Advent 3, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-12-12: Added audio recording of this sermon)

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Psalm
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

Dec 12, 2021
St. Mary’s Regina
Advent III
Year C

Audio recording of this sermon

            I want to begin with a list of  words this morning.  These words aren’t often heard outside of a religious context, but since we’re in church I think it’s appropriate to introduce them this morning. How we understand the meaning of each of these words, influences or drives our spiritual journeys. So, I believe Advent is the perfect time to ponder these words. Ready? Here they are: Sin, Repentance, Confession and Forgiveness. What we think or believe about ourselves and others through the use of these words can be helpful or destructive for us. 

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Advent 2, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-12-05: Revised sermon text. Added recording of this sermon.)

Second Advent Sunday December 5, 2021.
St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Regina

Readings: Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6.

Living God, increase your joy in us so that we may praise and worship you in truth and spirit. Amen. 

When you read about how Judah was overrun by the enemies and how Jerusalem was destroyed during the time of Jeremiah and Baruch, you may ask where is God in this situation? 

When you read how Paul was imprisoned and humiliated, you may ask where is God in all this? 

When you think of the ongoing coronavirus that has confined us into our houses and inflicted great pain and suffering in us, because we have lost friends, coworkers, family members, or someone we know personally, you may ask where is God in all this?

There are other countless examples that we may give on how we may think in human terms about situations where we expect the powerful hands of God, but all we see and find is darkness hovering over our lives and denying us the joy of life. There is no joy in these circumstances, is there?

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Advent 1, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-11-28: Added audio recording of this sermon)

Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13​​
Luke 21:25-36

November 28, 2021
St. Mary’s Regina
Advent 1
Year C

by Paula Foster

Audio recording of this sermon

Every so often, we get a strong reminder that the ways of God are not the ways of the world.  According to the ways of the world, Christmas is lighten-up time…one month out of twelve when we give ourselves permission (perhaps guardedly because of Covid) to go to parties and buy gifts for friends and family and decorate our homes with trees, lights and ornaments of every kind. It is the season of eggnog and sweets and assorted beverages when the instinct to purchase is hallowed and overeating is required.  Whatever else is going on in the world, Christmas is a time to rise above it…to be happy, to be at peace, to anticipate birth.​

The ways of God are less cheerful, overall.  They offer us no shortcuts to joy.  If the church calendar is any indication, things always get darker before they get light. No matter how much we’d like to take a straight road to Christmas, there are these dark days of Advent to go through first.  Advent leads us down a road that leads through the graveyard of our sinfulness, through the wilderness, and through a river of repentance.  There is a lot of waiting along the way, waiting and telling the truth about all the scary things that can happen before the birth of real joy takes place.

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Sunday Before Advent, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-11-21: Added audio recording)

Audio recording of this sermon

Let us pray.  Lord, have mercy upon us.  I wanted to begin by asking for mercy from our king, because this Jesus we are talking about today in our readings is hard to wrap our minds around.

This is the last Sunday of the year.  Did you know that?  Next week, November 28th, is the first Sunday of Advent.  It is the start of a new liturgical season.  We will change all our colours to purple.  We will hang our Advent wreath, and start singing Advent hymns.  Even the canticles in Morning Prayer change.  But beyond moving into a new liturgical season, we also begin the new liturgical year.  Our cycle of Scripture, and prayer, and worship of our Lord Jesus Christ begins anew.

This day, the final Sunday of the old year, is known as Reign of Christ Sunday, or Christ the King in Catholic and Lutheran churches.  We have these gorgeous Scripture readings full of the majesty and glory of Jesus.  In Daniel’s vision, we see the Ancient of Days, too bright to look at, like the sun, sitting in His throne room, surrounded by multitudes, and preparing to sit in judgement on the whole universe.  And one like a son of man approaches the Ancient of Days and is welcomed into His presence, and he is “given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him.  His domain is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

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Remembrance, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-11-14 Added audio recording of this sermon)

Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

 November 14,2021
St. Mary’s Regina
Proper 33
Year B

Audio recording of this sermon

Have you ever been afraid of something?  When I was a child, I was really afraid of the dark and of cockroaches. (pause) and truthfully, they both still bother me.  There are cockroaches in El Paso, Texas (where I come from)…. BIG BUGS that inhabit cool, dark places like garages, cupboards, and basements and they scurry around at night in particular, which may have aggravated my fear of the dark.  I hate being around them… I hate it when they startle me…. it doesn’t make any difference that I am a hundred times bigger then they are…. when one scurries across my path, my heart pounds, adrenaline rushes through my body and I instantly want to run the other way.  Don’t even suggest that I simply step on it and kill it. The crunchy, splatty sound they make underneath my foot makes my skin crawl. I have tried over the years to talk myself out of this fear, but the last time I was home, I had to steel myself every time I had to walk into the garage, because I KNEW that there might be a roach out there.  It was a great relief for me as I began my northern migration, to realize that there aren’t as many cockroaches up here as there are in El Paso because Cockroaches frighten me.

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All Saints, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-11-07: Added audio recording of this sermon.)

Sermon. All Saints Sunday November 6, 2021. St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Regina. Nathaniel Athian Deng Mayen.

Audio recording of this sermon

Today we are celebrating the great and wonderful Feast of All Saints, or as it used to be called, “The Feast of All Hallows”, from which we get the word ‘Hallowe’en’. 

Rather than doing scary things, I would like to give a brief summary of the readings before we talk about the concept of the ‘communion of the saints’ and its significance to our faith.

In Isaiah 25:6-9, we read about God’s deliverance of the faithful from the oppressive regimes of the world, that is, sin and death. It is from the Scripture such as this that suffering, persecution and martyrdom, the blood shed for the sake of our faith in Christ, are considered signs of sainthood in ancient Christian theology and teaching. We suffer and die now on earth in hope that our faith will be accredited righteousness in the new life to come with Christ.

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Trinity 22, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-10-31: Added audio recording of sermon.)

Sermon for St. Mary’s Anglican – by Henry Friesen – Oct 31, 2021

Scriptures:  Ruth 1:1-18, Psalm 119:1-8, Hebrews 9:11-14 and Mark 12:28-34

Audio recording of this sermon

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts together, be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

It Is Our Choice

            In the poem entitled “The Road Not Taken” the American poet Robert Frost included these famous lines: Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the differenceThese short lines have become famous because they speak to the universal human reality of choice; we as human beings have the ability to freely make choices and we do so  every day. In addition we know that those choices have consequences, they will affect our future. Now the choice we make as to the kind of car or house we buy may not have a huge impact on our lives, at least not compared to the choice we make as to a career, a life partner or our convictions in regard to faith. The latter choices are loaded with the potential of deeply affecting our lives at both an intellectual and emotional level. As I get older – and of course I am not old YET – I recognize so clearly that the choices I made at several key junctures have greatly affected my life: they have “made all the difference.”

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Trinity 21, 2021 – Sermon

For seven weeks through October and the beginning of November, we are making our way through the letter to the Hebrews in our New Testament lessons. You may remember such phrases as “In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them,” and “was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek,” and from today, “For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.”  Hebrews is not a light read.  I’m not sure the creators of the lectionary do us any favours by doling it out chunk by chunk a week at a time.  I mean, this month we’ve read 4 verses from chapter one, 7 verses from chapter two, 10 verses from chapter five, 6 verses from chapter 7 today, and 4 verses from chapter 9 next week.  We would have had 5 more from chapter 4, except, Thanksgiving.  Anyway, my point is, what are we to make of that?  It occurred to me to wonder, exactly how much of Hebrews do we read in the whole 3-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary?  So I looked it up.  I think this is really interesting, but I’m a nerd, so your mileage may vary.

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Trinity 20, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-10-17: Added audio recording of this sermon)

St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Trinity 20, October 17, 2021 Revd. Canon Claude Schroeder

Audio recording of this sermon

The story of Job in the Old Testament, from which our first lesson this morning was taken, is the story of man whose life fell apart, and whose happy, orderly existence was plunged into chaos, and subjected to intense suffering, and who was left wondering, “What did I do to deserve this? Where is God in all of this?” 

I think it’s a very timely Scripture for us today in light of the chaos of the times in which we live, where so much of life is seems to be spinning out of control, defying and resisting all our attempts to manage and control, and where we find ourselves struggling to keep from drowning if only emotionally in this sea of chaos in which we have been plunged.

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Harvest Thanksgiving, 2021 – Sermon

(Modified 2021-10-10: Added audio recording of this sermon)

(Following the sermon text below is an Appendix with supporting material.)

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church.  October 10, 2021. Sermon on Matthew 6:25-33

May the Spirit of God the Father and of Son, the crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ, our true and everlasting righteousness, inspire us to listen and understand the Word of life that nourishes and preserves our bodies and souls into eternal life. Amen.

The opening sentence to the Gospel reading today, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25), seems contradictory to the Canadian cultural and social spirit for the Thanksgiving weekend, where the emphasis is mostly about celebrating the human merits and everything else, we think is a result of our success. 

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