May 23, 2010 The Day of Pentecost
Filling and Connecting Acts of the Apostles 2: 1-8, 12-18
We have all been out in a roaring wind. Sometimes it is exciting and exhilarating. Sometimes it is down right bone chilling.
We have all watched a roaring bonfire or campfire. Some get too big or too smoky and drive us away. Others draw us in and mesmerize us with the changing shapes and warmth.
The strange thing in our story about the first Pentecost experience is that these roaring elemental experiences occurred indoors. So whatever was going on got everyone’s attention. It is interesting to note two features of this experience. First, the experience filled the house and second, the experience touched or connected everyone there.
So instead of focusing on the wind and the fire as we usually do, today let’s focus on filling and connecting.
In Jesus’ day, God was believed to be high and lifted up.

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May 9, 2010 Sixth Sunday of Easter

Genesis 2: 8-9; Revelation 21: 10,11; Revelation 22: 1, 2;

Two Trees

The bible begins with two trees at the centre of the Garden of Eden, the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil, and the Tree-of-Life. One leads to suffering, and struggle, the other grants access to eternal things. Because we ate first, from the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil, we were restrained from eating from the Tree-of-Life. Collectively and individually we need to work through the implications of human consciousness. At a physical level the one tree reflects the struggle between left and right brain processing, between reason and values, things and relationships. The other tree represents the whole brain experience of participating in God’s endless grace.

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May 2, 2010 Fifth Sunday of the Easter Way

Revelation 21: 1-6 The Final Vision Is Now

Situation:
We all know the visions of the book of Revelation. Some seem to be more trouble than they are worth. But we are most at home with the final version of the New Jerusalem, the old has passed away and the new is coming down to earth sometime in the future. What this does is suggest that the Christian faith is motivated by a reward in the hereafter. We have been told that we have to avoid God’s judgement in order to have a place in heaven.
John’s final vision in the book of Revelation is central in that system of thought but John didn’t have his vision without the Easter experience, the Easter moment.

Complication:

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April 25, 2010 Fourth Sunday of the Easter Way
Acts 9: 36-42 Resurrection Not Resuscitation

The quilt draped on the Lord’s Table was made for me by the ladies group at my last pastoral charge as a going away gift….

We all have precious hand made items that come with a special blessing attached.
Look at the stained glass window of Dorcus in the north transept: “she was full of good works.” Precious things made for us, people who have helped us. It’s what we do for one another that matter the most.

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April 18, 2010 Third Sunday of the Easter Way

Acts 9:1-9 What If

The lectionary readings after Easter take us through a variety of Easter experiences. One of them is the Damascus Road experience. There Easter experiences have many things in common and many things that contradict, but there is one thing that makes them all work. In all the stories there is a dying and a rising. There is a letting go of the old perceptions and a coming to the new insight. There is dying to the systems of fear and death that hold us hostage and the rising to the new freedom of life in God’s Spirit.
So in the Easter experiences, some sort of conversion must take place.

The Damascus Road story begins with Saul on a reign of terror. He is going to root out and get rid of the followers of Jesus, the followers of the Way. Saul is off to Damascus to do what he had done in Jerusalem.

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April 4, 2010 Easter
Acts 10: 34-43, Luke 24: 1-12

It’s good to be here this morning!
It’s good to gather with the faithful on Easter morning!

Are any of you ‘You Tube’ fans? I learned from CBC Radio this week that,
“David after Dentist” is the second most viewed video clip on You Tube for 2009.
It has over 55,365,000 hits. It ranks right after Susan Boyle’s UK Idol audition clip. Well anyway a seven-year old boy is videoed by his father before and after dental surgery to remove an extra tooth. Initially, the video was made for David’s mother who had to work that day. The You Tube version begins in the car in the parking lot, after the surgery, when young David gets philosophical while under the influence of pain medication. He asks some questions in his altered state.
“Is this real life?”
“Why is this happening to me?”
“I can’t see anything.”
“Is this going to be forever?”

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March 28, 2010 Palm Sunday
Zechariah 9: 9-10, Luke 19: 41-46,

We can imagine the excitement!
Jesus, the holy man, the teacher of the common folk.
Jesus, the champion of the sick and the dispossessed.
Jesus, who exudes a great love for all humanity is coming to Jerusalem.

We can imagine the expectation.
Jesus, entering the Holy City.
Jesus, entering at Passover.
Jesus, choosing the highest festival of the faith to confront the authorities.
“Praise God!” they shout. “Praise God!” Because of all the deeds of power they
have seen.
“Praise God!” because of the compassion they have witnessed.

We can imagine how easy it is to get carried away. And they do!
“Blesses is the King,” they shout. “The King,” they shout, not “the one”,
“the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The Pharisees are quick to pounce on the crowd’s excessive exuberance.
“Teacher, order your disciples to stop.

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March 21, 2010 Fifth Sunday on the Lenten Journey
Isaiah 43: 16a, 18, 19a

Just the Application for Today

I have been present at the births of my biological children. Both were turned the wrong way and could not come out on their own. So I’ve witnessed the real challenges of childbirth; the great suffering that is part of delivering a new soul into our world. But I have also witnessed the mystery of childbirth when great love comes flooding in as the child is finally born.

The universal and primal paths of transformation; great suffering and great love run through childbirth and then parenting. These same two paths of transformation also lead us to the mystery of God in the midst of life. Here too we experience life as something brand new.

The Application for Today

Like the mystery and challenge in child birth,
when we baptize a precious new soul,
we pledge or part and participate with God in something brand-new.

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March 14, 2010 Fourth in Lent

Luke 15: 11-32 What’s Needed?

Who are the three characters in our parable?
Who do you related to the most?
Who do you relate to the least?
Have you always felt this way about these characters?

For the last 60 years, the story of the Prodigal Son has undergone amazing shifts in interpretation. The fall guy, the wayward one has shifted with our changing societal norms and outlooks.

The 40’s and 50’s of the post war era were a time of convention and law and order,
so which one was the bad guy?
Right. The younger son, the Prodigal, the wasteling, was still the bad guy, no question. “Waste not, want not.”

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March 7, 2010 Third Sunday in Lent
Alternative Service: Letting Go to Live Again
Luke 13: 1-9
(Notes for Extemporaneous Preaching)

Vicki loves flowers and flower gardens. And you-know-who gets called upon to expand or create a new one each year. Now I resist because someone won’t weed the gardens she already has….

Last spring the gardening guru of Vicki’s congregation told her she needed to work some sheep manure into her flowerbeds. And you-know-who was dispatched to pick up the material….

With all the warm weather and melting snow banks this week you can now see three of the five bag of manure sticking out. Yup they are still there, silent judgement I’d say….

Something like this is going on in our Gospel lesson.
We have three players in the story:
The unproductive tree – the barren relationships, the fruitless aspects of own lives….

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