The Parish

Jesus isn’t looking for religious rule-keepers with their noses deep in their bibles, he is looking for followers. Followers who know they aren’t good at it yet, so know they need to stick close and watch what Jesus does.  

A lot of things in this life can seem like an uphill battle. It can feel at times like these mountains-and God are working against us.  Jesus will have us pause to consider that there might be Gold in these hills.

Death, burial and resurrection - it is a story that captivates us; it is theology that grounds us and it is metaphor that shapes our lives.

We often discover joy in places where happiness could not survive.

This is one of those stories were we are watching people who don’t fully understand what they are seeing. And if we’re honest… neither do we.

What if the answer was as close as your next breath, you just have to breathe it in.

Two questions. Two answers. On opposite sides of the same road...one invitation remains.

Satan was offering a deal that sounded too good to refuse but Jesus knew enough to read the fine print!

Faith isn't made real when God shows up, it is made real when you realize God never left.

The tempter offers Jesus a convenient plan for dealing with his uncomfortable wilderness time. But, it seems some lessons can only be learned when we are in the desert and we are hungry.

What we become on the journey can matter as much as what we hope to find at the end.

Social trends and the availability of digital media seem to be shifting us toward becoming spectators in life. But Jesus invites us to get out of our armchairs and really see our neighbours. 

The hope of the world is not that God gives up on human kind and fixes everything without us. The hope of the world is that God refuses to abandon us…and keeps working through ordinary people.

At the wedding in Cana, Jesus gives us a picture of how to be kind in a deeply human situation.

I wonder if the opening chapter of Genesis didn't tell us that Humanity was created in the image of God, we would have ever had the courage to look for it.

What do we do when a "Herod" seems to threaten the very fabric of our lives? We may find it helpful to remember how the story will end!

Slim pickings. Two Psalms, three poems and one sermon.

We often live our lives vicariously in a different tense, our bodies are in the present, but our minds are rehearsing a future or replaying a past, rarely staying in the moment where is within reach.

In some ways, putting Christmas away is more difficult that getting it out.

Mary believed what the angel had told her but no one else seemed to. She felt terribly alone until Elizabeth made room for her and created a space that was healing for both of them. 

When your desire to run is outmatched by your desire to stay, a beautiful kind of peace begins to appear. A peace that doesn't need outcomes to exist, it just needs the presence of God.

When Zechariah confronted a mystery that didn't fit into the tight and tidy quarters of his faith, he become overwhelmed with fear.  Mary’s more flexible faith allowed her to sit with the mystery and to ponder it rather than run away from it.

We cannot begin Advent with angels and wise men and choirs. We cannot start where the tinsel and glitter is. We have to begin small, quiet, and unnoticed. We have to begin the way the story grew in Mary. The way it still grows in us.

Set prayers and liturgy can feel stiff and impersonal if they are not part of our tradition but they may hold unexpected riches.

A new life iwth an old mindset isn't freedom-it's a more comfortable prison.