The weekly preaching ministry of Living Word Reformed Episcopal Church in Courtenay, British Columbia
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A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity 2 Corinthians 3:4-9 by William Klock Imagine you’re an Israelite at the time of the Exodus. Moses shows up and announces that the God of your ancestors—a God no one’s heard from in four hundred years—is going to deliver you from Pharoah’s slavery. Sounds pretty sketchy. But then God begins to act. He sends ten plagues on the Egyptians. He turns the Nile to blood. Wow! But then Pharoah’s magicians do the same thing. Okay…maybe not as impressive as it seemed at first. But as the plagues go on, they get more and more impressive and Pharaoh’s magicians
An Inheritance in Jesus Acts 8:26-40 by William Klock Have you ever had one of those occasions when you had an overwhelming sense that God was telling you to go to this or that place, to go talk to this or that person? On a few occasions I thought I was in the middle of one of those moments. One Sunday evening in Portland I was alone and on my way home from church and, driving down the street had this overwhelming sense—again, like God was telling me—go into that Burgerville restaurant. So I did. And except for the people working there—none of whom had any interest in talking to me beyond taki
The Temple Comes to Samaria Acts 8:4-25 by William Klock Remember back in Chapter 5, when Peter and John were arrested and brought before the priests and elders, and Gamaliel, one of the leading Pharisees, told his fellow council members: “Leave them alone. If what they’re doing is of human origin, it will come to ruin. But if it’s from God, you won’t be able to stop them. You might even be found to be fighting against God.” They let Peter and John go that day, but since then they haven’t been heeding Gamaliel’s advice. They stoned Stephen. And at the end of last week’s text Luke told us that
Telling the Story: Part 4 Acts 7:35-53 by William Klock Not very long ago I got into an online discussion with someone about evangelism. The people I was interacting with were telling me things like, “I don’t confront, I just plant seeds” and “We’re suppose to share the gospel, not tell the gospel” or “If people are getting mad at you, you’re doing it wrong” and “Jesus just loved people. He wasn’t confrontational”. I found myself wondering if these people read the same Bible I read. And I was thinking about that whole conversation off and on these last few weeks as I’ve been working through St
Telling the Story: Part 3 Acts 7:35-53 by William Klock “Made by hand.” When we see that, it usually means something good, doesn’t it? Someone careful hand crafted this thing. Carefully stitched it together. Put care into baking it. You can probably trust it, because it was well made. And, of course, it was made with love. But if we went all the way back to ancient Israel, “Made by hand” had a very different meaning and connotation. For us it (usually) signals something good; for them it signalled idolatry. “Made by hand” said that this thing was not made by God or that God had not commanded i
Telling the Story: Part 2 Acts 7:1-16 by William Klock When I was an American school kid in the 70s and 80s I learned that the defining events in the history of the United States were was the founding of Jamestown in 1607; the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620; and, of course, the Revolutionary War that began in 1775 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence—well—almost exactly 250 years ago. There were plenty of other events that shaped the story, but those were the events that set the United States on its trajectory: a heritage from Britain with a good dose of religious fr
Telling the Story: Part 1 Acts 7:1-16 by William Klock Last Sunday, in Acts 6, we saw Stephen confronted as he preached in the synagogue. We don’t know exactly what he was preaching, but from the accusations that were made against him, he was—of course—preaching that Jesus is the Messiah, but must also have been talking about the way in which Jesus and the Spirit fulfil God’s promises to Israel, the law and the prophets, the torah and the temple. We can surmise that, because what they accuse him of is saying blasphemous things against God in general and specifically against Moses. They accuse
The Face of an Angel Acts 6 by William Klock I hate doing administration stuff. I’m really glad that John handles our finances so well and makes sure all our bills get paid. I don’t like filling out annual parish reports and get annoyed when I have fill out one for ACNA and another for the REC. Why can’t they just ask the same questions and share the information? Our church register is stuffed with Post-It notes going back five or six years so I know what to enter in it whenever I eventually get around to sitting down to make all the entries for baptisms, deaths, weddings, membership, and all
But if it’s from God… Acts 5 by William Klock There was a package slip from Canada Post below the mail slot when I got here last Friday. I was kind of annoyed, because not only did I have no idea where the package was from, for some reason I had to go all the way over to the post office in Comox to pick it up. And when they handed it to me I was perplexed. The sender was just some distribution company. The box was large and heavy. A mystery. And when I got it home and opened it up, it was still a mystery. A boxed set of about fifteen books from a ministry called Be United in Christ. Nice looki
They Boldly Spoke the Word of God Acts 4 by William Klock Chapter and verse breaks in the Bible are not part of the original text. Chapter breaks were added about eight hundred years ago and verses about five hundred. There’s an old biblical studies urban legend that Robert Estienne, the French printer who published one of the early New Testaments with verse division, marked them out while riding on horseback from Paris to Lyon, explaining the often frustrating way they cut through thoughts and sentences. Chapter breaks can be just as annoying. I say this because last week we left off our stud
