Going With the Grain—Matthew 21: 23-32 (September 27, 2020-17th Sunday after Pentecost) Have you ever used a hand planer on a piece of wood? Wood has a grain, or a direction in which it naturally grew when it was still part of a tree. If you plane in the direction of the grain it involves an easy gliding motion and your finished…
You are not alone. Come share the journey.
You are not alone. Come share the journey.
Sermons by Rev. Joe Gaspar
A lot of people have trouble with this parable. How did it strike you? I think for a lot of us this parable offends our sense of fairness. Why should everyone get equal pay for unequal work? It doesn’t make sense. This parable enters our hearts like cod liver oil or Buckley’s cough syrup— you know Jesus is right, you know it…
Faith Story-Rev. Joe Gaspar September 6, 2020 It’s my turn. It’s only fair that after a number of you shared your faith stories over the last two years that your Ministers would begin to share theirs. Going through the process this week of figuring out what I’m going to say has given me a renewed appreciation for everyone who has shared their…
Reflection—Matthew 16: 21-28 (August 30, 2020-13th Sunday after Pentecost) I wonder if those of you who are old enough remember the game show Let’s Make a Deal. Each Let’s Make a Deal began with the host, Monty Hall choosing a studio audience member at random to play a game against him. Although the games were always different, the usual pattern was that…
Hope in Pandemic Times—1 Peter 3: 13-17 May 17, 2020-6th Sunday of Easter Hope is a funny thing. What brings hope to one person can come across as threatening to someone else. Perhaps we’ve gotten a sense of this with some of the tentative steps that Ontario is taking to re-open and some of the bolder and some would say reckless steps…
Have you found yourself taking notice and appreciating things that only a few weeks ago we took for granted? Let me give one small example from my own life. We are a two vehicle household. Since I’m working from home and my wife has been laid off she’s been running the errands in the van, her vehicle. My car has sat idle.…
Seeing, Believing, Living-John 20: 19 & 24-31 April 19, 2020-2nd Sunday of Easter I think Heather and I have been like most people in the last few weeks, alternately cursing and giving thanks for technology. Tuesday mornings are a time of gratitude for us as we host our weekly Parkminster Connects ZOOM gatherings. We usually start with a reading and some questions…
Insistent Love—Matthew 21: 1-11 (April 5, 2020—Palm Sunday) We’re all scared, by things we never imagined could make us fearful; touching the bananas in the grocery store, the neighbour coming your way on the narrow sidewalk you share, the mail, a trip to the drug store. For some of us, the fear is entwined with livelihoods. For some of us simply going…
The Upside Down[1]—Matthew 5: 1-12 (March 29, 2020—5th Sunday in Lent) If you’re a fan of the Netflix series, “Stranger Things”, you know about a place called “the upside down”, the alternate reality where the rules of daily living no longer apply, where fear and confusion dominate and danger lurks, I was going to say “around every corner” but there are no…
Persistent Friend—John 4: 5-42 March 15, 2020- 3rd Sunday in Lent I am a lover of words. I love to play with words. I love the power that words have to to change our way of thinking about something ordinary or mundane. One of my favourite examples of this occured in the relationship between between the former Waterloo Presbytery and former Hamilton…