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Advent 1- living in between the first and second coming

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ISAIAH 2:1-5; PSALM 122; ROMANS 13:11-14; MATTHEW 24:36-44 In Advent we begin the church year once again. We enter into a season of anticipation. With ancient Israel, we yearn for the messiah to come, and we yearn for the kingdom that will come with him. … Isaiah expresses a yearning for a time when the ways of God would be respected by a united humanity. The profound peace that would be found on the earth would render weapons useless, and they would be refashioned into tools. They don’t even have to be put into the closet (just in case). They can be reworked and used for other purposes because they can’t even imagine a future when they will be needed. … This yearning stands against the present reality - violence, conflict, disunity, and the rejection of God’s ways. Isaiah’s voice cries out with a hopeful vision of a time when things will be different. Ancient Israel’s yearning for the Messiah and his kingdom is also our yearning for the day when Christ will come again. … We ...
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Christ the King Sunday

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Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 1:68-79; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43 We have reached the end of the Christian Year. We might even consider it the height of the Christian year. The Christian calendar follows the story of Christ. It begins in Advent with the expectation of the Messiah, and then birth of Christ at Christmas. Epiphany is about the revealing of Christ’s identity. In Lent, we follow Christ into the wilderness in preparation for the cross on Good Friday. And from that deep sadness we enter into the joy of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. But the story doesn’t end there. At Ascension, Christ ascends into heaven, and remains present to the Church through The Holy Spirit, which is what we celebrate at Pentecost. The same Spirit that came to Mary to constitute the Body of Christ in her womb, would now constitute his body through his disciples. We learn to live as his disciples, following his teachings, throughout the season after Pentecost, until we arrive at today- The Reign of Ch...
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Luke 21- This will give you an opportunity to testify

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Malachi 4:1-2; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19 Our reading from the prophet Malachi is about the Day of the Lord. An anticipated day of Judgement when all things will be set right. Some scholars think that Paul’s words against being idle in 2nd Thessalonians is a warning to people who stopped working because they were sure Jesus was going to come right away. Our Gospel reading is speaking about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the Second Coming of Christ, and this is anticipating the Reign of Christ, which we celebrate next week, and is the end of the Liturgical year. In a way this is a little mini-Advent. Advent is a time when we prepare for the coming of Christ, both at Christmas, and the 2nd Coming. How do we prepare for the coming of Christ? Paul warns us against being idle. We shouldn’t just laze around waiting. There is work to be done. … Jesus warns us to not be led astray by people who come in his name, and to not connect wars and earthquakes to his ...
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All Saints' Day- Who is St. Leonard

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Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18; Ps 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31 Today we are celebrating the feast of All Saints. The word “saint” means “holy one”. To be a saint means to have such a close relationship with God that God’s holiness is reflected- Sort of how the moon reflects the sun’s light. This is what all Christians are called to be. The French novelist Leon Bloy once said,  "the only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint".  To not become a saint means to miss God’s call on our life. Paul refers to the people in his churches as “saints”. So, in a sense, it is both what we are because of Christ’s work to save us, and what we are called to be because of how Christ is transforming us. Saints are what we are, since as Christians, we are the Body of Christ. So, St. Paul writes to the Ephesians saying,  “To the saints who are in Ephesus…” (Eph 1:1). At other times Paul will write saying,  “To all God’s beloved in Ro...
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Harvest Thanksgiving at St. Paul's Hillsdown

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    Deuteronomy 8: 6-11; Psalm 92: 1 – 4; Luke 17: 11-19 The suffering of our lives and of the world has a tendency to drown out our gratitude. If we went around the room, I suspect we could pretty easily share things that weigh on our minds from our lives or from what we see on the news. What does it mean to give thanks in a world like this? Some might suggest we shouldn’t give thanks at all. Maybe we should just lament and mourn on behalf of the suffering in the world. We can imagine someone saying, “How dare we be happy and celebrate when such things are happening in the world?” In the ancient world there was a heresy called Gnosticism. One of the general beliefs of Gnosticism is that it believed that the world we live in was created by an evil power and we needed to escape this world to become free to go to the good immaterial world created by God. The physical world is a kind of a horrible prison for our souls. The Gnostics were named a heresy by the early Church becaus...
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Christian Caregiving 7- Helping Others to Forgive

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  Gen 44:18-45:9; Psalm 32; 1 John 1:5-2:6; Luke 15:11-32 This is our last week in our Christian Caregiving series. This week we are dealing with caring for someone who wants to forgive someone. We have already dealt with caring for someone in the midst of their sin, and we spoke about how to help them confess and receive God’s forgiveness. This is a bit different. This week we are speaking about you, as a Christian caregiver, helping someone who has been hurt by someone else. Forgiveness is a persistent theme throughout Scripture. Within the pages of the Bible, we meet a God who takes sin incredibly seriously, but who is also very willing to forgive his people when they honestly repent and humbly seek forgiveness. Jesus teaches that, if someone is truly repentant, that we should never draw a line as to when we stop forgiving someone, even if they sin against us over and over (Lk 17:3-4). When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he relates God’s forgiveness of us to our forgivenes...
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Christian Caregiving 6- Boundaries

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Judges 2:6-23; Ps 16; Gal 6:1-10; Matt 18:15-20 Today we are continuing our sermon series on Christian Caregiving. Last time we spoke about praying for others. Today we are going to speak about boundaries. If we have compassion for others, and we want to do the right thing, and we believe God is calling us to help make the world a better place, eventually we will deal with issues having to do with boundaries. What are boundaries? Basically boundaries are knowing where you end and another person begins. It is knowing where your responsibility is and where your responsibility isn’t. God allows people, in their free-will, to make choices. He will also allow people to feel the consequences of their choices. … In the book of Judges we read that,  “the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals [other gods]. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among t...
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