Most weeks, our worship leader offers a 15–20 minute sermon based on the Scripture texts for the day.
Our regular preacher is pretty versatile. She’ll tell stories, pull together different ideas, lead a meditation, give the congregation an “assignment” to talk about in twos or threes, show a slide show or video, or sometimes even sing to the congregation. The sermon functions to deepen our reflection on the Scripture themes of the day, and often leaves us with a challenge or a question.
Scripture texts are outlined in the Revised Common Lectionary.
Engaging the Word – Thanksgiving
Today in worship our text was from Deuteronomy 26:1-15. During the service, the children were invited to create “first fruits” out of clay to bring to the communion table, to add to the harvest display. While they worked on their offerings, Rev. Cari spoke briefly with the adults about the significance of this text, in…
What you don’t know…
Today is our last day (for now) with the “Belong to God” theme and the stories of Abraham and his descendants. Today’s sermon follows Jacob, and his vision of the ladder connecting heaven and earth, found at Genesis 28:10-22. Here’s the schema Rev. Cari refers to early in the sermon: unconscious incompetence conscious incompetence conscious…
The Tricksters
The text for today’s sermon, Genesis 27:1-40, features the moment when Jacob (with his mother Rebekah’s help) tricks his father Isaac into giving him his blessing, rather than the elder brother Esau. Rev. Cari takes the opportunity to explore the “type” of the trickster, found in many different cultures around the world, and even wonder…
How Wide is the Promise?
Genesis 21:8-21 is a tricky text with a tricky history of interpretation, and Rev. Cari lays it all out in this sermon about Isaac and Ishmael (and their mothers, and the faith traditions that look to Abraham through them). How God is tangled up in this story of rivalry, power struggle and ultimately, blessing, is…
When the Evidence Contradicts the Promise
The second worship service in our fall “Belong to God” series focussed on Genesis 18:1-15. At the same time a story of hospitality and resistance to God’s call, the text inspired this sermon on the trustworthiness of God. Rev. Cari quotes Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, who asks, “Is God God? Or is there some…
Is a Christian Allowed to be Angry?
Jumping off texts from Isaiah 58 and Matthew 21, Rev. Cari wades right into this thorny Stump the Preacher question. She acknowledges that anger is something many of us struggle with, while all around us are voices saying anger is somehow “bad” for Christians. She finds her way to a role for anger in the…
Still Offering Hospitality
For today’s Stump the Preacher sermon, Rev. Cari jumped off a real-life event which had happened the Sunday previously at the close of worship. So this sermon, regarding Jesus’ encouragement to offer humble and open-hearted hospitality, is addressing a specific incident in the life of the congregation. She is preaching on Luke 14:7-14, and referring…
For Such a Time as This
Dr. Bruce Harding preached and led worship on this day, using the texts for the day from the Revised Common Lectionary. The sermon focussed on Luke 12:49-56, Jesus’ words about interpreting the present time. Bruce asks, with Jesus, “Can we afford to ignore the signs any longer?”
Stump the Preacher: “A Political Gospel?”
The question this week is whether it is disobedient to God to disobey the law or resist political power given that Paul and Jesus both appear to endorse obedience to authority in both Romans 13 and Matthew 22:15-22. We look to a non traditional interpretation of Romans 13 from a Jewish scholar. We also examine…
Does God Punish and Destroy?
For the 6th Stump the Preacher sermon, Rev. Cari was given the task of addressing the first chapter of 2 Thessalonians, a text she had never preached on before. The requester’s specific problem was with the text’s suggestion that Jesus would be returning as a punishing avenger… a question of both the apocalyptic nature of…