Sermons
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…
Tricky words
It is all too easy for me to allow almost any discussion to get to the level of words – how they are used, what they mean, what is the philosophy of that word – so I work pretty hard at not letting sermons end up there. However, there are times when we need to take a few moments to look at a particular word, or words, and discuss how…
Choices, choices, choices
It is good to be back after a couple of Sundays away. Three fifths of our family were very unexpectedly given the opportunity to spend a week in Cuba and, not being ninnies, we took it. We had a lovely time with some other family members who were there with us and the Cuban people we met. You may notice the unusual disparity in the lengths of the two sermons….
We all want to belong
Ah, belonging. There are few things more necessary to the psychological health of the human person than a feeling of belonging. We all want to belong, be part of the team, be part of the group, be part of the family. This is simply part of what it means to be human and most of us couldn’t turn it off if we wanted to. There is nothing wrong with the…
More isn’t always good
I have been reflecting on the power of language . . . again. Anyone who knows me will have heard me on this particular hobby horse before, perhaps more than you would like. However, I don’t really apologize for spending time helping us think about how language changes the way we think. Because it does. The texts for this week have a remarkable phrase, “in every way you have been…