Sermons
Weak or “weak”
I felt the need to divert from the Lectionary to complete the “two part” sermon I alluded to last week. Both Sundays stand alone but this Sunday flows from last Sunday pretty well. I was very surprised to see that the Lectionary didn’t continue in Romans so . . . well I just did anyway. The point I wanted to draw from this text is how important it is to…
Who do we live to?
“Who do we live to?” I know this is an odd question, it is even ungrammatical which is a bit of a departure for me, but the answer to the question is the title of today’s sermons – “We do NOT live to ourselves.” This comes from St. Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.” (Romans 14:7)…
Debts but not the money kind
I am sitting on my front deck writing this blog entry at six in the evening. It is September 7 and the temperature is 26C (79F for those that think in those degrees). I have no idea what the weather will be like tomorrow but I want to grab this evening as this is what I think of when I think of later summer / early fall in Regina; beautiful…
Mission impossible
There are at least a couple of places in the Bible where we are called to do what seems impossible. The two I’m thinking of are Jesus’ words commonly called the Sermon on the Mount and St. Paul’s words captured in Romans 12:9-21. This Sunday I preached on the Romans passage and referred to it as Paul’s “version” of the Sermon on the Mount by which I meant it is…
Gifts
This post is a couple of days late because on Sunday we had a lovely time celebrating my youngest daughter, Neala, turning eight years old! Wow! Time just flies by doesn’t it. So let’s talk about gifts. I’m not thinking of the kind of gifts that Neala just got but rather the gifts that everyone who is in a relationship with God through Jesus has, namely spiritual gifts. There are…
Out of left field
“Out of left field.” “That came out of nowhere.” “I never would have predicted that!” These are just a small sampling of phrases that we can use when something catches us off guard or something doesn’t do what we are expecting. Sometimes a catastrophe comes out of nowhere, sometimes a delightful surprise comes our way, sometimes it is just a thing that happens that we weren’t expecting. There are all…
Who’s a preacher? What’s a sermon?
This Sunday we spent some time working out what exactly a preacher is, who is preacher and what is a sermon. It was fun. The sermons were drawn from our Gospel lesson and revolve around the age old question, how do people hear something unless someone tells it to them? There was an opportunity to spend quite a bit of time discussing the question, is general revelation, i.e. nature, creation…
Remember bad and good
Several weeks ago the Presbyterian Church in Canada asked congregations to consider doing something to recognize that August 4, 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. The reminder that this is a centennial year was a good one, I was aware of it in the “non-preaching” part of my brain but not necessarily in the “preaching” part.* I am always concerned about services like this…
Expectations
There is something about our expectations. I don’t for a moment think that I’m on to something new but there is real value in reminding ourselves that generally speaking, dashed expectations create the greatest disappointments for us, even more than what might be called actual disappointments. It seems odd but it seems to be the case. I wonder if this is the source of a fascinating study . . ….
Daddy
This Sunday there is only one sermon attached because I only preached one, and what is more I preached it at a different church than usual. Don’t worry, I haven’t left Knox and St. Mark’s, I was invited back to First Presbyterian Church in Regina, what fun! First Presbyterian is the church that is most responsible for making me a preacher. Needless to say, they are not responsible for any…