SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 7:1-10 At 5pm on the last Sunday of August 2003 Tim, Alex, Rob and I stepped off a Boeing 737 at Grand Rapids International Airport, visas in our hands, disorientation in our brains, butterflies in our stomachs, but adventure in our hearts. At that moment we became the newest immigrants to this country. Just the latest names in a roll call that stretches back 400 years and across every tribe and nation. Like the countless millions before us we landed with hopes and fears, intrigue and suspicion, excitement and apprehension.

At the apex of my mountain of concerns was the sobering fact that I did not know where we were staying that night. We would be met by a church member who would take us to our accommodation 50 miles away in the small town of Fremont – the community that would be home for the next seven years. At the summit of my boys' peak of anxieties was what would happen the next day. The first day of school. I said it was 5pm, but add the five hours difference between time zones, it was really 10pm for my mountaineers and it would take another three hours to drive to Fremont, become briefly acquainted with our home, and get to bed. Of course, they needn't have worried about the next day; partly because this small Midwestern town found the unexpected arrival of three boys with Harry Potter accents exotic beyond belief. Another reason they needn't have feared the heights of this adventure was the seismic difference in school culture. Compared to what they were familiar with in the UK, Fremont Public Schools were gentle and egalitarian. More like strolling through the foothills than scaling lofty heights. In that first week we gazed dumbstruck as the Middle School Principal issued a 'Hey, Buddy' and a high five to a passing student. No uniform, no intimidation, no chasm between teachers and pupils. "Dad, this isn't school, it's a theme park. Yeah, Dad. How come we didn't move here years ago?"

I soon learned that the... (Read the full Sermon here: Mountain Due )

TRINITY SUNDAY 2016 PSALM 90:1-7, 10, 12 It's your funeral. All of us – your friends and family, are gathered here, we've taken our seats, sung your best loved hymn, read your favorite Bible passage, and now the priest is about to preach. And by the way, the priest isn't me – it's my successor or even his or her successor, because I will have retired long before you die. And being a person of the Gospel the priest wants to preach about the hope of the resurrection. But, being a pastorally sensitive person he or she also wants to make it personal to your life. So, what do you want them to say about you? Three people were looking back over their long and eventful lives, and discussing exactly that question. One of them said, "At my funeral I want the priest to say, 'Here lies a woman who was a good wife, a loving mother, and a loyal friend.'" The next one said, "Well, at my funeral I want the pastor to say, 'The man we see before us today was a skilled worker, a respected professional, and an accomplished leader.'" And the third friend said, "At my funeral I want the preacher to say, 'Look! She's moving!'"

Today we are a week after Pentecost. Last Sunday's festival is the final church holiday until the start of Advent on the 27th of November. We now enter what is called Ordinary Time – six months of ordinariness. Next week the vestments and hangings will go green for the summer and autumn. Pentecost is over, the wind has died down, the tongues are stilled, the fire is out. What now? Six months of ordinariness? What is left when the fire has consumed its fuel? What remains when the flame has devoured its prey? What is there to cling onto when the house of our lives is gutted and smoldering. "O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing. Oh let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming." Dust and ashes. Is that our post-Pentecost legacy? The cremains of our pride, our sin, our lusts; our securities, our ambitions, our dreams?

Today is one of the very rare occasions when I (Read the full Sermon here: The Potato Salad Moment )

PENTECOST 2016 ACTS 2:1-21 As I reached the end of Harvey Taylor Bridge, I slowed down, and prepared to turn sharp left to continue my ride through Riverfront Park on Front Street. Each May when I cycle this route I begin to get nervous at this point of my ride. You see, THEY are there. And they mean trouble. Like a gang of muggers sizing up passers-by, they stand as tall as they can, with necks stretched high, and heads scanning every direction. Aggression bristling, testosterone peaking, they challenge you to get too close, they dare you to look them in the eye and face the consequences. But last week, as I rode this familiar route for the first time this year, there was an eerie and unexpected peace about them. They were there - in numbers - as every May, but they were chilling, like the cool spring afternoon. They didn't stare intimidatingly at me and certainly did not hiss as I swept by, trying to mind my own business. There was a strange truce between man and goose. It made me wonder what has gone wrong this May. Has this cool, damp month delayed their egg-laying timeline? Are we still over a month away from adorable fluffy goslings waddling around the cycle path? Or is it my faulty human brain that is in error, maybe I'm too early in my expectations, rather than the geese too late.

I often think about geese on the day of Pentecost. It's a British thing. Our ancient Celtic Christian ancestors revered the goose as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It's a bit of a shock to learn this, given that the dove has been the church's bird symbol of choice when it comes to the Third Person of the Trinity. But, if you let the goose nest in your mind, brood in your imagination, it will revolutionize your expectation of God's presence in your life. You'll never look at God or yourself in the same way again. If the bird of Pentecost is not so much the tame, fragile dove – a creature of serene beauty and rare peace, but instead is a wild, passionate, uncontrollable bird – a pioneer, a creator, an adventurer, then what does that mean for us as we open our lives to God's Spirit this Day of Pentecost?

Certainly, that day we read about in the lesson from Acts just now was wild and uncontrollable. Imagine you are a witness of this event. You are a (Read the full Sermon here: Wild Goose Chase)

SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 ACTS 16:16-34 Three years ago when I toured California with my son Rob, we drove one Sunday afternoon through King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. We were leaving this stunning cathedral of natural beauty, heading down a steep hill, through the woods, when my eye was caught by a sign at the side of the road, so small I almost missed it. And it filled me with fear. 'San Andreas Fault' it read, and just to prove it there was an arrow pointing to a line, beneath which lay this subterranean cause of my anxiety. My initial reaction was to inhale sharply and hold my breath, fearing that exhaling would destroy California. I wanted to slam on the breaks, stop the engine, and tell Rob to get out. Then I imagined one of us lifting the front of the rental car and the other raising the rear and tiptoeing ever so silently over the Fault line in case we disturbed a continental plate and unleashed carnage. It was only a Fiat 500, so it wasn't out of the question. Instead I screamed, "Rob. The San Andreas Fault!" And he said, "What's that?" And I shouted, "The Big One. What good is a wasted youth spent watching movies when you have never even heard of The Big One – it's coming."

Earthquakes are never good. At best you lose your house, at worst you lose your life. Earthquakes strike where they will, with no reason, meaning or purpose. Plates randomly shift, continents bump together or move apart, and nations are devastated. When the earth quakes we remember that we are but dust; in fact, less like dust and more akin to ants busily going about our ant business, scurrying around our nest, doing ant things, focused on ant concerns, living like ant people. And then a curious child exploring the woods, kicks our community home or beats it with a stick just to see what will happen.

When the earth quakes people die. And so there he stands, contemplating his death, staring at (Read the full Sermon here: Unchained Melody)

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 13:31-35 Sometimes it's good to be me. When I remember that my country's general election campaigns last just three weeks, it is good to be me. When I recall that my head of state just turned 90 without ever having asked for a single vote from anyone in her entire life, it's good to be me. But it is also good to be me because I am living in this country. So, I am allowed, and even expected, to drop pointless letters from words like the 'u' in honour, colour and saviour; and I can even evict entire syllables that are deemed just too much effort to bother with, like the fourth syllable of alluminium, and, of course, the second syllable of squirrel (it's a small gray creature that lives in trees). It is good to be me because I can talk as if the letter 'r' at the end of a word isn't really there and people think it's kind of cute instead of just normal. It is also good to be me because people then think I'm from Boston and buy me a lager.

It is good to be me when people bow and scrape and give me reverential titles and assume I am a holy, wise, and excellent person just because I wear a white piece of plastic instead of a tie. It's good to be me when members of Mt Calvary take me out to dinner. And they do. Or at least, they did until last Friday when a couple took me to a restaurant very close to this building, but after I tell this story no one will take me anywhere ever again. You see, Friday night in that establishment happens to be belly dancing night. Now this isn't belly dancing on a stage or even in the center of a large room, where people can turn their chairs and unself-consciously enjoy the show or choose to ignore it as they wish. This is more like a personal service. The dancer gyrates her way over to each individual table and does her thing, about a foot from side of the table. The side of the table on which I happened to be seated. So, picture this, I'm staring as hard as I can, with every fiber of my concentration across the table into the eyes of the people opposite me, and the dancer is like just here. And they're staring right back at me. And I know that if I glance to my right for just a Nano-second my life here is over. I'm having to resign. Camp Hill. You can't get a drink, but you can have someone's belly button jiggled in your face.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you blush at belly dancing. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you.... (Read the full Sermon here: A Bellyful of Dancing )

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 ACTS 9:36-43When Gazelle died she took with her the dreams of her church, the hopes of her people, the security of those who needed her. She was a holy, good woman. Like the ever-watchful, fleet-footed animal whose name she bore, Gazelle was always on the lookout. She searched for God’s beloved women and men who were experiencing hardship. When she discovered one she gave, and she loved, and she demonstrated the compassion of the Jesus she followed. She was also a skilled worker – a tailor and seamstress. She created garments and gave them away to those who had need. The community she called home revered her as a saint. Without her many on the margins would have been bereft of the resources they needed for sustainable life. “Gazelle, live up to your name.” And she did. With that name we can imagine her. Graceful, nimble, gentle. With that name we imagine her a self-effacing servant, not wishing to be the object of people’s gaze. With that name we fear she is too fragile for this world, too vulnerable for a fallen creation where predators stalk the meek at will, too precious a prey whose untimely death would surely strike. History does not record how she met with that death or what illness snatched her from her people, but we know it was not her time. This was a tragic loss, a waste of a good person, a death that would shake the pillars of faith that were the foundation of her church.

And there she lies – Gazelle, in our language. Tabitha in Hebrew, Dorcas in Greek. We read it in this morning’s lesson from Acts 9. There rests her corpse; there kneel the widows – the recipients of her loving service – wailing; there huddle the leaders of the church wondering how they are going to care for the people in their devastation, and here, here comes Peter. Why? He was sent for by the Christians in that little church in Joppa. What for? No one really knows. Why do you need a reason when Gazelle is dead. Maybe they thought he would say some comforting words, perhaps he would come up with a plan for how Gazelle’s mission to the poor could bound forward despite her gaping absence. Probably because the leader of the apostles should know, and should come, and should honor the death of this saint. So there he is standing on holy ground. One foot in the grave, the other on the hard wood of an attic floor.

Read the full Sermon here: Walk the Line

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 21:1-19When Nicky Cusack was diagnosed with cancer her world was shaken so violently that she could not tell if she was standing on the floor or the ceiling. 2009, her year of confusion, spun her upside-down before it had hardly begun. In January she was savaged by a pack of six stray dogs. She was recovering from her injuries when life doubled-down on her disorientation and she received her dizzying diagnosis. What do you do when you wake up and don’t know where you are? When they take the blind-fold off you and you don’t recognize anything or anyone? Where do you go when your head is spinning so fast you don’t know up from down? When the rules have changed, when the goalposts have moved, when you aren’t even sure you’re still in the same stadium; when the old pillars of certainty have crumbled to dust?

Aged 46, a divorced mother of four, and working for minimum wages at Asda, the name Walmart goes by in the UK, Nicky did the only thing you can do when the room is spinning. She clung onto to something that was not moving - her kids and her job. But a savaging by dogs and a ravaging by cancer were not the only blows to leave

Nicky dazed and confused in 2009. A more perplexing event awaited her. It was during her long period of treatment. Despite her illness she still (Read the full Sermon here: The Elephant on the Beach )

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 20:19-35It goes by the clumsy name of reputation rehabilitation, and it is one of the fastest growing sectors of the communications industry. A reputation rehabilitation manager is where you turn when your good name has been besmirched on the Internet. So, say you are researching your family tree and you discover that your great-great-great-uncle Billy had been executed for murder in the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison. You would hire a reputation rehabilitation manager, who would make Acid Bath Billy look like a choirboy. And then, when you go to your family reunions you could mention dear old sweet, harmless Billy, and make the whole clan feel proud to be descended from such a fine and upstanding pillar of the community. "Uncle Billy”, you would say, “occupied the chair of applied electronics at one of our nation's leading institutions. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a great shock.” Just imagine how different history would be if they had had reputation rehabilitation managers in earlier times. William the Conqueror would now be known as William the Negotiator, Vlad the Impaler would be Vlad the Heart Surgeon, and Ivan the Terrible might be Ivan the Greatly Misunderstood.

And this morning we read about a man who could certainly use his reputation being rehabilitated. A man who has received the bummest of bum raps. Thomas. AKA ‘Doubting Thomas’. So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if I could speak in defense of the accused, let me suggest some other nicknames for the man who begins today’s Gospel lesson by being somewhere else when the Risen Jesus shows up. Ten of the Eleven are together inside a locked room. They are cowering in fear. Now, let’s just make sure we have grasped that. Ten of the apostles are hiding, like men who have lost hope and lost courage, and Thomas isn’t one of them. We don’t know where he is, but it isn’t trembling in a locked room, terrified of being arrested for consorting with Jesus. For all we know, Thomas is courageously striding around Jerusalem, visiting the market, going to the Temple, flouting the conventional wisdom that advises him to keephis head down. This isn’t Doubting Thomas, it’s Flouting Thomas. Ignoring the smart advice, the safe option, the easy road of hiding.

My next piece of evidence.... (Read the full Sermon here: Sprouting Thomas )

EASTER DAY 2016 LUKE 24:1-12As every parent, law enforcement officer, and township employee knows there are two ways to make people clean up after themselves. You can be the bad cop. You can nag, organize a guilt trip, make blood curdling threats of fines, time-outs, or even jail. Or you can be the good cop, and encourage responsible behavior by positive reinforcement. Well, a few years ago a city in the Netherlands went full good cop in an effort to tackle their litter problem. Down came the threatening signs warning of fines for litter louts, and in came new bins. Bins with a difference. Bins that would make it worthwhile to drop your empty chip packets into them. The bins did not give out money if that is what you’re thinking, materialists. No, these bins were programed to tell jokes. Inside each trash can was a little device that would play pre-recorded funnies every time a piece of garbage was deposited. And it worked. The litter problem was solved overnight. Now these bins were color coded according to different types of joke. So, say you have a sweet wrapper and there are three bins in the street; if you are in the mood for a knock knock joke, you could drop your trash in the green bin. If you fancy a doctor doctor joke you’d place it in the red bin. And if for some twisted reason you are interested in knowing what happened when an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman went into a pub then the Union Jack colored bin is for you. I think this could work here. If a presidential candidate promised this I’d vote for them.

Joking with Junk. Laughing at litter. Giggling at garbage. Sounds easy, feels hard. How do you laugh at the garbage of life – the junk that messes up not our streets but our heads, the trash that makes us cry, that pierces our souls, that breaks our hearts? I know a young man who does just that. He giggles at the garbage of life, and at one piece of waste, in particular. Death. He’s able to laugh at this piece of rubbish, our final enemy, as Paul puts it in today’s epistle lesson, because he has looked fully and intently into its eyes; he’s contemplated its chilling touch, and it has changed him. He knows that one he will die, hopefully not for several decades yet, but between now and then helives with the Easter faith. Christ is risen, and he will follow one day.

There’s a place in creation we dare not visit unless... (Read the full Sermon here: Easter - Trash Talk )

MAUNDY THURSDAY 2016 JOHN 15:1-8When he takes a knife to you, it hurts. When the blade slices through your limbs you bleed. You would scream if you could, but you can’t. A voice is one more thing that God has denied you. And so you stand, broken, butchered, savaged.Your attachments lie scattered around you, victims of the pruning. There is that relationship. You know it was doing you no good, you understand it was stunting your growth, you are aware it was making you bitter, small-minded,petty, resentful. But it gave you some solace on cold evenings, some comfort when lonely.

There is that object of beauty, that trinket of desire. How you saved for it, sacrificed for it, denied yourself for it. Just to possess it for a while, to breathe in its aroma, to caress its softness, to wallow in its luxury. You know it was getting uppity, forgetting who was in charge, losing sight of who it was and where it came from. Truth be told, it was starting to possess you, instead of the other way round, beginning to be your master, not your servant; your creator, not your creature; your god, not his gift. Instead of it being your object you were becoming its subject. And there, scattered around this valley of brokenness, randomly littering the hillside, lie your health, your freedom, your mobility, your financial independence, your vigor, your opportunities.

Once, it seems like yesterday, they were.... (Read the full Sermon here: Maunday Thursday - Vineyard Carnage )