A midrash mismash

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
my soul says, ‘What a mess!
Tidy this up, O Lord.
Pick a colour scheme and stick to it.
Sigh. Move over, I’ll do it.’

Psalm 8:3+

Advent II Bearing Light: Shiprah & Puah, Peace

2019 12 08 Toronto United Mennonite Church
Bearing Light: Shiprah & Puah

Advent II (Peace) introducing ‘Bearing Light: Women in Scripture’ series. Children’s Time and Sermon.
Exodus 1: Midwives foil Pharaoh’s genocidal plan
Lectionary – Isaiah 11:1-9: A ruler with the spirit of Wisdom shall come to transform the world into God’s peaceable kingdom.
Matt 3:1-6: People from all Jerusalem and Judea come to hear from John the Baptist

TUMC Candidating Sunday

2019 10 29 TUMC, Candidating Sunday
From the Lectionary: Joel 2:23-32, Luke 18:9-14

It’s an interesting time to be a pastoral candidate. This country has just settled on a new balance of federal political power, and over the last two weeks as I have visited groups and connected with committees of this church it has been hard to remember that I am not in fact campaigning. Here I am, a candidate, and here we are, getting ready to vote.

Let me assure that, unlike my opponent, I am going to support hardworking TUMC tithepayers! We’re going to build a baptistry and the Lutherans are going to pay.

Electioneering isn’t really my style.

Midrash on the Rich Young Ruler

Midrash on the Rich Young Ruler
2016 10 16 – Toronto United Mennonite Church

Read before our sermon: Going Back to the Beginning, following on from the scripture reading of Mark 10:19-27 – The Rich Young Ruler.

Then after He had said these things, one of His disciples, who was late, because he had been making sandwiches, crept in and whispered to Bartholomew  ‘so what did I miss’?

And Bartholomew whispered back what had transpired, how the rich young ruler had approached Jesus and the question he had asked, and the answer that he had heard, and how he had gone away in sorrow, and Phillip, the disciple who was late, was amazed at these words.

And Phillip considered these matters in his heart with trepidation, because he happened to have some investments in a fish paste company and he wondered if he was supposed to have cashed those in and give the money to the poor.

Going Back to the Beginning

Going back to the Beginning
2016 10 16 – Toronto United Mennonite Church – listen to the sermon here

Scriptures: Luke 18:1-8 – the Parable of the Persistent Widow
Mark 10:19-27 – The Rich Young Ruler

This sermon was part of the ‘All Things New’ series at TUMC, with a focus on youth. The genesis of the sermon came when my Youth Mentoring Partner (YMP, below) read a book I had given him over the summer. We decided to preach a sermon together the next time I was due on the TUMC rotation, so we worked on it together, mostly through a shared online document, and with help from various others.

We began by reading a ‘midrash’ following on from the Rich Young Ruler story, which I have elected to post separately, here. Then began the sermon proper:

YMP: I started to want to preach when I read “the Irresistible Revolution”. It is very possible that it changed my life forever. Something in that book resonated in me, and made sense to me. I don’t think that I fully understood what it was trying to say, or what it was that really resonated with me. I just thought in social justice terms: this person is helping the poor, healing the wounded, and loving the unloved. I read this book somewhere in grade eight.

The Place Of Confusion

The Place Of Confusion
2016 05 21 – Delegation Morning Reflection

Once upon a time the human beings were all together, migrating. They moved with the seasons and the land, spreading out in the warmer times when there was plentiful food, and coming together in times of scarcity or when the cold winds blew, to wait out the winter together until it was easy to travel. Each group had its own name, way of speaking, knowledge, skills, traditions and powers.

In the fulness of time, the human beings arrived in a fertile land with clean water, plenty of food and a mild climate. Instead of spreading out to explore and harvest, the human beings forgot their original instructions, and began to build their camps in the same places, close to the good water and the food and to each other.

1 Corinthians 13 for Peacemakers

I wrote this to conclude my 2016 01 31 sermon at Toronto Chinese Mennonite Church, and put it on Facebook. It got a lot of shares, and was used in a class at Goshen college, published on CPTnet (aquí está en español), and then picked up by Commonword (Mennonite Church Canada resources) and a popular Christian blogger. I probably would write it slightly differently for distribution, but I’m content with the form as it appears. It might be the most popular thing I’ve written so it ought to appear on my blog!

More recently it was published in the August 2016 edition of Sojourners.

1 Corinthians 13 for CPTers
If I speak about courage and justice, and siding with the oppressed, and speaking truth to power no matter the cost, but do not speak about love… I am just a loudmouth orator, a white saviour, a shameless self-promoter.