Rev Chris Roth

  Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11 The liturgical seasons generally reflect on the life of Jesus. During Lent we focus on Jesus fasting for 40 days in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry. In the early church, adults who were preparing to be baptized on Easter spent time in intense spiritual preparation. As they prepared for their new life as Christians, they would focus more intensely on disciplines like prayer, fasting, study, generosity, service, and renunciation of sin. … Christians (who were already baptized) realized that it was helpful to join those who were preparing for baptism at Easter, so they could re-dedicate themselves to Christ through a time of self-evaluation and spiritual discipline. This turned into the season of Lent. As Lent ends, at the Easter Vigil, a renewal of baptismal vows is a part of that service. We are blessed today to also have a baptism. So, as these baptismal vows are made over Zachary today, as we begin o...

Song of Songs 3:1-5 ; Psalm 2 ; Gal 4:21-31 ; Matthew 17:1-9 Today we finish our Epiphany sermon series that is based on questions that have come from our congregation. Today’s question is  “How do you choose which Bible passages are to be taken literally and which are spiritual?”  So sometimes passages of the Bible are to be read literally. For example, we would say that Jesus was an actual, literal, historical person. … The Prodigal Son from Jesus’ parable was not a literal person. He is a character in a story that Jesus tells, who symbolizes those who turn away from God. These examples are fairly obvious based on genre. But, there are some that aren’t so obvious. This can get to be a pretty complicated topic.   Let’s look at a few more examples. Our first reading today is from the Song of Songs , which is sometimes called the Song of Solomon. A famous Rabbi, Rabbi Akiva was once questioned by his students who were doubting the Song’s holiness. He gave a surprising...

Gen 1:24-31; Psalm 139:1-18; Rom 12:1-8; Matt 18:1-9 We are continuing our Epiphany sermon series based on questions that have come from our congregation. Today’s question is,  “Are we a pro-life church?” This question opens a number of different pathways that we can explore. This question touches both on abortion and on assisted suicide (or what is more commonly known as M.A.I.D.). And the question also asks about the church’s position, which might mean the Anglican Church of Canada or our particular church (St. Leonard’s). For the sake of time I’m going to focus on abortion (which is more connected to the phrase “pro-life”), though, there will be implications for how to think about assisted suicide. … I’m also going to focus on what I think the best Christian response is to this, rather than try to show where the Anglican Church of Canada stands. I am also not going to deal with pregnancy due to rape or incest which (combined) is about 1% of abortions. And I’m also not going...

Is 58:1-9; Ps 37:1-15; James 2:14-26; Lk 10:25-42 We are continuing our Epiphany sermon series today. We are dealing with questions that have come from our congregation and today’s question is,  “Why do so many people focus on themselves and their ‘relationship’ with God rather than on Jesus’ message to love others and to strive for equality/justice/etc? Where did things go wrong? Is it that humans are inherently selfish and that was the purpose of Jesus’ message, to try to counter that?” Maybe we can look at this through two extremes. This is a bit of a false dichotomy, but it can help is explore the issue a bit. On one extreme, we can focus on worship and ignore justice. That is what Isaiah is talking about in our reading today. The people are worshipping. They are fasting and praying, but they feel like God is not connecting with them. Through Isaiah, God points out that they are oppressing their workers, and quarrelling and fighting. Then He says,  “Is not this the fast ...

  Gen 15:1-6; Ps 110; Heb 6:13-20; John 2:13-22 We are continuing our Epiphany sermon series where we are dealing with questions that have been submitted by our congregation. Today’s question is:  “In Hebrews 6 there’s a verse about it being ‘impossible’ for God to lie about ‘these two things’- and I’m not sure- what are these ‘two things’?” We heard this part of Hebrews read today for us. We are looking specifically at Hebrews 6:17-18. The New International Version (NIV) says,  “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.”  We want to know what these two unchangeable things are. It might be helpful to start by saying something about the letter to the Hebrews, in general. … We don’t know w...

  Ezekiel 36:33-38; Ps 51; Rom 7:14-25; Luke 15:1-10 We are continuing our Epiphany sermon series which is based on your questions. The question today is:  “Why is it so hard to change or repent. I want to… I pray. I’ve had 2 pastors pray over me. But I just can’t stop doing this one thing even though I want to so badly?” To this person I want to first say that you are not alone. All of us find ourselves in this place from time to time. And sometimes we can be in this place for years. It is easy to feel alone when you are struggling like this, but you have a lot of company. Our Bible is full of examples of people struggling to follow the ways of God. Psalm 51 is said to be King David’s response when he is caught in sin. He was described in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart. And yet, David did some terrible things. Psalm 51 is said to be David’s response to being caught and his realization that God saw everything. … We are in good company when we find ourselves in need o...

  Bar 4:5-18; Ps 5; James 1:9-16; John 9:1-11 We are continuing our Epiphany sermon series based on questions that have been submitted by the congregation. The question we are dealing with today is: “I read in Baruch recently that he does say calamities come from God, I know you disagree with this, but do you think maybe they are done to test our faith?” This is a question about suffering. Where does suffering come from? What is God’s role in the midst of human suffering? There are different perspectives on this within the Bible. The prophets will often draw the connection between sin and suffering. If the king or the people are sinful, then they may face an invasion by a foreign army, or be dragged off into exile, or face a locust swarm that eats the crops. … We see this with Pharaoh. Pharaoh ignored God’s command to release the Hebrew people, and the plagues are inflicted on Egypt in response to Pharaoh’s sin. In Baruch (from the Apocrypha) we read,  “It was not for destruc...