View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon Do you consider yourself to be a rule-follower or a rule-breaker? Do you find comfort in the structure of guidelines or do you tend to question the status quo? It’s often a pendulum – we swing to one side or the other depending on the issue or the time in our life. Our community also swings as we try to find the balance between the structure of action items, policies and guidelines in…
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View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon God of the Testaments III: “If God is on your side, then who’s on mine?”: Blessings revisited. Tim Schmucker Genesis 12.1-7; Exodus 15.1-3, 20-21; Deuteronomy 28.1-2, 7-10 Isaiah 2.2-3; Matthew 5.43-45; Acts 10.34-36 Before I start this sermon, I want to say something to the youth. You should know that you instigated this sermon. A dynamic conversation you had in your Sunday school class numerous weeks ago with Lori is what sparked…
View Archived Files Listen to this Sermon Deuteronomy 20:10-16 II Timothy 3:14-17 This morning is the second Sunday of a preaching series about the Bible – which seems an odd thing to say, because it’s safe to assume that our preaching is always based on the Bible or a text within the bible, but this series is more about what’s up with the Bible as a whole. What’s it like? How do we approach it? How is it…
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View archived files Listen to this Sermon As Christmas quickly approaches, families gather together, sharing their stories and memories of Christmases past. I would like to begin this morning with a Christmas story from my own family. It’s a story with a sad beginning, but it’s also a story of unexpected joy. On a December 18th, a little over 50 years ago, my grandfather Donald Metcalfe died tragically before his time. Donald left behind a young wife,…
View archived files Listen to this Sermon Advent III In our advent texts for today there has been a shift from a call to watchfulness and then repentance to joy. We have moved from the key words hope and mercy to the key word – joy. In Isaiah 61 and Psalm 126, the people represented there cannot contain their joy. Those who have gone out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, have come home with shouts of joy,…
View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon Advent II Isaiah 40:1-11 The passages read this morning both point to a new coming, or a coming again, of God to God’s people. Isaiah foretells the coming of God to a demoralized, defeated people; and Mark points to John as the one who prepares the way for Jesus’ coming. During advent it is also traditional to proclaim that Jesus will come to us yet again. The editors of the lectionary we…
View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon First Advent Mark 13: 24-37, Isaiah 64:1-9 When I hear this passage in Mark, the second half of his mini-apocalypse, I find I have to unwrap several layers of questions, or interpretations or understandings in order to hear anything at all from the text. I’ll begin descriptively and then we’ll ask some questions of the text. Mark chapter 13 is different from the rest of the gospel because it is as…
View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon (Part 1) Listen to this Sermon (Part 2) Texts: Matthew 25:31-46; Ephesians 1:15-23 What’s past is prologue. This phrase comes from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest where Antonio says: Wherof what’s past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge. (Act 2, scene 1) Translated, it roughly means: “What’s already happened in the past merely sets the stage for the really important stuff to come – and it’s the…