Our Hearts Were Burning, Easter 3 2020

April 26, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

(Oops! It’s only Easter 3! Edits have been made where possible.) It’s hard to preach on Eucharist when we aren’t celebrating Eucharist. I couldn’t come up with anything more true than what I’ve lived, so I shared a couple of those stories and reflected on the Gospel text briefly. The Gospel text is Luke 24.13-35 […]

Questions, Easter 2 2020

April 19, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

I’m a solo rector, and have been for most of my ordained life, so usually I don’t preach on Easter 2 because we do a service of readings and hymns. Both so that I get a bit of break and it’s a lovely service that gives us a chance to sing all the alleluias. However, […]

It’s the same light, Easter Vigil 2020

April 11, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Easter Vigil is my favourite service of the whole year. My previous church didn’t hold one so I’d been looking forward to this night since I started at St Paul’s in November. This is not how I was expecting it to unfold. But the stories we would have read are still true and the light […]

Good Friday 2020

April 10, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Good Friday is hard to preach this year. I generally agree with Nadia Bolz-Weber that we shouldn’t preach from our rawest places, but this is where I–and I suspect most of us–am. The world seems pretty terrible and scary right now. But I also found preaching incredibly important for today because this is where we […]

Beloved Friends, Maundy Thursday 2020

April 9, 2020.Reading time 1 minute.

This is a weird Maundy Thursday. In my part of the world we aren’t worshipping in our buildings (we are worshipping together and in person, just online). One of the effects of this is that we are fasting from the Eucharist. One of the other effects is that we are limiting the spread and #flattenthecurve […]

God Chooses Us, Palm Sunday 2020

April 5, 2020.Reading time 1 minute.

With the kids we talked about Palms and how people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem and some of the ways we can welcome Jesus. Then in the sermon, as a part 2, I preached on God’s preferential option and God chooses us, in all the complexity and potential sorrow of humanity. Most of my parish has […]

Out of the Depths, Lent 2020

March 29, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

The lectionary, from which we get our Sunday readings, has been super on point recently. If you, like me and so many others, have been asking the hard questions about what to do in times of trouble and where God is when we are sad and overwhelmed, these are readings for us. I worked with […]

Sense at the End, Lent 2020

March 22, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

At Christmas and Easter I usually note that I preach on the theology of the day more than the lections. This sermon may need a “preached during a global pandemic” note. The blind man and Jesus have this messy encounter. What wisdom can they teach us about how to live faithfully through this messy time? […]

Water from a Rock, Lent 3 2020

March 15, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

St Paul’s, as part of The Diocese of Edmonton, canceled public worship until the end of the month. In the decade or so of recording and posting my sermons, I’ve learned that even just hearing the sermon can be an important point of contact for people who can’t, for a variety of reasons, come to […]