post-diluvian treaty #1

Once again the people of University Hill Congregation are creating a Lenten devotion. Each day through the season of Lent a scripture reading from the Lenten journey through will be accompanied by the response of a member of the community. Here is my offering this year ...

I don’t often use the word “antediluvian”. I know it refers to something really old. But once you think about it this old word is really two words meaning “before flood”. Now that is old. Here, in Genesis chapter nine, we are in the very first post-diluvian days. The waters have begun to recede. The dove has returned with an olive branch. 

holy saturday as the fulcrum between cross and resurrection

On this Holy Saturday we remember that this hidden day is the fulcrum between Good Friday and Easter Sunday - Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Here is Keith Howard's post for Holy Saturday 2020 - Holy Saturday Life in a Time of Disruptive Uncertainty

sin the virus cured by grace

Once again this year University Hill Congregation is hosting forty seven texts on its Lenten pilgrimage to Easter. You can find the daily reflections here. I was assigned Romans 5:12-19. This is my witness:

Here’s the problem. The original earthling - “adam” (literally “made of earth”) - was infected with the virus of sin. This virus then spread to all. It works like a gravitational force that draws humankind away from God with tragic consequences. Shakespeare’s tragedies - like many contemporary novels and movies - portray the ways in which all human actors are captive to this destructive force.

preaching cross & resurrection

In my time at University Hill Congregation I had numerous occasions to preach at services on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Three sermons in three days. It was a rich challenge to preach my way through the beating heart of Christian spirituality. Here are links to some of those Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday sermons ...

Good Friday Preaching         Easter Vigil Preaching         Easter Sunday Preaching

palm / passion sunday

Growing up the Sunday prior to Easter was called "Palm Sunday". The service was a retelling of the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey (or a colt, depending on which version was told). But this changed by the time of my ordination. Then it had been renamed as Palm / Passion Sunday. This has made for a somewhat awkward liturgical dance. It means putting together the celebratory shouts of "Hosanna" alongside the same crowd's chants of "Crucify".

Over the years that I served in ministry at University Hill Congregation we had a custom of beginning the service with a palm processional led by the children. Waving fern fronds (readily available in our environment) the children would lead a line dance through and around the congregation as all sang an African song: "Sanna, Sanna, Sanna". The entry into Jerusalem became our entry into Holy Week. Then the service turned to a retelling of the Passion narrative.

a psalm for ash wednesday

University Hill Congregation continues the practice of inviting the congregation to share in hosting scripture throughout Lent. This year I have been assigned Psalm 51 ...

I remember when I first truly encountered Psalm 51. Rabbi Martin Cohen was team teaching with me in VST’s summer school. The course was called “Reading in Each Other’s Light.” Each day in class we read scripture over one another’s shoulder. On Tuesday we each chose a Psalm central to our tradition. I selected Psalm 22 - “My God, why have you forsaken me”. Martin chose Psalm 51. Here, he taught us, lies the heart of the Hebrew scripture. Here is the Psalm read by all Jews on the holiest day of the year - Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. 

resources for transfiguration sunday

The Transfiguration of Jesus
by Armando Alemdar Ara
Wikimedia

This coming Sunday marks the conclusion of the season after Epiphany. Each year on this day the church retells the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. Looking back over the years I have posted testimony to what God is up to on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Here is a description of the way in which this Sunday fits in the Christian Year - Glory Redefined. Here is a sermon for Transfiguration Sunday - The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ. Here is a prayer offered on this day - You Are There. And here is a quotation from the novel "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson - Wherever You Turn Your Eyes.

the problem with the "season of creation"

In recent years some have begun to celebrate a "Season of Creation" or "Creation Time" as part of the Christian Year in September and October. On the surface this seems a worthwhile innovation. Perhaps it is. I wonder. Here is how I put it when I wrote a column on this issue for the United Church worship resource "Gathering" - kingdom come.

What do you think of naming one season or one Sunday in advance as highlighting a particular social issue. As always, I am glad for your comments.

thoughts on the domestication of easter

Easter focusses the mind of the church and its pastors. One of the gifts of the Christian Year is its seven Sundays to celebrate and to explore the vast implications of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet most around us think of Easter as a single celebratory Sunday. It means that it is crucial for Easter Sunday preachers and presiders to focus the mind of the congregation on the gospel and its implications for the church and for the world in which it serves. This is no easy task given the commodification and domestication of Easter weekend. The church's proclamation is overwhelmed in my part of the world by bunnies and chocolate eggs. The clerks and tellers greet their customers with a cheery "Happy Easter" comfortably assured that it has little to do with proclaiming their shared faith in the Saviour of the world.

shocking grace

Once again this year University Hill Congregation has prepared an online daily Lenten Devotional. This is the seventeenth year in which members of the congregation have been invited to host a scripture passage and to listen for a Word from God on behalf of us all. You can read more about this tradition here. This year I was invited to host Jeremiah 31:31-34. This is my contribution ...

“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant …. for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

We are accustomed to singing of grace as “amazing”. That it is. But here, when Jeremiah discovers it – hears it – on the lips of the LORD (“Yahweh”) it is shocking. Jeremiah is well known for preaching “Jeremiads” – sermons filled with rage and judgment. The LORD is furious with the ways in which God’s own people systematize injustice and whitewash its sin with religious rituals. The LORD is the source of the coming downfall and exile.

salt of the earth - a christian seasons calendar 2017/2018

It is wonderful to see that the new "Salt of the Earth - A Christian Seasons Calendar 2017/2018" is now available online.

This unique calendar tells the story of the Christian year through scripture, liturgical colour, and artwork. The Christian year has its origins in the festivals held in the early centuries of the church’s life. These gradually grew into the annual marking of time that Protestant and Roman Catholic churches share today. By focusing on the seasons of the Christian year, this calendar offers an alternate way of remembering, and living in, the story of Jesus Christ. The annual re-telling and re-living of the narrative of the gospel is a powerful training resource for churches and disciples who live in cultures that have forgotten, or have never heard, the Christian story.

easter preaching

Easter preaching begins on Easter Sunday and then continues through the celebratory fifty days of the Season of Easter ("Easter Times Fifty"). Some samples of my attempts to proclaim the good news of the Resurrection can be found posted here - "Not Enough Security", "An Idle Tale" and "A New Beatitude". And here is an Easter Sunday sermon titled "Preaching to Cornelius" that hosts Acts 10:34-43 ...

Cornelius. Have you heard of Cornelius? All Easter preaching is finally preaching to Cornelius. We have become accustomed to Easter preaching that takes us to the tomb and to the women and to the first dawning recognition that something unbelievable is now the believable truth. It is no surprise that the narratives of Easter morning are the compelling location for our singing and dancing for joy today. But we are not at the tomb or back in Galilee. We are far removed from that point of origin. That is where Cornelius comes into the picture. He doesn’t appear in any of our Easter morning texts. But he is always here. Over the years the church has, wisely decided that there is one text that is always to be read on Easter Sunday morning. It is the nine verse sermon that Peter delivers in the tenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. It isn’t an Easter Sunday when he preaches. But the occasion of his sermon is critically important, nonetheless. You see, he preaches to Cornelius.

easter vigil preaching

I was introduced to the ancient tradition of the Easter Vigil by University Hill Congregation. For twenty years I was privileged to lead the congregation in its first celebration of the Resurrection each year. It meant preaching an Easter sermon in the darkness, waiting for the sun to rise. One sample of those sermons is posted at While it Was Still Dark. Another, titled "Fear and Great Joy" (from 2002 on Matthew 28:1-10), follows here ...

It all happens so fast. That is the first thing you notice when you pay attention to the text: “Suddenly there was a great earthquake ... Go quickly ... they left the tomb quickly ... Suddenly Jesus met them”. It is fashionable to imagine that the resurrection takes shape slowly in the lives of the disciples as it begins to dawn on them that Jesus present once again. But the text makes no room for a slowly emerging truth. It insists that it happened all of a sudden. One minute the two Mary’s are mourning and the next they are overcome by events beyond their comprehension. Easter is a radical departure from the expected and explicable routines of our days. It is no simple equation, not simply a story of bulbs waking from winter sleep to bloom once again. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a sudden act of God that sets in motion a rush of activity. The women do not linger. They run!

good friday preaching

For twenty years at University Hill Congregation I was in the habit of preaching a Good Friday sermon every other year. We shared our Good Friday observance with St. Anselm's Anglican Church. On the years when we would visit our Anglican neighbours I would be privileged to preach. I consistently found this to be one of the most powerful and challenging preaching assignments of the year. Looking back, I recall three of those sermons in particular. Two have previously been posted on this blog: "Ecce Homo" and "The Seven Last Words". A third, titled "Despised" (from 2002), hosts the crucial passage from Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and is posted here ...

We are not surprised that on this Good Friday we read the gospel narrative of that black day. This is at the heart of the matter for us. Yet from the earliest days the church has looked elsewhere to make sense of it all. Remember, what we call the Old Testament is the only Bible the first Christians know. It is their ‘Word of the Lord’. When they tell the story of the mob and the judgment and the cross, they turn to the peculiar passage that bridges the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters of Isaiah. Recall the story of Philip encountering an Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza (Acts 8:32-33). This seeker asks Philip to interpret a key text in his Bible. Remember? It is from the ancient poem by Isaiah: “Like a sheep was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him.” Written in the humiliation of exile six centuries before Jesus’ final humiliation, Isaiah's prophesy becomes the interpretive lens for the church that gathers at the foot of the cross. It is no accident that four of the six texts used by George Frederick Handel to portray Good Friday in the oratorio “The Messiah” are taken from this very passage (Part 2 - Is 53:3-6; also in Part 3 - Is. 53:8). This is the church’s original interpretation of the events of Good Friday.

a palm / passion sunday prayer of approach & confession

I offered this Prayer of Approach and Confession for Palm/Passion Sunday when I served as Worship Elder during Holy Week at University Congregation.

You come to us in humility.
You enter the gates of the city on a donkey.
You pass through the doors of our hearts as long-awaited guest.
               

We cry: “Hosanna … Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Blessed are You, for You know the truth about the trouble
          in our world,
          in our city,
          in our soul.

call for submissions - christian seasons calendar 2016-2017

Your help in spreading the word to those who may be interested in this unique venture is very much appreciated ...

Artists are invited to participate in the upcoming issue of Salt of the Earth - The Christian Seasons Calendar for 2016/2017. This unique calendar follows the distinctive seasons of the Christian year and is distributed worldwide. View a sample of the current Christian Seasons Calendar online here.

Interested artists are encouraged to offer artwork that represents scripture readings and themes within the Christian Year. The scripture readings used for the 2016/2017 calendar will be those listed in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary, which can be found online here. There is one page available for an image for each of the following seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week and Easter. There are two pages available for Epiphany. There are four pages available for art in the Season after Pentecost. On these pages we seek images that portray Pentecost, All Saints Day and the Reign of Christ, as well as images particular to biblical texts included in the lectionary readings during this season of growth in discipleship.

christmas eve preaching

After thirty-five years of preaching on Christmas Eve I am not spending the days before Christmas sweating over a sermon. It was always a struggle, one that I enjoyed even as I fell short of the challenge. The challenge included a packed house, many young and excited children, much music and little time for a sermon. In fact, some wondered if a sermon was really needed or desired. Yet on the occasion when the church gathers to wonder that the Word became flesh it seemed strange not to name the Incarnation of the Word with some honest words. So I imagined the sermon as a short form offering in the midst of the children dressed as angels and shepherds around Mary, Joseph and the infant (always the youngest baby in the congregation that year). The results were mixed, given the noise levels of the children and my capacity to find words fit to host the Word.

Looking back I see that the Christmas Eve sermons preached after my diagnosis with myeloma seemed more crucial to me. Perhaps because I knew that my time as a preacher was now limited. I dared not leave the message unspoken even if the kids were noisy and the evening was filled with carols. The Word needed to be proclaimed.  Here are five of those Christmas Eve sermons ...

advent trouble, newness, life

The new Christian Year begins this coming Sunday. Looking ahead to the upcoming season of Advent here are the opening paragraphs of three posts that explore Advent trouble, newness and life as we have lived it over the years at University Hill Congregation. Click on the link at the end of each paragraph to visit the original post ...

salt of the earth: a christian seasons calendar 2015/2016

Good news - the 2015/2016 edition of Salt of the Earth: A Christian Seasons Calendar is now available. This unique venture had its beginnings in 1999 as we at University Hill Congregation imagined a calendar that begins with Advent and turns with the Christian seasons. The calendar continues to grow year after year by word of mouth.

You can find the calendar at the Christian Seasons Calendar website where you can view sample pages, read reviews and order online. Single copies of the calendar cost $15.95 (plus shipping and applicable taxes). There is a 20% discount on orders of ten or more and a 40% discount on orders of twenty five or more. Many people purchase in bulk and then give the calendars as gifts or make them available in congregations at a reduced rate.

We are grateful for your assistance in spreading the word about Salt of the Earth: A Christian Seasons Calendar 2015/2016 to friends and colleagues, near and far.

ecce homo

(A Good Friday sermon preached at St. Anselm's Anglican Church on April 3, 2015)

At the heart of Christianity is a tragic, traumatic story that turns out to be the source of healing and redemption. The story of the terrible suffering - the Passion - of Jesus Christ dominates the gospels. The eight days of Holy Week take up an inordinate number of verses, as if the rest of the narrative is an elongated introduction or prologue to the originating event, the primal memory, of the church. Today we find ourselves at the shocking centre of Christian faith – Christ crucified. The Messiah lynched. God Incarnate rejected, humiliated, violated, abandoned. The Apostle Paul says that the story we tell today scandalizes the religious community and sounds like utter foolishness to everyone else. It doesn’t matter if one is Jew or Gentile, churched or un-churched the first thing to say is that when it comes to God a cross is the last thing we expect. We expect religion to present a God who is appropriately civilized. We want a religion to teach our children proper values. Instead we weave palm fronds into the shape of an instrument of torture (think water boarding) and teach our littlest ones to wave them in the air. We imagine that the purpose of spirituality is to teach us practices that console and comfort. Yet when the “spiritual but not religious” arrive they find the church deeply rooted not in a sensible spiritual practice but in a history that must be described as terrible. Redemptive, yes. Salvific, absolutely. But certainly also terrible.