Sun. June 17 (Damian Hinman)

Damian Hinman spoke on the uninvited guest referred to by Emily Dickinson “Because I could not stop for him, he kindly stopped for me.” as he had recently stopped for Damian’s uncle James. Death’s domain contrasts sharply in our culture with that of youth and beauty, which is more often celebrated. Other deaths or events in Damian’s and Luciana’s families left him with a sense that all he was able to do was watch and pray, and that despite all the education or skill in the world, some things remain immutable, to be faced alone. Our lot is not to be as with either Elijah’s or Jesus’s healing of the widow’s son, in healing, but instead we are to be as David, fasting and praying for his son, whom Nathan had foretold would be the price for David’s sin of having Uriah slain. Damian then reviewed how valuable and costly the gift of Jesus was to so many of his followers, especially the woman who anointed Jesus at the dinner at Simon’s house. Damian noted the various moral and ethical struggles facing our society in the form of euthanasia and other forms of dying, and concludes our struggle is not so much to avoid death’s sting as to assist those in the process with prayer and care as fully as possible. [AP] Read Damian's sermon on Death and Dying [215KB PDF].

Sun. June 10 (Henry Neufeld)

Henry Neufeld spoke from Luke 7:36 - 8:3 to ask, what does one do with uninvited guests, what is hospitality and forgiveness, and how should women be treated? This passage features Simon the Pharisee inviting Jesus for dinner, but failing to show the requisite hospitality to him. A woman performed the hospitality that Simon had failed to perform, and Jesus noted the difference in treatment between the one who had nothing to lose, and the one who had nothing to gain. Henry told a story that showed how even pastors today can fall victim to bad behaviour with uninvited guests. Henry then noted that Eugene Peterson once said that the word evangelism should be replaced with the word hospitality, and pointed out that our traditional picture of Jesus knocking at the door is incomplete. In reality, Jesus is asking to come inside and eat with us - at a banquet - to demonstrate our hospitality as we do our faith. In this passage, Jesus also tells the story of the two debtors, one who was forgiven much more than the other. The example is instructive, but Henry used two recent stories to point out how difficult that can be, for instance, in the death of Amish children at the school. Regarding women, Jesus also breaks a cardinal rule at this dinner by criticizing his host, who has been unkind to him. Henry contrasted this with the support generally shown by women to Jesus’ ministry. Henry concludes, notes if evangelism is hospitality, how evangelistic are we? What do we do with invited guests? What about forgiveness? What do we do with the undesirables in our community? All are questions that ought to make us beg for forgiveness. [AP] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday June 10th using your browser's preferred media player.

Sun. June 3 (Don Stoezs)

Don Stoezs used the book Shepherding to be Led, and examples from his work at Bowden Institution as a prison chaplain, in order to describe to us the importance of Trinity Sunday, a day not much noted or celebrated in the western church. Don drew heavily on the example of the domestication of animals, drawing many distinctions among the behaviours of domesticated versus tamed animals. These distinctions are important examples to us in our following God. Trail rides are instructive - no matter in which order you want your horse to be, your horse will have its own idea of which is the proper order for the horses to follow each other. However, as domestication proceeds, humans naturally come to be seen by the horses as the alpha, the dominant, the leader, and so the horse begins to follow the order humans set for it. So, too, can humans take instruction from this example as we learn to become domesticated, to follow God. Don then noted from his prison work how closely the behaviour of inmates matches the behaviours in the animal kingdom. Prisoners, despising authority, end up in a place where authority is forced upon them. Faith is a matter of internalizing God as our authority, as one who leads. This occurs positively, when mission becomes a method of humans consenting an authority to lead them to a greater good; and destructively in churches, when people naturally come to believe in their pastors as infallible. Don noted then the difference between the Eastern and Western churches, in that the Western church chose order and authority, while the Eastern church chose spirit and mysticism. To our loss, the mystical tradition has been largely absent from the Western church these thousands of years, yet its desire remains, and Pentecostalism is a manifestation of this dualism in the Western world. So Trinity Sunday remains so important to our tradition, though it remains under-explored. [AP] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday June 3rd using your browser's preferred media player.