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

The sermon lost a page today but apart from that it went well. The accompanying music and presentation are not included in the downloads but this is the full version of “Oh Mary, don’t you weep” that I used during the sermon.

• Sermon for 9/11 (Ordinary Sunday 24, Year A) – OpenDocument version
• Sermon for 9/11 (Ordinary Sunday 24, Year A) – pdf version

This Sunday I ended up turning the first half of this sermon into a ‘children‘s sermon’ and then continuing with the second half of the sermon as the sermon. So, for those who want the entire sermon—here it is.

It begins like this and the whole sermon can be downloaded in either an OpenDocument or a pdf version.

Who am I?

Here we are, back at names again. We have had Abram change to Abraham and Jacob to Israel. The Pharaoh remains nameless but the midwives are named Shiphrah and Puah. Two women, slaves in the court of Pharaoh have names and their master has none.

Just a few verses ago Jesus was named truly by his disciples. As they worshipped him after the storm was over they named him, “Son of God”.

All these names.

My name means “man of the dark waters”. I thought that was so lame when I was young. Why couldn’t I be a Christopher or a David? Now those are strong names!

But dark waters run deep. And I have grown into my name as I have grown older. I am Douglas. That is my name.

All these names.

• Sermon for Ordinary Sunday 21, Year A, 2011 – OpenDocument version
• Sermon for Ordinary Sunday 21, Year A, 2011 – pdf version