Category Archives: homily

An Easter message: we are changed

What joy it is to return to Easter services together, to be able to gather with loved ones and beloved strangers alike to rejoice that: Alleluia! Christ is Risen! We have missed this, these past two years, huddled around our … Continue reading

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Good Friday

The cross does not narrow down God’s love for the world. It raises up God’s love so that all might see the compassion, the deep and abiding compassion, of God for God’s people, that God would even suffer with us in order to redeem us from our suffering and sin. Continue reading

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Peter said no

How hard it is to let Jesus serve us, save us, and know that there is no repayment necessary nor sufficient, that Jesus does not need us to defend him or protect him. Continue reading

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Ash Wednesday: ice to ashes

Last Saturday, I spent far too much time and energy chipping away at the layer of ice that was left behind after I shovelled the snow. I did it because the sun was out and I knew that if I … Continue reading

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God has warm legs?

Conditions change, the world turns, people grow, some get sick, some get better, some flee to Egypt, some return. We cannot expect, nor should we try, to recreate the past; but there is sunlight in the future, too, and flashes of inspiration. And there is warmth still in the relationships that endure. The cat, when she has given up on the flash of light, curls up in the patient knowledge that sooner or later, someone with warm legs will feed her; that she is beloved. Continue reading

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When worlds collide

Today, while our church celebrates and ruminates on the revelation of Christ to the nations – the arrival of the magi at the manger and their joyful homage to the child they recognized as the saviour of the world – the news cycle is full of analysis, unresolved shock, and grief over what happened and what so nearly happened to our nation a year ago today. Continue reading

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Word, wordless

A brief message for Christmas Day If, like me, you have memories from long before you learned how to talk, then you know that even before it speaks an infant tells itself stories and lays them down, woven into the … Continue reading

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Because love is the miracle

Love is what it takes
to make the other
miracles true… Continue reading

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Karl Barth, St Paul, and the stickiness of sin

“Who … is aware of man’s real wretchedness, save he who is aware of God’s mercy?” Barth lectured his students in Bonn. We know our sin, we are convicted of it, Paul discovered his error in persecuting the followers of Jesus only when he was confronted by the living Christ himself, the revelation and reality of God’s saving mercy. Continue reading

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For All Saints and All Souls

He has dwelt with us as our God; we are his people,
and God is with us; and as surely as Jesus wept for his own friend,
he will one day wipe every tear from our eyes. (after Revelation 21:1-6) Continue reading

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