For my New Year’s Eve reflections today, I want to pick up on and carry forward the words of assurances and encouragement that we heard in the scripture passages in Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew.

And these assurances and encouragements come not as a result of our actions, of what we do or plan to do, but out of what God does and...

In the appointed gospel reading from Luke chapter 2 on this First Sunday after Christmas, we fast forward from celebrating the coming of God to us in the baby Jesus born in Bethlehem, and jump ahead to a time when Jesus is already a teenager.

And we follow all the stressful drama of this teen and his parents, as Jesus gets “lost” in...

Have you noticed that many of these nativity sets, manger scenes, are so full, even too full, of figurines of people and animals!

They’re way too overpopulated!

Whether the nativity set is sitting on a shelf, or nice fireplace mantel, or in a store window, or on a front lawn …

… We see a whole group of “Wisemen”...

(John 18:33-37 & 2 Samuel 23:1-7)

Fear and uncertainty has gripped the world.

In the aftermath of the brazen shootings and terror bombings in Paris and Beirut, and the bombing of that Russian airline over the Sinai Peninsula….

…. and then the racist violence which followed:
against an innocent Muslim woman in Toronto,
the...

There’s a screen-saver picture that appears this week on my computer: an image of this enormous cliff, this sheer rock face as part of a mountain side… this overwhelmingly large flat, hard, grey rock, filling the whole screen.
And right in the middle of this rock face, in the centre of the picture, so tiny as to be hardly noticeable...

It would be neglectful of me, who is, among others here at St. Matthews, helping to lead our Renewal Task Force, to not talk about reform and renewal on this day we celebrate as Reformation Sunday.

This is the day we celebrate the free gift of grace for all through Jesus Christ. This is the day we celebrate that we are freed from captivity,...

This episode in the Gospel of Mark this morning could go down as one of the great “Unsolved Mysteries” of the New Testament.

That’s because we never hear what happened to the rich young man.

We never hear the end of his story… never find out what he did … whether or not he “sold everything” and...

Words are powerful.  The Hebrew people knew how powerful they were.

Creation itself begins with a word spoken. When we open our Bibles, on the first page it says, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the...

In John’s gospel, Jesus is using these great “I am” statements to tell us the truth about who he is. He calls upon the great traditions and stories of Moses, here specifically echoing the words that God whispers to Moses upon finding the bush that would not burn down. What is your name, what shall I say to the people, Moses...

I have an ASUS computer tablet I use daily for my work.
And every time I turn it on, I see these words flash on my screen as the machine boots up: “ASUS: Inspiring Innovation; Persistent Perfection.”

These words have become so familiar. I think I’ve almost memorized them by now….say them in my sleep.
Almost every day I...