This is another of those Sundays I wish we had recorded! I departed from the text substantially in the second half of the sermon and have no record of what I actually said. What I did do was lay out the three ways of looking at this text more clearly:

• as a parable that tells of God’s super-abundance—unmerited and beyond imagining,
• as a reflection on Jesus’ own ministry and returning to the beginning of that ministry in temptation—which path will Jesus take? Wealth and power, or losing everything?
• as a story telling of Jesus’ solidarity with those whose lives are the third servant’s life—no matter what they do, even that is taken away again and again by The Man.

Here is the sermon:

• Sermon for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost (2011-11-13, Year A) – OpenDocument version
• Sermon for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost (2011-11-13, Year A) – pdf version

Advent is always a tricky time of the year for the preacher and worship leader in my opinion. Its not Christmas, yet, according to the church but it is Christmas time for the culture arround us. Just as we have taken rituals and practices of other cultures and baptised them as Christian, so our Western culture has taken one of our rituals/practices, Christmas, and ‘baptised’ it for the cultural purposes of promoting family life and selling stuff!

Here is my sermon for the first of our four Advent Sundays:

• Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (2011-11-27, Year B) – OpenDocument version
• Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (2011-11-27, Year B) – pdf version