Rev Chris Roth

  Matthew 22:34-46 In our Gospel reading, Jesus has been peppered with questions. This happens following the triumphal entry, which we remember on Palm Sunday. … So, it's during the first few days of the celebration of the Week of Passover that we read in Matthew 21:23,  "When he entered the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching."   And they are grilling him with questions in the temple courts. These are the experts in the law, particularly the Sadducees that controlled the Temple, and the Pharisees who saw themselves as righteous keepers of the Torah. … They are trying to trap him with their questions. They are trying to get him to contradict himself, or stump him, or get him in trouble with the crowd, in trouble with the Romans, or in trouble with King Herod. We see Jesus stump them at the end of our reading, with his question about Psalm 110. Here we hear the wisdom of Jesus is on display. During this time period, P...

  Hello brothers and sisters in Christ, Over the past year, Parish Council has been studying a book called Simple Church by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger. The book encourages churches to have a clear and simple mission- one that everyone can remember, one that guides our decisions, and one that helps us stay focused on what truly matters. When a church knows its mission, it can reduce unnecessary complexity, and give its energy to the things that actually form disciples of Jesus. After prayer, discussion, and reflection, Parish Council has arrived at our mission statement: "Reveal Jesus, Encounter Christ, Live His Word" Here is what we mean by each part: Reveal Jesus:   this answers the question, “Who is Jesus?” This can be symbolized by the head: learning, understanding, seeing Jesus clearly. Who is Jesus and what is the life he invites us into? This is about learning the story of Jesus and the kingdom that he brings to us. It's about the head and the imagination bei...

Matthew 22: 15-22 Our gospel reading begins with the Pharisees plotting how to “entangle [Jesus] in his words”. So, they come up with a very clever trap that forces him into a binary: either he picks option A and there are undesirable consequences, or he picks B and there are undesirable consequences. Picking either A or B is going to be undesirable. The Pharisees are no friends of the Herodians, but since Jesus is a common enemy to both, they found a way to work together. So representatives of both groups come to Jesus with a trick question. The Herodians were a faction at the time that was loyal to King Herod, and they wanted to play nice with Rome. King Herod embarked on numerous impressive building projects, which included building cities for the pagan population living in the area. Herod even erected a golden eagle at the entrance of the temple, which was a symbol of Rome’s dominion. He also spent lavishly on gifts for Roman officials. The Herodians embraced this as the practical ...

I have many clergy colleagues who are making their voices known regarding Alberta politics at the moment. They have good reasons for doing so. It seems to me that you either say nothing, or you say quite a bit.   After talking with our church corporation, we have decided that we're not going to say anything publicly about the Alberta referendum at St. Leonard's. There are a number of reasons for this. 1. We haven't had anyone contact the church asking the church to say something because they don't know what to do. What we have had are people contacting the church asking the church to send out resources that they are sending us. 2. The bishops of Calgary, Edmonton, and Athabasca have written a joint letter. I checked with our bishop and this is optional to share with our congregations.  So, the letter from the bishops was recommended to us as something we might choose to share, but not something we were told we were required to share.  With all due respect...

  Deuteronomy 8: 7-18; Psalm 65; 2 Corinthians 9: 6-15; Luke 17: 11-19 There's a modern type of psychology that is sometimes called Positive Psychology. When you go to a psychologist generally you go because you are treating a problem of some kind, and so you'll go to a psychologist to help you with your anxiety, or your depression, or grief, or a trauma you've experienced. Positive Psychology differs from the usual approach in that it tries to look at how to develop and maintain a healthy psychological state. So it's not looking at the problem as much as it's looking at creating general psychological health. One aspect of Positive Psychology has to do with learning to grow in gratitude. These psychologists have found that learning to be grateful reduces negative emotion and improves life satisfaction. They recommend practices such as gratitude journaling, listing things that you're grateful for, and writing letters to people you're grateful for. The neurosc...

Exodus 20:1-20 Today I would like to take a look at the Ten Commandments because it's such a famous part of the Exodus story. I thought that maybe what I would do is to go through these commandments and just say a little bit about each one. Just as an overview, the Ten Commandments are a part of the larger set of laws that were given as a part of the covenant with Israel. So why look at these particular commands and make them stand out from the rest? One reason is that Jesus actually pointed to these when a wealthy man came to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" And Jesus replies by listing the 10 commandments. So, if Jesus pointed to these, then they are obviously worth our attention. They seem to have been understood as a kind of summation of the law. Another reason we might pay attention to these is because from early times the church was trying to figure out how the laws applied in the New Covenant. For Jewish Christians, most ...