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Posts from the ‘Hope’ Category

Mar 16

24 Comments

A Relentless Divine Reach

In light of what’s going on in Japan, the theological controversies dominating the headlines these days can seem fairly trivial (to put it mildly), but I did want to post an intriguing quote from William Willimon’s Why Jesus? I’m not terribly interested in the question of whether or not Rob Bell believes in a hot (or long) enough hell to satisfy the demands of this or that understanding of orthodoxy, but I am, and have always been, very interested in (and dependent upon) the “relentless divine reach” of Jesus: Read more

Mar 9

5 Comments

I Will Wait

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, the day when ashes are placed on foreheads, and the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” are proclaimed. For whatever reason, throughout my life, I have rarely needed this reminder. Read more

Mar 5

16 Comments

People of Joy

Around here, the first Sunday of each month is when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. As is always the case, tomorrow’s service will take place in the context of real lives affected by loss, uncertainty, pain, and misfortune. But we will be reminded again tomorrow that the brokenness of our lives and our world is never the whole story. In my preparatory reading this week, I came across this passage from Gordon Smith’s A Holy Meal that reminds us that in the midst, the Eucharist establishes us as people of joy: Read more

Feb 25

17 Comments

Evil Will Have Nothing to Say

Two of my projects this week have been working on an article on suffering and the sovereignty of God, and preparing a class for this Sunday on the varieties of approaches to the problem of evil. Consequently, I’ve been raiding the bookshelf over the last few weeks in order to reacquaint myself with some of the authors and ideas that I leaned on more heavily during my university and grad school days. Read more

Feb 17

23 Comments

By Faith

I’ve been reflecting this week on some of the discussions on this blog over the last little while, along with some of the content I am teaching at church this month (a kind of “Big Questions” series), and life and faith in general. This morning, Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 5:7 are resounding in my head: “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” Read more

Feb 8

9 Comments

Kindness

I’ve posted enthusiastically about the work of Canadian singer/songwriter Steve Bell a number of times over the last few years (here and here, for example).  His music has long been a refuge for me, in many ways.  So today was a happy day as I was able to finally get my hands on his new album, Kindness.  I’ve just finished a first listen and it is fantastic, as usual, both musically and lyrically.  There are a number of contributors to this album (including the title track, written by none other than Brian McLaren), but overall the sound is delightfully familiar. Read more

Feb 7

15 Comments

Compensation and Promise

From the “interesting things I’ve come across over the last week or so but haven’t had time to post about” file, comes Vancouver Sun religion columnist Douglas Todd’s latest piece on the increasing polarization of religion in Canada. The sociological data is in, and apparently we Canadians (and West Coasters, in particular) are increasingly abandoning the “ambivalent middle” when it comes to questions of faith. Whether it’s the existence of God or the nature of religious observance, we’re either really for it or really against it. Read more

Jan 28

12 Comments

The Painfully Examined Life

A short article from The Economist has me thinking about thinking this morning. The article offers a brief review on James Miller’s Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche, and asks the question, “Can philosophy inspire a way of life?” The answer, at least in the book, seems to be, “not really.” Read more

Jan 23

6 Comments

Rich Toward God

Our text for the sermon in church this morning was Luke 12:13-21 (“The Parable of the Rich Fool”). One of the verses in this passage has me thinking this evening. In verse 21, after condemning as folly a life of hoarding possessions, Jesus offers a typically elusive phrase: “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” So what does it mean to be “rich toward God?” Read more

Jan 19

32 Comments

Thank God for the Light

Last Thursday afternoon was an afternoon like many others, for me. The workday was winding down; I was cleaning up a few loose ends before heading home to take my daughter to the pool for swim club. In many ways, it had been a good afternoon—nice and quiet, mostly uninterrupted, and ideal for sermon writing and reflection. Read more

Jan 11

13 Comments

The Church, It is a-Changing

At any given time, I have between 25-30 unpublished, half/barely-started posts or links to interesting articles occupying space in my “drafts” folder. Needless to say, things can get buried pretty easily, so I try to periodically root through this folder to see what I once thought was interesting/worth posting on, and to determine what might need to see the light of day (or be consigned to the cyber-scrap heap!). Read more

Jan 6

3 Comments

A Link… and a Quote

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my post “Pockets” has been featured this month over at High Calling’s “Around the Network.”  It’s always nice to be recognized—especially in the context of writers and thinkers whose work you respect and admire.  Be sure to check out some of the other posts that are highlighted as well.  I’ve only made it through a few so far this morning, but I have thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated each contribution I have read. Read more

Jan 2

6 Comments

A Subtle Mercy

Yesterday was a quiet day at home and my wife was doing some sorting and cleaning around the house.  Around mid-afternoon, she emerged from one room with a large stack of papers and presented them to me with a little smile on her face.  I looked at the first page on the stack and knew why she was smiling.  The pile of paper was a prayer journal that I had kept during my mid twenties.  During this apparently pious (and prolific!) period of my life, I journaled nearly every day, filling a number of thick notebooks with my religious musings, longings, entreaties, and expressions of thanks. Read more

Dec 27

8 Comments

Faith is Patience

So Advent has come and gone and with it, the liturgical theme of “waiting” for God. Every year, we rehearse the story, we light the candles, we read the Scriptures, and we wait for the Christ child. Every year, we are told, Jesus comes to us anew. Every year, our waiting ends on Christmas day only to begin again next year. Waiting, it sometimes seems, is endless. Read more

Dec 24

2 Comments

Hope Goes On

I came across this image today and couldn’t resist posting it.

There are probably a number of ways of interpreting it on this Christmas Eve, 2010. Does it portray the decreasing relevance of Christmas in a mostly secular culture? The slow demise of the hope and faith of the season into a sea of nihilistic postmodern despair? The long overdue demise of  the confused mixture of pagan and Christian imagery so prominent in our culture this time of year? Some combination of the above? Read more

Dec 17

1 Comment

The Risk of Birth

This poem came through the inbox today and I thought it was too good not to share. In a season where the words that fill our days are so often kitschy and sales-pitchy, it is refreshing to come across better ones—words that are simple, beautiful, and true. Read more

Dec 9

15 Comments

Pockets

Once a month or so, a few of us head over to the local Presbyterian church to help out with their weekly community lunch. Every week, this church opens its doors to the community for soup, sandwiches, conversation, or just a chance to get out of the rain. The church is located right beside a high school, so they get a lot of high school students, but they also get a small contingent of folks who don’t have a whole lot and could use a hot meal. Read more

Nov 25

11 Comments

Optimism vs. Hope

This week I have the happy task of preparing a sermon on the very seasonally appropriate theme of hope. “Hope” is one of those words that is overused, abused, and reduced to marketing slogans or political campaigning, but which is nonetheless a vitally important word to retain. In my reading, I continue to make my through Miroslav Volf’s Against the Tide and was intrigued to come across his distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism, according to Volf, is based on “extrapolative cause and effect thinking” whereby we “draw conclusions about the future on the basis of experience with the past and the present.” Hope, on the other hand, is based not on situation-dependent possibilities or predictive accuracy, but on the character and trustworthiness of God. Read more

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