September 6, 2026

Last week we heard Psalm 137 which is written from the time of the Babylonian exile. Well the Book of Ezekiel is also set during the Babylonian exile (Ezekiel 1:1), after the fall of Jerusalem at the beginning of the sixth century BCE. Ezekiel, a priest, is among those exiled and is commissioned by God as a prophet to the demoralized people of Israel.

His message initially centres on God's judgment against Israel's idolatry and injustice, interpreting the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple as divine judgment carried out through the Babylonian armies (Ezek 7-10; 21). Yet Ezekiel’s message does not end in judgment: God has not abandoned his people.

August 30, 2026

Mosquitos! Yes, they may be a reliable source of food for birds, bats, dragonflies and frogs in the chain of life, but they are also vectors for deadly disease, especially malaria. 

So why am I considering mosquitoes as one our “inventions of summer?”  

Because life is sometimes hard and we are living in troubling times and mosquitoes, with their annoying ways, can teach us something about praying through hard times. 

Janice MacLean writes’ “We’re talking about the hard times that come to each of us as part of being human with soft bodies in a hard world. We get bad news. We struggle with disappointments or anxiety or fear. We grieve the loss of loved ones or dreams, or the best job ever, or a friend who moves away, physically or emotionally.

August 23, 2026

Today is the fifth Sunday in our summer series called Inventions of Summer. The series was put together by Janice MacLean and distributed by the United the Church of Canada. It supplied some wonderful beginning thoughts, ideas, themes, scripture lessons and many of the prayers shared in worship. Rev. Chris, Rev. Gaylyn and I are indebted to the church for this wonderful gift of creativity. The theme for today is string beans. When I think of string beans, what comes to mind is what some called pole beans but I in reality beans that grow on a low bush or those that climb a trellis are both string beans. String beans have a long history in Canada. Among the Haudenosaunee nations string beans were considered to be one of the three sisters. The three sisters were three crops that were planted together, squash, corn, and beans. The beans were encouraged to grow on the stocks of the corn and the string beans gave nitrogen to the soil. The squash with it’s prickly leaves gave protection and ground cover to shade the earth and lock in the moisture. One helping the other. In such a way that all the plants were helped to stretch toward the light.

August 9, 2026

I’ve never been much of a gardener, so I always get a little nervous speaking from a place of ignorance, when Jesus talks about growing plants.  But it’s not just ignorance, there’s wonder there too, as a child I didn’t understand how God could fold something the size of a watermelon into such a small seed.  Or mustard plants.  Or fig trees.  I know Jesus uses these images because they were ordinary, not requiring huge leaps in his listeners’ imagination, but what I wouldn’t give for Jesus to use what I know, maybe talk about Marvel movies?  Poet Mary Oliver revelled in what she knew, these images more prevalent in these summer months, the creations or inventions of summer.  Loving the seeds and growing things thriving when the sun is high in the sky, she captured the power of this season in her poem The Summer Day

August 2, 2026

It’s always easier to yearn for a time other than the one you find yourself in.

I grew up in the era of playing outside until the streetlights came on.  It was almost magic how the day faded away unnoticed, with gathered gratitude better seen with the sun no longer there.   But it wasn’t night.  Not yet anyway, as dusk’s lingering light allowed for as much joy as we could squeeze out of little moments.  Then before we were called inside, if we were paying attention, light would return as the unnoticed fireflies used their lights to find each other.

July 26, 2026

I’m grateful for Rev. Tim Graham who led our first three shared summer services, and how last week’s message so beautifully dovetails into where I’d like to start this week.  Tim spoke about The Last Lecture, based on the work of Randy Pausch, who while reflecting on his own mortality pondered what it means for us to live a meaningful life.  It’s not unique to Tim’s retirement, but all of us face our ever diminishing resource of time. 

June 21, 2026

Happy Father’s Day to many of you gathered here or online who are fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfather’s, stepdads or mentors of young people who turn to you like a father.

For many this day is one to celebrate, for some it is a painful reminder perhaps of fathers who were not loving and supportive, or in some cases abusive. For some it is a reminder of father’s who are no longer with us. It is a day that can bring mixed emotions so before I begin I just wanted to acknowledge that.

June 14, 2026

I was talking with Dennis Dechart last week and he was telling me stories about how hard it was to get rid of a weed call sow thistle that has appeared in the community garden behind the church and then later that same week Chris Robinson and some folk from the property committee we’re struggling to get the Buckthorn trees out of the backyard here. Man there seems to be a goodly number of plants out there that disrupt what we want to see in our gardens and lawns. And getting rid of them is easier said than done!

June 7,2026

The Genesis reading is beautiful poetry about the relationship between God and all things that are in creation. Yet this beautiful poetry has been abused and used in the many attacks that Christians have made against the 2S LGBTQ A+ community. Christians have pointed out, see right there in the scriptures, God made them, male and female, for the explicit reason to reproduce. There’s no doubt about it that plants and animals need to be reproduce for a species to survive, but that doesn’t mean that every single plant or animal needs to be reproduce. A rose is just as beautiful regardless of whether it’s seeds ever find their way to the ground. ………….

May 31, 2026

Trinity Sunday comes early in the season of Pentecost for a very specific reason. After all Pentecost is a celebration of the work of the Holy Spirit. To help us understand the trinity I need to ask how many people here have heard of Unitarians? Well, it may surprise you, it certainly surprised me, to find out that Unitarians were part of the early Christian church. It was only during the time of the first councils that were debating what would be the official Christian theology that a split emerged. The Unitarians argued for God in the singular as an undivided entity. Universally identifying this God as God, the Father or Creator alone.

May 24, 2026

Hello my name is Katherine Bitzer, and I’m a member of Trinity United Church.  It is my absolute pleasure to be up here today to talk about Gifts into Action: the work of The Working Centre (TWC).  Some of you are very familiar with TWC, some are aware of its presence in our community, and some of you may be hearing about us for the very first time.  What I know is that even after being a part of The Working Centre for over 20 years, I still think to myself often enough, “oh, I didn’t know we did that!”  To start with a broad stroke: TWC is “a volunteer-inspired venture that seeks to give access to tools and opportunities to build community”.  …..

May 17, 2026

Based on Acts 1:6-14, 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

1 Peter 5:8-11 says:

“Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that other believers in all the world are going through the same kind of sufferings. But after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to share his eternal glory in union with Christ, will himself perfect you and give you firmness, strength and a sure foundation.”

May 10, 2026

One of the things that gets the apostle Paul into trouble is that he is quite arrogant about his faith. That sense of superiority tends to really annoy people of other faith. In this passage, it appears he has learned some lessons of the hard knock variety. What he has learned is to first take time to look at the culture, the art, and religious practices of Athens. If we are to be the most generous of our assessment of Paul at this time, we would say that he wasn’t looking for a weakness in the religion or culture but rather trying to understand some of their baseline metaphors.

May 3, 2026

We had two very powerful readings today. The first from the Act of the Apostles which is referred to as ‘the stoning of Stephen.’ But there is so much more going on in this passage than that horrible death. In it, we are hearing of the last days and death of Jesus directly mirrored in what happens to Stephen. 

In both cases, the actions of the leaders to attack Jesus or Stephen have more to do with jealousy than theology. It has much more to do with the fear of change than faith in God. ……………….

April 26, 2026

I want to thank the young people for their leadership all through the worship service and I’d like us to give them some feedback. I happen to really enjoy using American Sign Language when we are passed the peace with the shaking of hands. The passing of the peace by shaking of hands goes back before Covid. So I want to ask folks and this is not evaluation of one over the other, just, “how did it feel to have the young people begin the passing of the peace that gave you permission to shake the hands of others?

April 19, 2026

Last week I spoke about how those who gathered that first Pentecost morning were pilgrims. Pilgrims are by definition those who take time from the busyness of life to seek answers to the big questions in their lives. In some ways you could say that they are creating an emotional and spiritual crossroads. A dividing point where they aspire to be different. When they hear Peters witness about Jesus and know both in their head and heart that this is life changing truth. This is where they have truly hit that crossroads. We know they hit it because they ask,” what then shall we do?”

April 12, 2026

The reading this morning from Acts of the Apostles, which we will be following throughout the season of Easter is often read on Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is considered to be the birth of the church. It was the day when the Holy Spirit touched pilgrims that had gathered in Jerusalem from all the various corners of the known world. These were faithful Jews, that had returned to Jerusalem, the centre of their faith for the high holy days. 

Something that we forget, or perhaps like myself had not really thought about before was that these were not followers of Jesus. So let be clear their reason for being in Jerusalem was not Jesus. They were there on pilgrimage so that they might come closer to God.

April 5, 2026

Last week, I said that the last discipline in our Lenten, and now Easter journey was the discipline of learning how to die, so that we might live. It is no accident that the various disciplines that I have talked about in the season of Lent leads us to this day and this ultimate of all disciplines. Learning to die in a spiritual sense involves two things. The first is being open to the voice of God and secondly, in how we see the world after we have heard that voice.

March 29,2026

Through the season of Lent, I have been offering spiritual disciplines that deepens our connection with the Divine and with each other. These disciplines can come to us either on the mountain top or in the wilderness. As we enter, holy week, I offer two more disciplines. Out of our work on Good Friday and Easter is the discipline of preparing to die so that we might live but the discipline for today, that of Palm Sunday, is to learn to live so that we might never die.

Let’s begin with a Psalm lesson for today. In it, we hear a number of famous lines, probably because they are quoted in the New Testament, and that they seem to foreshadow the coming, not just of a king, but a person of such spiritual power or promises that the world is transformed. The psalm begins …