Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans)“  (JN 4:9). Ain’t that a dilly of a pickle?! A Jew, from Judea, travels north into Samaria and asks for a drink of water from a well. It has all the makings for a good joke, doesn’t it!? “A Jewish Rabbi walks into a bar in Samaria…” But this is

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! You know, without a doubt, one of the worst things in life is moving.  Having to move to a new house or new apartment or new condo or whatever. A new residence. It’s not so bad when you’re young or in the kraft-dinner college stage of life and everything you have fits in the back of a 1992 Nissan Pathfinder. But the older you get, the more stuff you accumulate,

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! The Shrove Tuesday pancakes have been eaten and enjoyed as the last of the sweet treats before Easter. The ashes have adorned our foreheads to remind us of our mortality. The water used to clean them off reminds us of our Baptism which has washed our sins away. Our Lenten pilgrimage and journey has begun anew this year - our journey to the cross. This is the bl

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Some friends of ours went on a Roman Catholic pilgrimage known as El Camino de Santiago.  It’s an 800km hike that takes you from France to Santiago de Compostela on the Spanish coast, the place where St. James’ remains are said to be buried. That is Big James, the son of Zebedee. It is said they brought his relics or bodily remains to Spain from Jerusalem afte

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Today we wind up the season of Epiphany. It is the season of light. It is the season of God revealing to the world exactly Who He is in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the season of manifestation. We could say it is a Divine game of “ peek-a-boo! ” where God lifts up the veil and we see His glory. Epiphany began with the light of a star leading the Magi to th

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! One of my fondest memories as a kid was going to pick out a puppy! I had been begging my parents for quite some time to get another dog. I said all the usual promises that every kid does: “I’ll walk it!” “I’ll clean up the landmines!” “I promise!” Every parent knows that this means that they  will end up doing all this, and also paying for it! But I had my hea

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! When you read through the Scriptures, over and over again you encounter contrasting themes. Light and darkness. Justice and mercy. Law and Gospel. Life and death. You get the idea. There’s zillions of these kinds of examples in the Bible. One that hits home in today’s readings are God’s Kingdom vs. Worldly Kingdoms. In particular, the idea of worldly success. T

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Last Sunday we talked at length about the Confession of St. Peter. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”  (MT 16:16). We talked about how he was a rough and tumble fisherman, a regular work-a-day Pete. Impulsive, perhaps rather brash and definitely not a refined scholar with degrees and book learnin’. Completely opposite to St. Peter we have St. Paul,

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”  (MT 16:15). There it is! The now iconic words that formed the original confession of the Christian church, voiced by none other than the absolute legend, St. Peter,  disciple and Apostle. It is precisely these words that we commemorate today as God’s people bec

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! The video sharing site YouTube  is really a modern marvel of information. It hosts zillions and zillions of videos encompassing pretty much everything of interest to every person on earth. Want to fix your car? There’s a video for that. Need a recipe for supper? There’s a video for that too. Want to explore the ever practical world of equestrian vaulting ?! The

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! “ Beam me up, Scottie! ” I’ll bet at least a few of you recognize those words. They come from way back in the 1960s. On September 8, 1966 the very first episode of Star Trek  was aired on TV. It followed the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise, commanded by Captain James T. Kirk, with First Officer Spock, and Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. And of course, it h

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Today is kind of a sombre day in the midst of our Christmas joy. Today, as has been mentioned, is the minor church festival of the Holy Innocents. It’s always commemorated on the 28th of December which this year happens to line up with a Sunday. Who are the Holy Innocents? These are the little Israelite boys, 2 years and under, who evil King Herod in his demoni

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! “That’s impossible!”  How often have you heard those words or even said those words in your life? Oh, probably more than a few times I’m sure. It’s often our response when something seems too tough to understand. Like little kids watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. “Wow! How’d he do that?!” There’s a moment of intense fascination and wonder. But the

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! 22 years ago, way back in 2003, my wife was serving as the Director of Parish Services at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, smack dab in the middle of inner city Edmonton, Alberta. This church had a great history of inner city outreach, starting “ The Rock ” breakfast program, which fed hundreds of homeless and needy people several days a week. Among other ways they loved and served t

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Picture it. 1979. No internet. No cell phones. If you wanted to learn stuff you had to look it up in  books,  you know, those things with pages in them! They were all the rage at one time, before digital screens took society hostage. But back in 1979 there were several popular “baby naming books.” And of course, at the top of the list in popularity in those bab

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! From forests and trees last Sunday to deserts and sand this Sunday, we’ve had a real botanical cornucopia during this Advent season! When we hear the world “wilderness” in our culture we tend to think about the forests of northern Saskatchewan or maybe the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps the Yukon or Alaska for some unspoiled, pristine wilderness that isn’t touched by

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Growing up over the years, we had both real and artificial Christmas trees. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Both look splendid when they are decorated. Real trees smell absolutely amazing when they warm up to room temperature. Artificial trees can be used over and over again and have no sap. And if we learned anything from National Lampoon’s Chris

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Welcome to Advent! It’s the like the first day of school when you roll out all your new school supplies from a brand new backpack. It’s a fresh start. A new beginning. The church year resets and reboots us into this beautiful season of hope and expectation! Curiously, our Scripture readings don’t seem very ‘ Christmasy. ’ Instead, we seem to be plopped into the

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Welcome to the  end ! The end of the church year, that is. We now call it “Christ the King” Sunday, the last Sunday in the church’s liturgical year, with the season of Advent right on our heels. But did you know that this concept of “Christ the King” is a very new thing in the church year. In fact, it will be exactly 100 years old this year. It’s only been aro

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! At this time of year, with Remembrance Day right around the corner, I often think about our soldiers and everything they went through as young men, many still teenagers. The Great War. World War II. The trenches. Combat. Good vs. Evil. You can watch war movies to get a glimpse of what they faced, but I think Hollywood’s best efforts and all the computer graphic