. It is a certainty that stands us in good stead almost all the time. However, there is always a “however” when you are talking about sermons, there are times when we don’t see what is plainly in front of us. The example I use in both sermons is how people who have collisions with motorcycles very…
Ah, doubt
There is something about the very notion of doubt that raises the hackles of religious people. We have come to the conclusion that we are never supposed to have any doubts, about anything but especially, about what we believe. There are any number of problems with this idea not least of which is that it is impossible. I suppose I should temper that remark by saying that it is possible…
Meaning can be tricky
It can be problematic admitting ignorance or asking some questions. Not in the sense that you are displaying ignorance and as such may be considered unlettered or unlearned. Rather, when you ask a question you can’t always predict exactly what your hearers might think you mean. I remember a long time ago I was leading a Bible study for the youth of the church I was attending. One evening, as…
Why ask why?
There is something fundamentally human about the need to know why something happened. I assume it is fundamentally human because my friends and acquaintances all seem to do it and Jesus’ disciples did it thousands of years ago. The Gospel lesson for today is the whole of John 9. The story revolves around a man who was born blind and was subsequently healed by Jesus. The story is kicked off…
Getting words right matters
This Sunday’s Epistle lesson turned into another opportunity for me to revisit a couple of troublesome words. There are a lot of troublesome words in Scripture, and there is nothing wrong with finding such things. Some are troubling because we don’t fully understand them, the word we translate as “flesh” or “sinful nature,” depending on the translation, is a Greek word that means all of that and more. Some are…
Born again again?
This Sunday I think I sailed as close to the wind of heresy as I ever have . . . or will. So let me make something explicitly clear right from the beginning: the moment you move into a relationship with God through Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit (what is frequently called “conversion”) you are in that relationship. You are saved. You are converted. You have moved from death…
The beginning of Lent
I grew up in a tradition that did not really do anything with or about Lent. The Canadian prairie conservative evangelicals I grew up around were deeply suspicious of anything that might be interpreted as “not-their-sort-of-Protestantism.” I sometimes wondered what they were afraid of, after all at this remove I think we can say the Reformation was successful. I don’t want to do them an injustice, these people were as…
Mountaintop experiences
Scripture has several stories that revolve around things happening at the top of a mountain. The Lectionary talks about two such stories this Sunday, one in the Old Testament and one in the New. In Exodus we read about Moses spending days and days on a mountain with God. In Matthew we read about Jesus, Peter, James and John spending a much shorter time on a mountain but being joined…