Category Archives: sermon

What will you share?

Posted on August 1, 2020 by

Now that everyone can distribute crumbs among the masses with a keystroke, what will we share? Continue reading →

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Slow to anger

Posted on July 19, 2020 by

Of course, we hold one another accountable for egregious actions, words, attitudes. Of course, where there is evil at work, we can and should respond with a little bit of “good trouble”.* Of course, there are rightful consequences. But we do not own the wheat, or its harvest, and the weeds are not ours to destroy. At the end of the age, Jesus says, it is the angels who will exercise judgement over us.
*John Lewis’ phrase Continue reading →

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How to grow a prayer life

Posted on July 12, 2020 by

We have been transplanted into a new and enduring reality. We know now that this new situation will last longer than any of us imagined at the beginning. If we are not to be choked up by the troubles or cares of the world, we need to take care of the soil of our souls, and the loam of our lives, if we are to continue as good mediums for God’s Word. Continue reading →

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Free will and freedom

Posted on July 5, 2020 by

We know from our faith that freedom from tyranny means the freedom not to tyrannize.
Freedom from fear means the freedom not to frighten.
Freedom from oppression offers the freedom not to oppress.
We know from our history that freedom from discrimination only works if we claim the freedom to undo, unravel, repent and repair the damage that has already been done. Continue reading →

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The colour of God

Posted on June 28, 2020 by

We do not hear the word “slave” in the same language as Paul wrote it. We don’t even hear it in the same way as one another. Because of our place in the world, we cannot help but hear the language of slavery in Black and White. Whomever we claim as our ancestors, we cannot hear the word, “slave,” without our history colouring it in.

I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you that is a particular, spiritual problem for people who look like me. Continue reading →

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Casting out unclean spirits

Posted on June 14, 2020 by

The kingdom of God is at hand, and it is time, Jesus says, for the demons, the unclean spirits, the powers that oppose the goodness of God to be cast out and cast down. Continue reading →

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Trinity Sunday: what will become?

Posted on June 7, 2020 by

Christ calls me to repentance. If I am to call myself a Christian, I have to do the work. Continue reading →

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Another Pentecost

Posted on May 31, 2020 by

How quickly the crowd turned from Hosanna to Crucify; from hearing the miracle of the Holy Spirit poured out upon God’s chosen ones to proclaim salvation to writing them off as a dangerous and drunken mob.
But those who remained to listen learned something that day about the nature of God’s mercy, and the love of God that would go even to the Cross for us; love that would suffer in solidarity with the oppressed, the undermined, the unjustly executed, the betrayed. Continue reading →

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Preaching Pentecost

Posted on May 28, 2020 by

More than 100,000 people have died in the US of COVID-19.
Nearly 360,000 people have died from the disease worldwide. Close to 6 million cases have been confirmed overall.
George Floyd died after saying, “I can’t breathe,” as a police officer knelt on his neck in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Continue reading →

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Ascending

Posted on May 21, 2020 by

An arpeggio rising beyond our ear, they who strum and straddle the lines between heaven and the earth, the angels incorporeal, they think us foolish to strain after touch, sight, sounds, the echo in our marrow of a descending chord … Continue reading →

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