Sermons

'Comforting or disturbing?' (Advent 2)

This past week, on Thursday evening, I started an Advent class. It’s on Zoom, as many gatherings are these days. Last week we looked at some of the readings for the First Sunday of Advent. They talk about God tearing open the heavens and coming down, so to speak, and about a huge upheaval that will take place, but we don’t know when.

I ended the class by asking whether people found these readings comforting or disturbing. I won’t say what other people said, because that’s their business, but I can tell you what I said. I said that to me they are both: both comforting and disturbing.

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'Reaching Out'

Kirk and I keep getting a particular phone call. Actually, Kirk is getting it, because it comes through on an American phone number we have that rings through to his mobile phone here. Because we’re living here, but still have business to conduct in the States, we have an American phone number so that people can phone us without having to dial an international number. Mostly on this phone number, Kirk gets scam phone calls.

There is one phone call that keeps coming in. A recorded female voice says, “I am reaching out to you today because your company …” — and usually by then Kirk has hung up. The voice is loud enough that I can hear it across the room.

The words “reaching out” jump out at me. They make me think about the importance of reaching out — and I think that’s why hearing them from a scam phone call seems wrong.

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'Harvest 2020'

Recently I made a video for St. Nicholas School. In these strange times, I can’t go to the assembly each week on Thursday mornings, as I have done in previous years. So instead I took a video on my phone and sent it in to be shown to each of the classrooms. Just like one I sent last spring, I took this video out in the Rectory’s garden. Last spring, I wanted to show some things that Kirk and I had just planted. This time, I wanted to show a few things we were harvesting. We have autumn raspberries, which have turned out even better than the ones we got in spring. But mainly I wanted to show a big pumpkin.

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'It Matters What You Think About' (Trinity 18)

It matters what you think about. I have said this before in sermons, in one way or another. The Apostle Paul says it to us in his letter to the Philippians that is one of the readings for this Sunday. “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things,” he says. He does not say, but he does imply, don’t think about all the stuff out there that is the opposite of these things. Don’t focus on those. Think about what is good and true and excellent.

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'Reaching the Promised Land' (Trinity 16) (OR 'Anger at God')

Moses is having a rough time. There he is, with his brother Aaron, leading a group of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people through a desert. The people are Hebrew slaves who have escaped from slavery in Egypt. Life had not been great there, of course, but now that they are in the desert, they seem to have decided that slavery in Egypt was better than wandering through the wilderness to an unknown future.

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'Happiness' (Trinity 5)

Something that we all need as we go through life are people who can offer us wisdom and guidance. Sometimes these are people older than ourselves, who have had to deal with troubles in life already and can pass on wisdom, if we are willing to listen. One person from whom I have received wisdom is someone I have never met. It is Kirk’s grandfather.

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'Do not be afraid' (Trinity 2)

An image stuck in my head after I read the readings for today. The image was of the woman Hagar being in the desert, having left her son, Ishmael, to die of thirst because she had run out of water. They had been banished and were in search of a new home, but they were out in the middle of the desert and the wilderness, and she expected certain death for them both. The image that stuck in my head was of Hagar, grief-stricken and anxious, afraid that both she and Ishmael would die. And she weeps. Seemingly in her tears she is praying to God.

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'Who could have imagined...?'

Who could have imagined…? Who would have said…?

Any of us could have said these words over the past few months. Who could have imagined that a virus would sweep the world and shut down so much of what we considered normal life: travel, shopping, school, work, and just plain hanging out with people.

But not being able to imagine something goes in the other direction also — toward events that seem too wonderful, too far-fetched, that you would not have thought they could happen.

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'Put Things in Order' (Trinity Sunday)

“Put things in order, says the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians.

The opposite of order is chaos. This past week, these past months, we have seen both order and chaos around the world.

We need order in life. I don’t mean being rigid. I mean having order as opposed to chaos. We need order so that life fits together and makes sense (as much as life can), so that we have a firm foundation and can keep body and soul together.

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'Are You Ready?' (Easter 7, Year A)

I have a question for you: Are you ready? Ready for what?, you might ask. Ready for the lockdown to truly be over? Ready to return to church? Ready to go back to work or school? Ready to go to a pub? Ready to get on a plane and head off for some sunny realm and lie on the beach? So we might be ready for all sorts of things. But I’m asking for another reason today. I’ll tell you about it in a little while.

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'Cultivating the Life of the Spirit'

Even as we cultivate crops at this time of year, sowing and planting, we have also been in a time that has called on us to tend to another type of cultivation. We have been called to cultivate the life of the Spirit, the Spirit of God within us and among us. In the Gospel today, Jesus is talking to his disciples on the night before he is to die. He promises them that they will not be orphaned, but that God will send the Spirit to live within them and among them.

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'They'll know we are Christians...'

What is your ideal life? If you could describe a life that to you would be idyllic — in other words, ideal, perfect — how would you describe it? Would it be like you are living now, in the midst of Covid-19? Maybe a few adjustments, but substantially the same? Or would it be completely opposite to how you are having to live right now? Would it be the way you were living before Covid-19 descended upon us all?

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Good Friday 2020

During the shutdowns and lockdowns and social distancing that we are all experiencing right now because of the coronavirus, one of the ways that people have stayed in touch has been through social media. Humorous and inspirational and just plain silly messages and videos have been hitting the airwaves. They help to keep us connected, they keep up our sense of humour, and sometimes they remind us of what is important.

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