“What is heaven like?” If you ever had children, or maybe you taught children in Sunday school, you have probably been confronted with this question: What is heaven? What does it look like? What will it smell or feel like? Who will be there? What will we do? It makes sense that children ask these questions, we say the word heaven a lot in church, we say it’s important, we might even talk about it as a goal but we don’t actually talk about it very much. If you were only to watch … [Read more...]
Say my Name – Sermon for Easter 2019
What’s in a name? We all can likely remember times when our parents or our friends have called out our name with a deep sense of affection and love bottled up – perhaps after a long period of absence, or a parent calling a child over to offer a hug or a comforting shoulder to cry on. Our names are powerful. Just ask any child the power of a name, when their parent uses it to chastise them! When I was a child I would go around saying ‘I am not an Edddin! I am not an Eddin!’ because when I was … [Read more...]
Sermon for Lent 5 – April 7th 2019
Are you an “Early Adopter?” It’s a term that describes someone who is one of the first to buy and try some new piece of technology. Early Adopters are the first customers. They are always eager and willing to try new things, especially new gadgets. On a bell-curve of who buys a new tech gadget, first there are the Innovators, the people who create and market the items. Then come the Early Adopters, the first people in town to own one. If you have a “Smart speaker” like an Amazon Alexa … [Read more...]
Repent and Live – Sermon for Lent 3
*Audio Available at the bottom of the page* During the season of Lent we rightly focus on repentance and the call for us to confess our sins and such. It is a season of prayer and fasting, a season where we can assess our lives of faith and discipleship, determine where we are lacking and areas where we need to grow – on Ash Wednesday we are encouraged to observe a holy lent, by self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting and almsgiving and meditating on the word of God. Repentance … [Read more...]
Dearly Beloved – Sermon for Baptism of Christ 2019
*Audio available at the bottom of the page* "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." - Luke 3:22 Whenever we baptize someone these days, it often becomes a pretty big deal – perhaps it’s because we don’t baptize as often as we used to or because we love a big spectacle, but it seems that more and more the baptism of a child has become an event. Everyone gets dressed in their finest clothes (the child is often in a fancy dress or suit), family from all over are invited … [Read more...]
Working Faith – Sermon on James 2
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? – James 2:1 There was once a seminarian who conducted an experiment. The seminarian wondered what the Bible would look and sound like if he took out every single text regarding ‘the poor’ in the whole Bible. The seminarian set about his task, and as Jim Wallis describes in his book God’s Politics, it took the seminarian a very long time. Barely a book of the Bible went by where … [Read more...]
Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost
"...you hypocrites..." A lot of scripture is metaphoric, symbolic. Some of it isn't. "...their religion is worthless." "...you hypocrites..." In addition to not being terribly metaphoric, these words are about individuals, as well as collective communities. The ancient world had little concept of individuality in the way we understand it. It's hard for us to understand such a collective reality, and sometimes we misunderstand scripture because of that. Here, however, with James and … [Read more...]
Give Thanks – Sermon for Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. – Ephesians 5:18-20 Learning to give thanks, to be grateful is a really important life skill. From an early age I remember my parents instilling in me the importance of saying thank you, the importance of being grateful for a special gift or … [Read more...]
Imitation of Christ – Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. – Ephesians 5:1-2 It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and often that’s quite true. I remember when I first started in ministry here at Grace, I was freshly ordained and my eldest daughter regularly attended. For awhile, every Sunday evening when we went to dinner at my mum’s place, my daughter would find set of … [Read more...]
What Feeds You? – Sermon for the Eleventh Week after Pentecost
“They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’" – John 6:34 What feeds you? What are you hungry for? Before I started running I never really thought about nutrition. Food was something I enjoyed, especially sweet and spicy things, but never something I really thought much about. I didn’t think about calories or macro-nutrients or anything like that, food was just something I enjoyed, something that comforted me, something that I often consumed mindlessly. This obviously led to some … [Read more...]