Sermons
Want to check out what kinds of things are capturing our imagination lately? Take a look at some of our recent sermons. We hope you might encounter these as a mere starting-point. They are intended to plant seeds and begin conversation. Visit our "Blog" page to be part of where the conversation might lead...
Lament & Longing
October 2, 2016
I want to tell you a story about a potato, and egg and a few coffee beans…
[Hold up potato] This potato was dug up from Sarah’s uncle’s garden in Stewiacke Nova Scotia. We literally watched him dig it out of his garden and give it to us. [Hold up egg] And this egg is from our friends’ organic farm in Paris, Ontario. They grow all of the food themselves, that they feed to their chickens and their chickens live in what we like to call a chicken mansion! [Hold up bowl of coffee beans] And these coffee beans came from a farm in Costa Rica. They were brought to Canada through an organization called “Just Us,” which is committed to fair trade practices, and paying coffee farmers a fair wage for their product.
All of these in some direct and indirect ways came from very different places, but all from the ground; the potato, the feed that helped to nourish this egg and the coffee plant, all started from the dirt and ground. Good stories often come from the ground. Good stories often emerge when we are grounded in the moment...
The Church in China Today - God's Miracle
By Betsy Anderson
February 14, 2016
It is a great pleasure to join you for worship today and to share some of my experience as part of a recent United Church Delegation to China. Although I am a member at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church down on Bloor St., St. Matthew’s is really my neighbourhood church. We live on Arlington and all my 5 kids went to Vaughan Co-op Nursery School, the oldest with Sheila’s daughter Margaret. I have participated in many Craft Fairs and was privileged to work part-time with St. Matthew’s for a few years when Katharine Brittain was your minister. My niece Judy and her grandchildren, go to St. Matthew’s and my parents-in-law, Isabel MacIntyre and Mike Endicott live at Bracondale.
I Am Because We Are
September 18, 2016
I find this to be such an interesting time in our church year…
It’s a time of intentional re-connection.
It’s a time of re-centering, and deep listening.
It’s a time of returning to our rhythms, while still holding space gently enough to allow for wild play and reckless abandon.
It’s still a time of later nights, and warm breezes,
before winter’s shorter days and longer nights descend.
And so, I don’t think it’s a coincidence, that these first five weeks of fall –
September into early October – have been designated as a new-ish liturgical season: The season of Creation...
Faith Journey Stories
January 31, 2016
This past week, I did something I normally don’t do. I watched a commercial. Now that most of my tv watching is done through Netflix or recorded shows on our PVR, there just aren’t the commercial interludes – or I can fast-forward through them!
So when a car commercial came on the tv, I found myself strangely intrigued to watch… The commercial starts with a young woman rock climbing, then getting into her car and driving to a construction site, where she gets out of her car and climbs a long ladder… up, up, up into the cab of a huge crane. Over the images, we hear these words: “Everyday you have a chance to make your story epic..."