A Noble Theme

Sermon Video: Hespeler, 22 May, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Trinity Sunday John 17:1-4, 20-24, Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Philippians 2:1-11 I f you are ever invited to a Greek wedding, you ought to expect that a number of great things are about to happen to you. You can be sure that you are going to have a great time. You can be sure that there’s going to be excellent food and excellent wine and probably healthy servings of Uzo. There will be people yelling “ Opa !” and (warning) some dishes may be broken. But, best of all, you can also be sure that, somewhere in among the celebration, the music will start and people will stand up and form a circle and begin to dance.         The circle dance has been a part of Greek culture for a very long time. It is almost something that is programmed into the people themselves. A celebration, for them, is just not complete until at least three people (it cannot be done with two) have ...

About a year and a half ago, my doctor suggested to me (rather firmly) that I really needed to lose some weight. I fortunately took his advice seriously and decided to make some changes in my lifestyle. One of the key changes that I made was to become much more active. The activity that suited me best and that gave me the most pleasure was walking. I bought a step tracker and over time set a goal of walking about fourteen and a half kilometers a day. I have greatly enjoyed it and feel much better and healthier overall. But I might not have stuck to it as well as I have if had not had something to stimulate my mind while I was exercising my body. Walking with other people has its own rewards, of course and I love those times. But I also look forward to those times when I am walking alone because I tend to listen to podcasts. I was realizing the other day that these podcasts I have been listening to pretty much every day have been an extraordinary blessing to me. They have helped m...

Hespeler, 15 May, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Pentecost John 4:7-24, Galatians 5:16-26, Acts 2:17-21 I f you were to ask me the question, “ Do you believe in God? I would answer that question without a moment of hesitation: “Do I believe in God ? Y es, of course I believe in God.” In fact, that is kind of the obvious answer for someone in my position to give. It is an answer so obvious that, in general, nobody would even bother to ask the question.       In fact, being a Christian is one of the things that offers me continual assurance that, yes, there is a God because, you know, sometimes I look around at the world and I see everything that goes wrong and it does make me wonder. When I do start to wonder like that, the thing that often reassures me that there is a God who exists and cares is what I have heard and learned from Jesus.       That is why I was surp...

Sermon Video:             Hespeler, 8 May, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Mother’s Day 1 Samuel 18:1-9, Ephesians 6:10-17, Psalm 3 W hen I was a student studying at Presbyterian College in Montreal, I was given an extraordinary opportunity – an opportunity that few students for the ministry are afforded these days. There was a small church in the city of Laval, just across the bridge north of Montreal, called Northlea United Church. It was a church that was struggling as an English church in what had once been, but was no longer, a fairly strong English community.       The church needed a minister to care for them but couldn’t afford fulltime ministry. A student seemed like an excellent option for them, but the United Church, as a matter of policy, wouldn’t allow their ministry students to minister in that way. The Presbyterian College didn’t mind if their married students (I don’t know why, but you had to b...

Hespeler, 1 May, 2016 © Scott McAndless Genesis 2:25-3:11, 21, Hebrews 13:10-16, Psalm 40:4-11 T he story of the creation of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis was always about much more than just the question of where the human race came from. Adam was never just supposed to be a historical figure. Even the earliest people to tell and pass down this tale knew, after all, that the name Adam meant man and that he represented humanity as a whole. They knew that his wife’s name meant living , and so they understood that this story was not about history or events that took place in the earliest mists of time so much as it was about what it meant to be human beings living in this world here and now.       For example, the particular selection of verses that we read from Genesis this morning seems to be preoccupied with one particular question about being human. The question is this: why do human beings wear clothes. I mean, think about it, ...