Sermons
Pastor Jeremiah Steepek transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning’s service. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service. Only three people out of the 10,000 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food….NO ONE in the church gave him change...
I’m currently readings Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. And I am noticing similarities and differences between the creation story in Frankenstein and the creation story of our Judeo-Christian tradition.
In our tradition, God creates out of delight and because it is what Love does.
Frankenstein creates because he becomes obsessed with scientific power, his need to understand creation, and his own prowess
We are on our last Sunday for the Season of Bread. For five weeks we have been travelling through John chapter 6. At the beginning I said that John is telling us who Jesus is. That’s the purpose of this chapter, who is Jesus? Five times he uses the term I am. Which recalls to us the name that God gave Moses at the burning bush. I am who I am (or I will be who I will be, in the Hebrew). John tells us what we must do. We must eat we must drink. Gnaw on the body of Christ. And why? What is Jesus’ mission?
Last week we sat with fresh bread and honey and meditated on what it might be like to be starving in the desert having just fled slavery. The fresh bread smelled amazing, and the drizzle of honey activated our brains and we were alerted to something that gives us pleasure as well as a short burst of energy. Drawing from the meditation, we have a little sense of what it is like to wake from a moment of hopelessness and desperation to be provided a loaf of fresh bread and a jug of sweet, fresh water.
Trinity is a deep part of my faith and yet it is always difficult to talk about because it is so counter to our lived experience with our time and space bound bodies. So, I’m going to tell you a couple of stories; one to illustrate the Trinity and one to illustrate the importance of that mystical truth.
We were joined by the Reverend Greg Jenks. Here is the link to his sermon.
Let’s cast our minds back to the flood.
There is a parallel in every ancient culture. A very similar story to ours appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia, about 4000 years old. There are some important things we should notice about the ancient world and why the God of the Israelites was so counter-cultural.
I do confess myself to be a little apprehensive about my sermon today, because it might be a little challenging…
Paul says that the ‘god of this world’ keeps people in darkness. I think that we have seen a fair bit of darkness in the world in the last couple of years. It’s not easy seeing wars, and genocides, and all kinds of sickness that happen in the world. I think sometimes (no, I know!) when it happens on your back doorstep, we feel it so much more. When children murder people, the world seems very, very, dark. So the question is, where is the light? Because it is in very, very, dark places that the light has opportunity to shine even more brightly.
Have you ever heard the saying: God does not call the equipped, God equips the called?
We see it time and again in the scriptures. Noah, Moses, David, today we hear of Peter and Andrew, James and John.
We could possibly add, God calls the recalcitrant when thinking of Jonah.
And maybe, God calls the dogmatically zealous when thinking about Paul.
