“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings”. The image of God as a mother is not actually an uncommon one – even if it is generally underused in our liturgical and devotional materials. The fierceness and devotion of maternal love; the physical and […]
Ash Wednesday sermon
Have you ever waited for something? Waited for a really long time for something you were really excited; something you really wanted? Have you ever waited so long and so hard for something that you almost missed it when it finally arrived? Perhaps the anticipation had led to impossible fantasies so that the real thing […]
Here we are, on the 4th Sunday of Advent – the last Sunday in Advent. We’ve had three weeks of repentance and preparation; three weeks of getting ready not for the baby Jesus but for the coming of Christ at the end of days, in judgement and righteousness and mercy. Advent is a season of […]
When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things are bound to happen; but the end is still to come. And just like that, the long season of Pentecost makes a hard turn towards Advent and readies us to contemplate the coming of Christ to fulfill God’s promise of […]
Mark 10:17-31 Thanksgiving 2015 At first glance, we seem to have been given a rather odd Gospel for Thanksgiving weekend – a reading that warns against plenty it for a weekend that celebrates it. Not that Thanksgiving is about crass rejoicing in our wealth – I do understand that it is about giving thanks […]
There are weeks when the challenge of preaching lies in the abundance of important things to say; weeks when it is important to remember that no one can say everything every time – at least not in the amount of time traditionally allotted to a sermon here in this church. As a result, I am […]
Whoever comes to me will never hunger, whoever believes in me will never thirst. It’s not that hard to feed people. All it takes is food – Jesus proved that when he took five loaves and fed the crowd of 5000 – and we have so much more than only five loaves in this world […]
As usual, in preparing for this sermon, I read quite a few articles and commentaries on our Gospel passage. I was…let’s call it surprised, when only about 10% of them focused on the fact that the people receiving Jesus’ healing attentions in this passage are both women. And most of those noted only that Jesus […]
a sermon on John 16:6-19 Saying good-bye is hard. Whether you’re the one leaving or the one being left, the anticipation of missing the ones we love makes us sad as we imagine our lives without them. But saying good-bye isn’t hard just because it’s sad – saying good-bye is hard because it’s a little […]
“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another…Little children, let us love, not in word or speech but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth.” In today’s Gospel reading, […]