This morning we heard one of my favorite passages of Scripture where Paul is writing to a church in Philippi. It’s a favorite of mine because Philippi was the first city in Europe where the Apostle Paul planted a Christian church. This involved risk, and demanded strong faith, conviction, courage, and humility. Why? Because Paul went to plant this church not with the freedom we have here in Canada or the US, or anywhere in the West; but actually in the midst of a Roman Empire

In the last few weeks, I have had many conversations with two relatively new Christian converts. Both display a love for other people and an awareness and expression of their own falling short of God’s grace in doing so, and their willingness to ask for God’s forgiveness. Given their backgrounds, I am in fact not that surprised. It is often those who have gone through hardship, those who have had to put everything on the line, who see and experience God’s offer to us most cle

I remember one of the first times I cried post-infanthood. The tears were not exactly of sadness, or loss, or frustration. They were tears that I can only attribute to being awestruck by the totality of God’s holiness. I was somewhere in the middle of my PhD. I was yet to be diagnosed with ADHD. I was struggling with being able to focus on the long and extremely difficult task of in depth research, reading, writing, translating, and producing original thought. I felt as if my

This morning we celebrate our most basic claim as sound of mind, rational Christians: that God is simultaneously one and three; Cue audience laughter! Now interestingly, we actually take it for granted that we’re talking about the same God when we mention The Father, the Son, or Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Maybe that’s because many of you grew up with the Nicene Creed where we confess that, “we believe in one God: the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth … and in one Lo

Jesus said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand these scriptures [we call the OT] … "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations … There it is in short: God

Earlier this year a young man showed up at the church during my office hours to talk about his, as he called it, crumbling faith. He asked me: “how can I, how can anyone believe in the Christian God, when the greatest claim is that God is love and Christians have spent thousands of years killing, imprisoning, torturing, burning, forcibly converting, demeaning and belittling people who they think don’t follow their version (a contested version even among Christians) this God w

Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me … Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. In other words: the measuring stick for belief in God is the extent to which we do for others, what it is that Jesus did for us. Why? Because Jesus is the measuring stick: you know the way to God, Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I am the only truth, for I am God who is before all things,

I started seminary very soon out of my undergrad degree, which meant that I hadn’t had any time to build up much of an income or savings. So I started seminary without a lot of resources. I was lucky enough to get into the PhD program in theology right after seminary, but unlike other grad school programs, this admission came with no stipend. I took on a parish part time, which helped, but made it really difficult to focus on school or on the parish. I managed the best I coul

In our reading from Acts this morning, Peter is standing with the eleven other disciples when he raises his voice and challenges those Jews gathered before him: "Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." Jesus was raised from the dead to reign over all people. He is the Lord, your Lord: the one who made you, who gives you purpose, and the one who orders all things according to his purposes.

I want you to step with me, out of your own shoes for a moment, and put on those of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary that we hear about in this morning’s Gospel. They’re likely in deep grief - that feeling you’ve had that part of you that made space for someone you loved hollowed out so that you’re no longer connected to this world in the same way. So they go to see Jesus’s tomb, to remember, to pay tribute, to mourn. But when they get there, a huge earthquake shakes them ba