Rev Chris Roth

Leviticus 18:1-23, 30; Romans 1:18-28; Mark 10:1-12 We are continuing with our sermon series on questions submitted by members of our congregation. Today the question is,  “Are the LGBTQ community welcome to the church/God’s kingdom?”  And just before we begin, please know that you can disagree with me. I go back to what Bishop NT Wright said at a public lecture. He said something like,  “25% of what I say is wrong, but I’m not sure which bits those are”.  So I’m going to try to deal with this topic as best I can, and I’m just going to have to ask for your grace if you don't agree with what I say. I'm going to try to give you a sense of what the discussion is like in the Anglican church at the moment. This is an incredibly volatile and sensitive topic, and to deal with it in only 20 minutes is tricky. It is tricky because Scripture and the tradition of the church matter to us. We want to teach what is true according to what God thinks- as best we c...

Genesis 22:1-19; Psalm 137; 1 Corinthians 11:1-16; Matt 15: 21-28 Today we are in week 3 of our Epiphany series based on questions that have been submitted by members of our congregation. This is our question for today: “How do we deal with controversial passages/messages in the Old Testament vs the New Testament?” You have heard a few difficult passages this morning. In our Genesis passage God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. In our Psalm it speaks about happy people hurting infants. In our passage in Corinthians there are reinforcements of patriarchal male-female relationships, and a lot of time is spent dealing with whether a woman covers her head, and declarations that a guy shouldn't cover his head and shouldn't grow his hair long (contrast that with some popular images of Jesus!). In our Gospel we hear Jesus basically call a woman a dog for not being Jewish. All of these are examples of troubling passages. And there are many more we could...

Isaiah 62:1-5; Ephesians 4:11-16; Matthew 28:16-20 Today we are continuing with our sermon series based on questions that have been submitted by the congregation. This morning we are looking at two questions. The first is-  “Where are we going in the emerging church of 2018?” And the second is-  “What plan does God have for me? I feel like I am spiraling out of control with no end in sight.” Before we get into dealing with these questions, I just want to speak to the person who wrote the second question. … I think just about everybody in this room feels deeply for you. I know as soon as I read it I felt my heart hurt for you. … I think most of us have felt something similar, so please don’t feel alone or feel like no one cares. That is a very difficult place to be, spiritually and mentally. If you want someone to walk with you through that feeling please let us know, or please reach out to someone you trust. … The reason I put these questions together is that th...

Isaiah 60:1-6 Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 Acts 17:22-34  Matthew 2:1-12 Today we are starting our Epiphany sermon series, which is based on questions that have been submitted by members of our congregation. I once heard The scholar and bishop N.T. Wright say that 25% of what he says is wrong, but he's not sure which bits those are. I feel that same as we enter into this series. It's likely we are going to disagree at points and I might very well be wrong in some of the things I'm going to say, but this is the best I can come up with right now. You are allowed to disagree with me. I will probably offend everyone at some point during this series, so I ask for your grace and patience especially during these sermons.  Please know you can disagree with me.  Did the wise men going to the bad place?  The first thing I want to do is explain that question a bit. … These wise men come to see and give homage to the child born in Bethlehem. They saw a st...