March 8, 2026

………. Moses and the Israelites, who followed him, were in a similar desert wilderness. They were propelled by the vision of the promised land but journeying in a place that offered a little in the ways of water or food. As they were journeying, they saw that their water supplies were dangerously low and they were afraid. It is therefore not strange to think that they were afraid and that they would take those fears to Moses. But this makes Moses afraid as well. So here they are in the desert and thirsty. This physical thirst for water gave them a thirst for reassurance that God was with them. A thirst for reassurance that God still loved them, and a thirst for reassurance that God still cared about them

March 1, 2026

Last week we heard in Genesis the story of creation as God created all the creatures of the earth and names them one by one. And then creates humans and places them together in the centre of that creation. In deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis the writer of the Gospel of John speaks of the word that brings light into the darkness.
He wrote: The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through God;... What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness: the darkness couldn't be put out. ……

Febrruary 22, 2026

Here we are in the season of Lent. A time traditionally that the church has set aside for adopting and practicing the kind of discipleship that prepares us to endure the pain of watching our beloved brother and Saviour being tortured and crucified on trumped up charges. It is a penitent time because there is an uneasy feeling within us that by actions and inactions, we are part of systems that continue to torture and crucify the innocent today. Now both scripture lessons are well known. The fall in the book of Genesis and the temptation of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. I would call these stories valley experiences, specifically the valley of despair. Maybe despair has something to teach us? Surely, these testing times offer us many avenues of spiritual discipleship?  The problem is that is not why they were written. Matthew’s purpose was to introduce us to Jesus and his faith journey, not ours. And the writers of Genesis actually placed the creation, not humanity at the centre of their story. So, to use these scripture stories for part of our journey requires more work on our part than we might have expected.

February 15, 2026

For those who are new to this community, you need to know that Forest Hill United and Trinity United are in a nesting relationship. That means that over the last almost 3 years we have been discerning whether or not we should amalgamate. Last month it was decided by both congregations that we would move forward on serious discussions on amalgamation. This means significant change for both congregations.

Now in the stories of Moses that we heard from Exodus and the story of Jesus that we heard in the gospel lesson there are a lot of commonalities beyond the fact that they both occur in a mountain. We should always take time to appreciate these commonalities because they are trying to teach us something about the nature of God, leadership, and change that is both individual and communal. And this is particularly true when it comes to a people who strive to get closer to God.

February 8, 2026

The gospel lesson today follows last week’s readings around the beatitudes and how blessed are those who frankly by the standards back then or of today don’t seem to be blessed at all. This week, Jesus picks up the theme, but makes it clear that blessing comes to those who don’t feel very blessed through the work of his followers. Jesus says to his disciples, and those who were listening as well that they are to be the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. This is a pretty high bar for anyone listening to Jesus to achieve. Jesus is talking to farmers and fishers and shepherds. People from those professions are often seen as unclean. Their very work made it hard to keep the kosher laws let alone striving to be the saviours of a hurting world. So, let’s break down what it is that Jesus is asking of the disciples.

February 1, 2026

At our Coffee & Conversation Fellowship time each Wednesday mornings here at the church or online Dennis always provides us with some interesting topics for discussion or reflection. Sometimes we do fun trivia games, or name that tune, other times we respond to different questions he provides for us. This past week it was on the timely subject of winter. Do you love it, or would you like to leave it? And what gets you through the winter? Some talked of kind neighbours who shoveled their sidewalks for them, others talked about the beauty of the glistening snow on a sunny day with brilliant blue skies. Others said they were running out of patience. Others liked to read, listen to music, do their exercise indoors or connect with friends and family. Winters can be hard, and for some depressing. And sometimes, we have to be intentional about coping through what sometimes feels like a long season before spring swings around again.

January 25, 2926

This week, the portrait takes a significant change. We have moved from what kind of leader will a servant of God be; to what will a servant of God do; and now to what is the ultimate purpose of that leadership and doing.

In both Isaiah and the gospel of Matthew, the authors, feel the need to ground the purpose in acknowledging from whence that purpose arises. For Isaiah, Israel is under threat by the Assyrian Empire. So, Isaiah who lives among the people of Israel is touched by the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty that oppresses all the people in times of conflict. Assyria has already chipped away at a couple of Israel’s northern provinces, whose names are, Zebulun and Naphtali. Darkness has fallen on them. ………

January 18, 2026

Last week, Isaiah helped us paint a portrait of the servant of God and how that servant would lead. This week the servant song paints a portrait that tells us about how servants of God are to be as disciples. And I use the word disciples intentionally as opposed to followers. Followers are ones who follow without question and often without thought. Whereas disciples are ones who listen, learn, debate, do and then disciple others.

January 11, 2026

If you see any artistic work in this building from before the nesting time, it was probably done by our resident graphic artists Linda and Sara Davis. They have a wonderful ability to take an idea or concept and make it a visual portrait. The prophet Isaiah is also an artist because he wants to paint a portrait for us of God’s holy servant. But instead of pallet of colors, Isaiah uses words. 

He did so in a series of word pictures which have become known as the Suffering Servant Songs. ……

January 4, 2026

We are still in the season of Christmas, so it is still appropriate and essential to ask who is this child born in a manger so long ago? The gospel of Mark doesn’t answer the question at all but only begins in his adulthood. The gospel of Matthew answers the question with a long list of Jesus’s lineage. Making the clear claim that Jesus is descendant from Abraham and Sarah through David and Bathsheba, and on all the way down to Joseph, his father. So, it would appear that Joseph is the father of this child. The gospel of Luke tells us who Jesus is by way of what others like angels and shepherds and magi say about the child.
But the gospel of John, which is the most deeply theological of the gospels goes in a very different direction. ……….

December 28, 2025

I wanted to find a commentary that seriously dealt with what is called “the slaughter of the innocence” which is the main subject of the gospel today. But a commentary that didn’t want to put the brakes on Christmas and carols. One that would acknowledge that the birth of Jesus from his first breath, has never done away with evil. And I found it. I want to read portions of a commentary written by the Rev. Dr. Melinda Quivik with my own commentary added in. 

December 21, 2025

There is a Czech theologian by the name of Jan Lochman. He frequently noted that both the communists of the east and the capitals of the west foster a one-dimensional view of reality. Truth is reduced only to facts that fit into the reigning economic system. So that ideals of production and consumption become the corresponding ways of measuring and controlling reality. We see this play out in Alberta and Ottawa, where the present economics of oil is pushed as having a greater value or the only thing of value even when compared to climate devastation. Anyone who challenges the superiority of the economics of oil is written off as a kookie radical who has lost touch with reality.

One of Christianity’s great gifts is that it can open our eyes and ears to a fuller awareness of reality that is not based on any single system economic, or theological.

December 14, 2025

In a recent gathering of local clergy with Regional Pastoral Support minister Laurie Stevenson we were guided through some Advent reflections including Joy that she symbolized as a candle in the window. Joy at Christmas, she said, is often misunderstood as constant cheerfulness yet Scripture tells a quieter truth: joy is something that comes in the morning, something that returns even after sorrow has had its time. 

That idea is based on Psalm 30:5 which says, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.“ In this verse we are reminded that seasons of sorrow and hardship are temporary, and God promises that hope, light, and lasting joy will eventually break through the darkness. It is fitting for our ongoing journey of waiting and preparing of advent toward the wonder and mystery of Christ’s birth and Christmas.

December 7, 2025

Right off the hop in this gospel lesson we hear the words, prison, and Christ, which is Greek for Messiah, in the same sentence. And I kept thinking, how can this lead us to peace? And it certainly doesn’t seem obvious. What seems to be obvious is that John the Baptist is actually very disappointed in Jesus. For example, he doesn’t appear to be handing Jesus the cup of his sadness, but rather the cup of doubt if Jesus is the one. John sounds kind of snippy. “Are you the one or should we be waiting for someone else?”
Jesus’ is response to John is to remind John about what is the work of the Messiah. Jesus says to John’s disciples tell him about what you have seen. That the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” What Jesus is saying is that’s the work of the Messiah. What Jesus hears in John’s question is not a question about healing or feeding or caring. What Jesus hears is John’s desire for power. John doesn’t need healing. John doesn’t need feeding. What John wants is power over King Herod so that he can be released from prison. 

November 30,2025

On the first Sunday of Advent, we light a candle representing ‘Hope’. We even encouraged people to tie one on for hope. But the scripture lessons would suggest that there is no hope or peace or joy and scant love in the world and I don’t see a baby making much difference. So, we have to step back, and appreciate that the first two Sundays of Advent are really about preparation. 

These Sundays challenge us to ask, how can we prepare for the birth of the Christ child in this chaos? This is an important question to ask at a time when as I said to the kids last week that our brains are on fire …..

November 23, 2025

Today is the last Sunday in a long series about how seeking a vision for what might be a new congregation and it is also Reign of Christ Sunday. These two things are related. They are related because just as Jesus is a very different kind of king, in a world that has known many kings. The church is called to be a very different organization, in a world that has known many organizations. So, if we look at why Jesus is such a different king, I think we begin to understand the kind of vision that the church ought to be about. 

November 9, 2025

On Remembrance Sunday, we remember how at the very beginning, when there is talk of war, the leaders fill the air with rhetoric of honor, glory, and the grandeur of victory. On street corners, in bars and gathering places, we sing out jubilant music of marching onto glory.

However, once the war begins and the casualties mount. The list of towns, villages, and cities that are being destroyed, and ravaged grows. In no time the attention of the masses is tuned to survival and the longing for peace again. Even the peace of surrender looks good. Next comes that movement of longing not for glory, but for those who have fought to come home. Please God let them come home alive. 

Then there is the call after the war to remember. Remember the sacrifice …….

November 2, 2025

Last week, I said that we Christians have a softer kinder perspective of first century, Jewish tax collectors, than those who were living back then and listening to Jesus’s stories. The story that we heard today is one of those that has made the difference. Now I was talking about this with Rev. Gaylyn and my desire to talk about humility as an essential part of seeking a vision to come out of the amalgamation workshops and discussion. She said it reminded her of a sermon that deeply touched her son Jacob. That sermon was by the late Rev. Timothy Keller. In that sermon, he uses one of his favorite metaphors, which emphasizes the dangers of you and me thinking that we know better than God, which he calls, ‘sitting in God’s chair.’

October 12, 2025

It is Thanksgiving weekend, and it is right and good that we should have communion on Thanksgiving weekend. I say that because in what’s called the Prayer of Thanksgiving and Consecration is an attitude of gratitude. There is thankfulness written right into the prayer at the very beginning. Remember the words, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” and the response from the congregation is, “It is right to give our thanks and praise.” Right there at the core of our most important sacrament is thankfulness to God.

The theologian the Rev. Dr. Margit Ernst Habib says these words of the sacrament are not as solemn as they may sound and tend to characterize not just some kind of lofty Sunday morning worship feeling, but every part of Christian living. That thankfulness ought to find its way into our mundane, ordinary, trivial and everyday life. So much so that we see it as our Christian duty to show ourselves as grateful to God with our whole life.

September 28, 2025

The topic this morning is listening to the call of God for correction. In each of the readings, we have today the psalm in the call to worship, the reading from the book of Jeremiah and the gospel of Luke reading, God calls to us. In Psalm two God wants to speak through Kings. In the Jeremiah reading God speaks through a prophet to the king. And in Luke God speaks to those who act like kings. Let’s break those down because in each there is a warning and a choice.

In Psalm 2, we hear that some kings are getting together and they think that they’re strong enough to break free of the bonds that God puts on them.