Love’s Bright Star

Epiphany is one of my favourite celebrations in the church year. I’m not sure why, I don’t remember any emphasis on it when I was growing up… although I overheard references to ‘Old Christmas’ when we lived close to my mother’s family in southern Manitoba in a community that was primarily German/Ukrainian and Mennonite. Maybe…

Jesus Came

This morning morning at ‘Breakfast With Jesus,’ our casual worship service around tables with food, I read Papa Panov’s Special Christmas, where an old man waits to see Jesus all day, and in the meantime, welcomes a variety of people into his home: feeds, clothes and shelters them. He was disappointed at the end of…

Sing a Song

I never had much time for Mary, the mother of Jesus, through most of my growing up years. Aside being trotted out, dressed in blue every Christmas, and I don’t I ever got to be Mary in a pageant, I don’t think I ever heard of her again all year. And the only thing that…

Mary Said Yes

Well, good morning everyone. My, what a fine gathering! Do you recognize me without my blue shawl? You know me as Mary, although I was more commonly called by my Jewish name, Miriam. And this is the kind of thing I wore most days, not the blue of royalty, although I am honored that I…

Weary Silence

I’m letting you know that towards the end of my sermon, there is going to be a time when I ask a question about what are the hopeful things that you see and experience in our church and in the world… and it’s not going to be a rhetorical question… I’m actually going to be…

Start Close In

It’s Remembrance Day next Saturday… A day set aside to remember all men, women and children who have died and who continue to die as a result of war. They lost their tomorrows… And we lost their tomorrows. The world lost and continues to lose the potential of so many people. Not just people living in this mostly safe country…

Leadership of the Saints?

This is a week where I have been heartily wishing that we hadn’t switched to the Narrative Lectionary! Even after doing A LOT of research, I was still wishing that. But part of the reason we made the decision to switch was so that we read passages like what you’re going to hear in a…

Unsettled

If things had gone according to six months of planning, I, along with 23 other United Church folks from across the country, would have landed in Tel Aviv this morning for a ‘Come and See’ Pilgrimage’ through Israel/Palestine. Along with feelings of relief and disappointment, and I recognize the privilege of those feelings, I have…