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Showing posts from July, 2017

Trying to connect the dots, unnecessarily

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Another sermon - as seems to be the way of this blog at present! Life is busy and complicated, and good, and bad, and exciting, and challenging, and (in short) not conducive to getting Blog posts written! So, here's my thought for today taken from these passages (Click for details): Exodus 16:1–5, 9–15,  Psalm 78;18–29 Mt 13.1–9 Grace and Meaning In the words of St Paul, or perhaps St John, or maybe St George, or even St Ringo “When I was younger, so much younger than today.” Ah, sorry, couldn’t resist!  No, it’s not a tubby boy story – but just a general reflection that today’s story from the book of Exodus used to cause me great consternation.  Or at least was one of those parts of Scripture that didn’t seem to fit… I knew the story, the mythological story I am now convinced, of the temptations in the wilderness when Jesus proclaims, quoting Deuteronomy 6 ‘you shall not put the Lord your God to the test’. As I moved into the Anglican Church and got to kno

Pride - in the name of love!

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Yesterday was the middle of Pride Week here in Victoria and St John's marked it, in partnership with Christ Church Cathedral and our wider Diocese of Islands and Inlets (aka the Diocese of British Columbia), with our regular Eucharist in the morning, and with a special Eucharist in the evening at which our Bishop Logan McMenamie presided and preached. It is a sermon worth sharing - so here's the link to the recording of it: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/stjohnthedivine/episodes/2017-07-06T13_09_14-07_00 Some of what Bishop Logan said related to my own thoughts earlier in the morning - which wasn't recorded, but I have the script, so I thought I would share it here too! Cast Out I want to begin by sharing something that you might not know, but it’s important information that I think bears sharing in this hallowed setting. It’s just this – there’s a new Spider-Man movie released this week ! I know, exciting, eh? It’s the third ‘reboot’ – of the fra

Misheard Bible???

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So, what is the nature of scripture? Hmmm, good question - and one I have been struggling with for most of my adult life, as I have journeyed through many differing traditions and ended up very much within the liberal, broad part of the church! I wonder if sometimes our approach to the Bible is somewhat like a misheard song lyric, every now and then we stop and say 'oh, so that's what it says'.  So here's some Peter Kay with some amusing misheard song lyrics (there's a few rude bits, so don't watch if easily offended)  I riffed off of this for today's sermon at St John the Divine, Victoria - as you'll tell if you listen to the podomatic link below, some of it I stole (acknowledged) wholesale, and then moved on to considering exactly what we are doing when we encounter 'bad' bible bits!