Sun. Mar. 25, 2012 (Joseph Dutko)

Joseph Dutko dealt with Jesus’ story about the prodigal son, pointing out that the story is really about the father and should be called “The Searching Father.” This story needs to be seen in the context of three stories: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. The son demands his inheritance (even though his father had not died) and squanders it, bringing shame on the father and the family. The son does not return home repentant, rather he develops a self-serving plan to earn his way back into the family. The father sees his son from afar and runs to him – a culturally humiliating act. The father embraces his son without hearing the son’s speech; he treats his son as if he never wronged the father. Faith is accepting God’s acceptance of us; our worth comes from being loved by God. Sometimes we need to stop striving, to do nothing - just rest in God’s love for us. (HN)

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Sun. Mar. 18, 2012 (Kevin Hiebert)

Words are fascinating; they are the drivers of thoughts and they can mean different things to different people. Sometimes using alternate word helps clarify the meaning of the original words. Last Sunday Kevin Hiebert noted that the Greek word for "belief" appeared 240 times in the Bible. Using the Amplified Bible, Kevin helped us see the word "belief' as: to adhere to, to rely on, to cling to, to depend on, to trust. In the desert, after leaving Egypt, the unhappy Israelites "spoke against God and Moses" and grumbled about the food - manna (miserable food). This resulted in punishment and death of many people by poisonous snakes. Following God's direction, Moses made a bronze serpent, put it on pole, and all who looked at it did not die from the serpent's bites. This imagery is repeated in John 3, leading to the popular "for God so loved the world" verses. The Ephesians passage points out that we are saved by grace (unmerited favour, mercy) and that we are to work out (to cultivate and complete) our salvation. Good works are our response to the forgiveness that is freely given. (HN)

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Sun. Mar. 11, 2012 (Santosh Ninan)

Last Sunday Santosh Nonan spoke on "Pondering the love of God". Psalm 107 begins and ends with thanksgiving, while the heart of the poem presents four types of people living away from God and therefore they are in need of God. After identifying each type, the poem indicates that even this type of person can turn to God and be helped. The Psalm considers people who are homeless (107.4-9); people dealing with exile from God (10-16); people who are dying spiritually (17-22); people who are well off and therefore want to maintain the status quo but whose lives are in fact out of control (23-32). Of course we, like these types of people, try to hide our conditions, covering up the truth about ourselves. In the Psalm, each of these groups of people found that they could cry out to the Lord, and that repentance led to forgiveness and true thankfulness. The lost needed a guide, the sick needed a healer . . . God addressed each problem. The Psalm does not suggest that we are saved by our own morality, but instead suggests that not knowing our condition can be dangerous. This recalls the story of Jesus contrasting the effectiveness of two prayers, that given publicly by an unnamed self-righteous Pharisee praying without understanding the seriousness of his needs, and that offered quietly and effectively from the depths of the soul seeking forgiveness. [JEK]

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Sun. Mar. 4, 2012 (Rosie Perera)

Rosie Perera spoke on the Lectionary texts, finding them to be held together by cognitive dissonance'. For example, when Abram was a poetic 99 years old and childless, he was told that his descendants that would become a veritable nation (Genesis 13), and then the very part of his anatomy required to get this fertility going first had to be threatened by circumcision. In our Gospel reading (Mark 8), immediately after disciples proclaim Jesus as Messiah, Jesus launches into predictions of his impending death. Romans 4 portrays Abram as being unwavering in faith, in spite of having a son with Hagar and laughing in the angel's face. Do we, like Abram, and like other humans portrayed in scripture, have cognitive dissonance in our lives, dissonance between our thinking, our professions, and our living? [JEK]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, March 4th, 2012 using your browser's preferred media player.