Sermons
A new mindset, or at least a new setting
This post covers the sermons for August 4 (still behind, still catching up but in the current month; yippee!). One of the more peculiar things that Paul asks us to do is to “set our minds on things above.” Perhaps “peculiar” is too strong a word but it is at least odd that we would be asked to set our minds on things above. How will it help us to…
Prayer, persistence and preaching
These are the sermons from July 28 (still catching up obviously) and it is an opportunity to think about prayer. Prayer is a tricky thing to talk about but it is always worth visiting or re-visiting. When the Lectionary includes Jesus talking about prayer in two different ways, as he does in Luke 11:1-13, the need to address it becomes pretty compelling. What makes Jesus’ words so interesting in his…
Advice for living from Paul and the Colossians and the Good Samaritan
This is more catch up so, sorry about getting extra notification and even for something that is from July 14! There is no shortage of advice giving and more general advice availability but are the internet and well-meaning friends the best or only sources of advice about how we should live? No, there is another source, namely the Bible, that is superior to both those sources . . . and…
Learning from Naaman . . . no swimming required!
I am playing catch up again, which is always frustrating, but then again, if I don’t play catch up . . . I’ll still be behind! So this post is for the first Sunday of July, i.e. a month ago [sigh]. This sermon, and there is only one sermon for this post on which more later, is drawn from the story of Naaman. Naaman, a very important military leader for…
Some thoughts on being afraid
I am occasionally afraid. I think that virtually everyone finds themselves in that state at least now and then. Frequently what makes us afraid is something that is just ridiculous but often we are made afraid by something that is frightening. A car careening toward you is something that should make you afraid; the dark, probably not so much. The challenges is drawing a proper distinction between what makes you…
Paradoxes
Paradox: A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. (google.ca) I don’t care for paradoxes for all kinds of reasons. There are some people who suggest that paradoxes are “impossible,” i.e. a paradox is a trick of language, restate it properly and the paradox disappears. Others say that a paradox is a cop out and if you…
Miracles? Still?
There is something about the very notion of the miraculous that offends most modern sensibilities. We think that a miracle is something from another, ruder, more credulous, age. Or we try to get around it by saying that “everything” is a miracle, thus, nothing is. I’m not going to try to explain everything here, but if you listen to one or the other of these sermons I hope you will…
Who knows what God can do?
Who would be so bold as to take up valuable preaching time with such a peculiar question as this one: Who knows what God can do? Well, as it turns out, me. I don’t know that I would call it boldness but rather a response to the texts. It took me quite a bit of the week to finally nail down what I thought I needed to talk about but…
The Trinity . . . so what?
Trinity Sunday is one of the few Sundays of the year where a preacher might be forgiven for preaching a heavy, doctrinal sermon. Believe it or not, there is something rather attractive about really digging in and laying out a good 45 minutes of careful reasoning and exposition. The problem is that, no matter how much we might say that we preach to ourselves and let others listen, we really…
Pentecost! Gifts and fruit and tongues, oh my
Well today (and by “today” I mean the day I preached the sermons below) is the birthday of the church: Pentecost. It seems strange that we have such an unequivocal beginning. The strange thing is that the direction I took with the Lectionary texts was to address an old, old fight that isn’t even on the radar in most Presbyterian churches and especially not in the Presbyterian churches I preach…