Sun. Jan. 15, 2012 (Laura Eriksson)

Laura Eriksson focused on God’s call to Samuel and on Jesus call to Nathaniel. Using the image of a film, Laura noted that a call comes in the context of a person’s life, and sometimes we need to rewind the film to get the whole picture; a film has many frames. Samuel, a child living out his mother’s promise, is called by God at a time when ”the word of the Lord was rare.” The child Samuel is called to bring a harsh message to his mentor, Eli. In Jesus time Nathaniel was skeptical about Philip’s claim to have found the one of whom the prophets wrote. Philip told Nathaniel to “come and see.” Jesus said he saw Nathaniel “under the fig tree” – a Jewish figure of speech – meaning he was studying the Torah. Samuel and Nathaniel are invited to participate in the work of God. Samuel and Nathaniel teach us to test the call, to make time to listen. We need each other to look through the lens of faith. Sometimes God’s call gets drowned out by the white noise around us. (HN)

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Sun. Jan. 8, 2012 (Don Teichroeb)

Last Sunday, Don Teichroeb spoke on the Old Testament lectionary reading, Genesis 1.1-5 (and John 1.1-5). This wonderful creation story, however interpreted, places God at the center of everything. But that is where agreement often stops. Over the centuries, and increasingly so as our era approaches, there have been widespread debates about Genesis 1 and science generally. Francis Collins discusses this in some detail in his book, The Language of God. For centuries, people assumed the earth was flat, likely square with four corners, and that the heavens revolved around the earth, for that was what people could observe throughout the years. But when this understanding was challenged, people of faith did not understand, and lashed out, fearing that the very pillars of faith were being denied. When Galileo's telescope revealed that four moons circled around Jupiter and not the earth, again many Christians were aggressively defensive, largely because of misunderstandings and inadequate assumptions. Don then asked, "How will we be judged by history concerning things we believe about the world, largely because we do not yet understand?" Augustine argued that God is outside the boundaries of time, a view that is too often forgotten. The poetic account in Genesis says, so very wonderfully, "In the beginning", but we no longer even know whether there ever was a beginning, or what there was before there was a beginning! When did space appear? No matter where we turn, all known theories seem to require assumptions (faith). During discussion it was noted that the less we understand things, the more we speak about them with unshakable conviction, whereas, in all of this talk, we ought to see ourselves standing in the center of these questions--in awe and wonder. And someone once said, "I am not here to answer questions, only to arouse curiosity." [JEK]

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Sun. Jan. 1, 2012 (Henry Neufeld)

Hauerwas once told of someone who prayed for forgiveness during prayer time in church, only to have the pastor tell him afterward that he was not forgiven. The pastor pointed out that the person first had to offer reparations and try to undo the wrong, even if the cost might be enormous. We often realize that we need to ask someone for forgiveness, yet we seldom ask; in fact, it is something that would be very difficulty to do, and we may not even have any models to follow since the asking is a private matter rather than public. The book, "Amish Grace" told of the Amish forgiving the man who murdered their school children, but someone in their community of faith noted that it is easier to forgive an outsider than to forgive a friend. Forgiveness and reparation are closely linked in scripture, yet this is seldom taught in evangelical circles. Instead, we hope that our offering but one sentence will somehow cover all the ongoing hurt we have caused someone. After the talk, some interesting questions were asked. How do forgiveness and reparation interrelate with grace? Is forgiveness like scar tissue--still there but having life under the scar tissue? Do Catholics feel forgiven if they only go to confession rather than to the hurt individual? When are we forgiven? [JEK]

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Sun. Dec. 11, 2011 (Karl Brown)

On the Third Sunday of Advent, Karl Brown gave the second in his series of talks on faith. For Christians, faith concerns our belief in God and in salvation from sin. This is so important that in order to join most congregations, one must both profess having faith and have been living a life in which faith has somehow been in evidence. With December being the season for aggressive marketing, Karl asked us to reflect on whether marketing has ever been applied by Christians to promoting something as important, and yet as elusive as faith (e.g., tent revival campaigns, televangelism). Marketing seeks to send a message, often by telling/showing a story or scenario which is in tune with the targeted audience's s world view. In today's gospel lectionary (John 1.6-), John the Baptist was successful at promoting/marketing his faith views because what he had to say so perfectly fit the world view of many of his Jewish listeners, and because they sensed that he was trying to live according to his professed faith. His was the kind of faith they found possibly attractive for their daily living and present political dilemma. Does our society know about our faith enough to consider whether that kind of faith might be applicable to daily living and to society's pressing concerns? [JEK]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, December 11th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.

Sun. Dec. 4, 2011 (Santosh Ninan)

On December 4th, Santosh Ninan (Regent graduate, former pastor, active speaker and writer, and presently a stay-at-home-Dad) spoke on "Love which surpasses all knowledge". During his years in prison, Paul had ample time to reflect, pray and write. During those times of confinement, he became particularly concerned that the new Christians in Ephesis be somehow corporately grounded in love, even as they faced brokenness in their personal and corporate lives. Every modern family, of course, carries it secrets, hurts and concerns, and too often individuals then construct protective barriers which distance them even from people they ostensibly love. At times, Santosh suggested, these mental barriers can unthinkingly be carried over into our relationship with God. Knowing this, Paul prayed that the Ephesians could both grasp and somehow know the love of God, a love that 'surpasses knowledge'. Santosh dramatically contrasted believers having a theoretical knowledge about God as opposed to them actually experiencing God's love: Think of the contrasts between meeting someone online via eHarmony and meeting them in person--two entirely different things. Santosh then made three suggestions: (1) Take an honest emotional audit on how well you receive love and accept forgiveness, (2) Spend time with God in quiet prayer and fasting, and (3) Dare to seek to create close 'soul friends'. A recent survey conducted by the Vancouver Foundation identified "isolation" as the number one concern for Vancouverites. Paul directly addressed this concern in his letter to the Ephesians. [JEK]

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Sun. Nov. 20, 2011 (John Klassen)

John Klassen (ex-Trinity Professor of Church History) drew inspiration from the lectionary texts Ezekiel 34, Matthew 25 and Ephesians 1 to characterize our lives as goats and sheep. John noted that these texts primarily dealt with our treatment of the poor, and drew strongly the link to Adam and Eve’s original fall from the garden in search of knowledge. John noted the poor often receive ill-treatment as “You pushed with flank and shoulder and butted the weak animals with your horns.” (Ez 34:21), but God Herself succors the poor by “welcoming the stranger” in that well-known passage from Matthew 25:31-46. John then broke from scripture and drew an important distinction between speaking scripture and speaking about scripture, and noted these are intimately tied up with works. Though grace is sufficient, the texts also call us to works, as do the poor everywhere around us, and John made special note of the Occupy movement as being worthy of help. John asked “how then are we to live?” He noted the moral system God created to help the poor is one rite of salvation, and drew on his experience in Pax in the 1960s as a guide to his emerging faith. Though societies have used force to enforce a just society, God entreats us with mercy to follow his path, and offers his empathy with our suffering by reminding us of the sacrifice of his Son to encourage us to return to the Garden. In the Ephesians passage, Paul notes we were given “the inward eye” to see the love God has for us. Let us look, not with the knowledge that comes of learning, but with the inward eye. [AP]

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Sun. Nov. 6, 2011 (Michael Thomas)

Michael Thomas spoke on Living the Stories, the memory of living and faith. The Book of Proverbs shows enormous respect to old people for their life wisdom they can pass to the next generation. Today's generation prefers to avoid attentive listening to the endlessly-repeated stories told by our old people. By contrast, the Book of Exodus orders the Jews to "tell the story", to keep it alive from one generation to the next. Since each generation inherits both the good and the bad from the earlier generation, we cannot understand ourselves if we do not know our ancestors' stories. The stories Jesus told were actually teaching tools, not simply entertainment. His story (Lectionary, Matt. 25.1-13) about the wise and foolish virgins reminds us that we have only one life to live, and we had better 'get it right' this time (there is no next time). During discussion, Michael added that singing hymns is essentially an act of collective memory as we review songs which were written learned, sung (memorized) generations before ours, and will exist long after our demise. Singing these songs is like ancestors telling stories, passing on the faith of our spiritual ancestors to the next generation. [JEK]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, November 6th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.