The Parish

When you challenge the status quo....when you expose what others would rather ignore....when you call people back to the heart of God, opposition often follows.

We sow the seeds of peace when we speak graciously, share generously and love deferentially

Have you ever felt that your life is spread too thin, with so many things competing for your attention, and loyalty. That shallow life is robbing us of not just seeing ourselves more clearly, but in seeing God more easily.  Spirituality has always insisted that the sacred is found in the depths, not merely at the surface.

Mercy-we need it more than we think...and we need to give it more than we think we do.

What if we could find satisfaction in working towards justice, not just in the experience of justice, It would mean planting trees of whose fruit we might never get a chance to eat.

When Jesus pronounces blessing on those who are meek he isn't addressing those who are weak and ineffectual but rather those who may have power and privilege but choose to hold them in reserve.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted... both troubles and intrigues me, if this is a promise, it doesn’t seem to work the way we think promises work.

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.

Jesus stirs the troubled waters of our lives with a question that heals more deeply than any answer ever could.

 When we are stressed, being told "don't worry!" can feel at best insensitive. But what if we see it as an invitation rather than a critique?

It’s strange how God meets us in the moments we often think are proof of His absence.

If what mattered to God mattered to us, we might just realize what matters.

The stories that we water, and the moments that we nurture are the ones that grow and shape the garden of our lives.

The world around us is eager to tell us what to value but Jesus has a different agenda for us.

What if the some of the conflict in our lives isn't about right or wrong, but simply about different ways of showing up in the same moment.

Leave your TV dinners in the living room, we have been invited into God's kitchen to learn how to make something beautiful together.

As we come to understand Jesus' ethic of love, adopting loving behaviours is important  - but it's not enough. We are called to genuine love.

The thoughts we choose to rehearse will shape the people we become.  And over time, those choices become the fabric of our attitudes, and the outfit of our lives.

When we repent, we need to radically change the way we think, not just our outward etiquette. The goal isn’t to become like Emily Post, it’s to become like Jesus!

Some ideas are so big that that they need to be demonstrated instead of talked about.

The fallout of reckless decisions we make early in life can leave us feeling that it's all over. But it isn't - because God loves a rematch.  

Some are more paralyzed by their beliefs than they are freed by them.

Freedom is not something we wait for, it is something we risk for.

Many of the central characters in Old Testament stories live complex lives. While we may not want to follow their example, if we look at them as a mirror we may recognize in them, aspects of our own life that need attention.

You don't forget a truth that sets you free, but you might forget the title.

Hope is more than wishful thinking because it is not focused on what we are wishing for – it is focused on Who we are hoping in.