A Noble Theme

I am very pleased to announce that my book, is now available. For the past decade or so, I have been working on a book in my scant spare time. It was a book that examined the story of the birth of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Luke and struggled with a number of historical puzzles that arise from it. I have now finished this book and published it under the title, " Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee" and I want to take this opportunity to recommend it to you. It may give you some wonderful new perspectives on the Christmas story as you look forward to preaching on it and reflecting on it this year. This is not a conservative book - not in its theology nor in its approach to the Bible - and I realize that some may not agree with some of what I say because of that, but it is a book that goes out of its way to try and respect the original message of the author of the Gospel of Luke and to take seriously the historical situation that Luke describes at the time of the bi...

For the past decade or so, I have been writing a book in my spare time. The book sprang out of my general dissatisfaction with the traditional ways of telling and dramatizing the story of the birth of Jesus. In many ways, I find that the ways that we think of the story really do not honour the intentions of the original gospel writers - especially the writer of the Gospel of Luke. I feel that we miss so much of what Luke was trying to communicate about Jesus because: We have insisted on harmonizing the two accounts of the birth that we have (Matthew 1 and Luke 2) in a way that strips both of them of their unique perspectives on the meaning of the birth of Christ. We have not struggled in constructive ways with some of the problematic elements in Luke's story like The description of the census (which does not fit with what we know about Roman policy and practice). The reasons for the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem which are not sufficiently explained. The historical an...

Genesis 17:15 - 16 (NRSV) 15 God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.  16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”  This morning I did a Lectio Divina (a meditative reading) on the above passage. When you read in a meditative fashion, God will often make certain words or phrases jump out at you because there is a personal message that you need to hear. Today the word that jumped out at me was bless . I wondered if God might be seeking to bless me in some particular way -- if God knows that i need a blessing. Of course, the particular blessing that God wanted to give to Sarah was a son -- and with the son a new identity as signified by the name change. I don't think God wants to give me that particular blessing (though the invitation to embrace a new identity in Christ is always something that...

.... based on a recent email discussion with some colleagues. An interpretation of Matthew 21:28 - 32 Two sons went to a Sunday worship service where their father, a minister, was preaching. The sermon that day was on the topic of the good news about Jesus Christ and how we ought to be willing to share that good news whenever an appropriate opportunity arises. The first son came into the service and sat quietly and respectfully while he listened to every word. Afterwards he never mentioned where he had been that morning or what had been said. The second son arrived at the service just after it began. As soon as he arrived, he took out his phone and checked in on foursquare (earning a few dirty looks from the people around him). A little bit later in the service, he took a picture of the worship band and tweeted it to his followers. During the sermon,  he posted something his father said as his status on  Facebook . Which of the two do you suppose respected ...

Recently I had a very interesting experience - something that had never happened before in my ministry. I had preached a sermon on the topic of the Day of Atonement in Ancient Israel which is described in Leviticus 16. If you want a reminder of the basic outline of the day, you can watch this St. Andrew's Stars version of the story: The Day of Atonement In my sermon I put particular emphasis on the Escapegoat portion of the ritual. (I chose to use the word "Escapegoat" because the word "scapegoat" has taken on a very particular meaning in English. The word was invented by William Tyndale when he made the first translation of the Old Testament into English from the original Hebrew. He meant it to mean "the goat that escaped" but he simply dropped the initial "e" due to the very fluid spelling of the time.) My suggestion was that the escapegoat ritual provided a means for the people to release some of the negative energy that builds up ...

I wrote an extra article for "Andrew's Voice," the newsletter of St. Andrew's Hespeler Presbyterian last week. But when the time came to put the newsletter together we ran out of space and I had to cut the article in half. I present the whole article here for those who are interested. The newsletter will soon be available at www.standrewshespeler.ca. Now that’s a Good Question This week, I had an old friend (not someone from St. Andrew's) contact me with some questions that had baffled her. Here is part of what she wrote: "I was wondering if I could kind of ask for some advice or information from you? A friend of mine has been asking me about my beliefs and I don't know how to answer some of his questions. He brought up sin as a topic and asked how many times does God have to forgive you if you sin? How do you know you're forgiven? Does He already know your sin before you do it? If so, then why ask for forgiveness? “He also asked, if J...

Last week I shared some rambling thoughts about what I might preach about during Lent this year. After giving it a bit of thought I have pretty much abandoned those ideas. This is mostly because of the great reactions that I got to my sermon last week. I preached about forgiveness and, as I explored the theme, I found myself digging deep into the Old Testament notions and practice of sacrifice. I realize how essential it is to understand where these kinds of concepts, like forgiveness, came from in the first place. The fact of the matter is that when the early church tried to understand what the life and, especially, what the death of Jesus really meant, the first place they looked was to Old Testament practices and concepts. Jesus, in their reflections, became the sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat, the passover lamb and much more. How can we possibly think that we will be able to realize the true significance of what Jesus accomplished on the cross if we have misconceptions about th...