St. Mary's Regina

(Modified 2021-07-04: Added audio recording)

So I think we can all agree that human beings are pretty messed-up.  I used to feel pretty smug about my identity markers.  I’m a girl – that’s definitely better than being a boy.  I’m Canadian, and that’s better than being American.  Like a lot of people I thought of us as America Lite, the kinder, politer version of America, with all the good things like democracy and human rights and diversity and much less of the bad stuff like prejudice and arrogance and hyper-nationalism.

And I was smug about having Christianity as my identity marker in terms of the world’s religions.  The worst thing people ever seemed to accuse us of was the Crusades, and since those ended 700 years ago I thought we were doing pretty well on the problematic waging-war-and-murdering-people-in-the-name-of-God front.

Feeling smug about your identity markers is mostly a young person’s game.  If we are not actively deluding ourselves, life soon disabuses us of our illusions about the rightness of our own tribe compared to everyone else.  Someone you trusted to tell the truth lies to you.  You find out an institution you belong to has been hurting people.  A political party you believe in gets caught up in a scandal, and won’t admit to being wrong.  The longer we live, the more times we are disillusioned by our tribe, and by our own behavior, the more we realize that all human beings are pretty messed up.  No one has a legitimate claim on virtue.

(Modified 2021-06-27: Added audio recording of sermon.)

St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Trinity 4, June 27.2021 Revd. Canon Claude Schroeder

Sermon on Mark 5. 21-43

“The moment is coming when, having done the ‘right’ thing all along, your round peg will not fit in the hole that’s next presented to you. The time is coming when you will be on the outside: a divorce, a bankruptcy, a felony, a betrayal, a cancer, an addiction, a death. Well, yes, death.” (Timothy Kimbrough)

I don’t think there is a person here doesn’t know what it’s like to find yourself on the outside, when the round peg that is your life doesn’t go into the square hole that is presented to you. Divorce, bankruptcy, crime, betrayal, cancer, and death, well yes death, sooner or later come calling.  

The sooner one realizes this, the better. “It is good”, writes the author of the Book of Lamentations,” for one to bear the yoke in youth, to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it, to put one’s mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope), to give one’s cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults.” (Lamentations 3. 27-30). It’s why if at all possible, you should try have your nervous breakdown early in life, in your youth, and learn what it means to place your hope in God. It will hold you in good stead for when things really get difficult later in life.

Our Gospel lesson for today from St. Mark tells the story of three people, whose round peg did not fit the square hole that had been presented to them. 

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Wedding of Derek and Li, June 19, 2021

Sermon John 2. 1-11. The Revd. Canon Claude Schroeder

“This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory; and his disciples believed in Him.” (John 2.11)

I guess that first thing that strikes us about our Gospel lesson today where at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, Jesus miraculously transformed something of the order of 180 gallons of water into wine, is that there was obviously no public health order in place forbidding the serving of beverages at religious ceremonies!

 “Wine”, according to the Scriptures, “makes glad the heart of man.” (Psalm 104.15). How natural that the wedding guests at Cana in Galilee were found to be drinking wine. Would you raise your glasses for a toast to the bride! Would you raise your glasses for a toast to the groom!

But then, as we heard, they ran out of wine. We all know what that means. When the wine runs out, the party is over, and it’s time to go home.

This for us is the real point of identification with our story today. These last 15 months of COVID the wine had been running out all over the place.  It’s been running out on our jobs, it’s been running out of on our friendships, it’s been running out on our marriages and families. When the wine runs out, the party is over, and it’s time to go home. And then, what? As many have been doing under COVID, we go and buy a puppy dog.

(Modified 2021-06-20: Added audio recording of sermon)

Third Sunday after Trinity, June 20, 2021. St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Regina. Nathaniel Athian Deng Mayen

Brothers and sisters, I submit to you a brief overview of the interpretation of suffering and loss of different kinds from Apostle Paul’s teaching before we can spend some time with the Gospel of Mark in some kind of Bible Study preaching. 

The greatest distortion to the gospel message comes from the ‘prosperity gospel’ preachers who teach a misguided view of Christianity that the individuals who have been blessed by or have faith in Christ do not (should not) suffer. In this context, God’s blessing for and faith of the believers are sold as some kind of commodity whose outcome is individual ‘happiness’, good health, and prosperity.