Mount Calvary Sermons

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 7:1-10 At 5pm on the last Sunday of August 2003 Tim, Alex, Rob and I stepped off a Boeing 737 at Grand Rapids International Airport, visas in our hands, disorientation in our brains, butterflies in our stomachs, but adventure in our hearts. At that moment we became the newest immigrants to this country. Just the latest names in a roll call that stretches back 400 years and across every tribe and nation. Like the countless millions before us we landed with hopes and fears, intrigue and suspicion, excitement and apprehension. At the apex of my mountain of concerns was the sobering fact that I did not know where we were staying that night. We would be met by a church member who would take us to our accommodation 50 miles away in the small town of Fremont – the community that would be home for the next seven years. At the summit of my boys' peak of anxieties was what would happen the next day. The first day of school. I said it was 5pm, but add the five hours difference bet

TRINITY SUNDAY 2016 PSALM 90:1-7, 10, 12 It's your funeral. All of us – your friends and family, are gathered here, we've taken our seats, sung your best loved hymn, read your favorite Bible passage, and now the priest is about to preach. And by the way, the priest isn't me – it's my successor or even his or her successor, because I will have retired long before you die. And being a person of the Gospel the priest wants to preach about the hope of the resurrection. But, being a pastorally sensitive person he or she also wants to make it personal to your life. So, what do you want them to say about you? Three people were looking back over their long and eventful lives, and discussing exactly that question. One of them said, "At my funeral I want the priest to say, 'Here lies a woman who was a good wife, a loving mother, and a loyal friend.'" The next one said, "Well, at my funeral I want the pastor to say, 'The man we see before us today was a skilled worker, a respected professional, and an accomplished leade

PENTECOST 2016 ACTS 2:1-21 As I reached the end of Harvey Taylor Bridge, I slowed down, and prepared to turn sharp left to continue my ride through Riverfront Park on Front Street. Each May when I cycle this route I begin to get nervous at this point of my ride. You see, THEY are there. And they mean trouble. Like a gang of muggers sizing up passers-by, they stand as tall as they can, with necks stretched high, and heads scanning every direction. Aggression bristling, testosterone peaking, they challenge you to get too close, they dare you to look them in the eye and face the consequences. But last week, as I rode this familiar route for the first time this year, there was an eerie and unexpected peace about them. They were there - in numbers - as every May, but they were chilling, like the cool spring afternoon. They didn't stare intimidatingly at me and certainly did not hiss as I swept by, trying to mind my own business. There was a strange truce between man and goose. It made me wonder what has gone wrong

SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 ACTS 16:16-34 Three years ago when I toured California with my son Rob, we drove one Sunday afternoon through King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. We were leaving this stunning cathedral of natural beauty, heading down a steep hill, through the woods, when my eye was caught by a sign at the side of the road, so small I almost missed it. And it filled me with fear. 'San Andreas Fault' it read, and just to prove it there was an arrow pointing to a line, beneath which lay this subterranean cause of my anxiety. My initial reaction was to inhale sharply and hold my breath, fearing that exhaling would destroy California. I wanted to slam on the breaks, stop the engine, and tell Rob to get out. Then I imagined one of us lifting the front of the rental car and the other raising the rear and tiptoeing ever so silently over the Fault line in case we disturbed a continental plate and unleashed carnage. It was only a Fiat 500, so it wasn't out of the question. Instead I screamed, "Rob.

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 13:31-35 Sometimes it's good to be me. When I remember that my country's general election campaigns last just three weeks, it is good to be me. When I recall that my head of state just turned 90 without ever having asked for a single vote from anyone in her entire life, it's good to be me. But it is also good to be me because I am living in this country. So, I am allowed, and even expected, to drop pointless letters from words like the 'u' in honour, colour and saviour; and I can even evict entire syllables that are deemed just too much effort to bother with, like the fourth syllable of alluminium, and, of course, the second syllable of squirrel (it's a small gray creature that lives in trees). It is good to be me because I can talk as if the letter 'r' at the end of a word isn't really there and people think it's kind of cute instead of just normal. It is also good to be me because people then think I'm from Boston and buy me a lager. It is good to be me when people bow and s

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 ACTS 9:36-43When Gazelle died she took with her the dreams of her church, the hopes of her people, the security of those who needed her. She was a holy, good woman. Like the ever-watchful, fleet-footed animal whose name she bore, Gazelle was always on the lookout. She searched for God’s beloved women and men who were experiencing hardship. When she discovered one she gave, and she loved, and she demonstrated the compassion of the Jesus she followed. She was also a skilled worker – a tailor and seamstress. She created garments and gave them away to those who had need. The community she called home revered her as a saint. Without her many on the margins would have been bereft of the resources they needed for sustainable life. “Gazelle, live up to your name.” And she did. With that name we can imagine her. Graceful, nimble, gentle. With that name we imagine her a self-effacing servant, not wishing to be the object of people’s gaze. With that name we fear

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 21:1-19When Nicky Cusack was diagnosed with cancer her world was shaken so violently that she could not tell if she was standing on the floor or the ceiling. 2009, her year of confusion, spun her upside-down before it had hardly begun. In January she was savaged by a pack of six stray dogs. She was recovering from her injuries when life doubled-down on her disorientation and she received her dizzying diagnosis. What do you do when you wake up and don’t know where you are? When they take the blind-fold off you and you don’t recognize anything or anyone? Where do you go when your head is spinning so fast you don’t know up from down? When the rules have changed, when the goalposts have moved, when you aren’t even sure you’re still in the same stadium; when the old pillars of certainty have crumbled to dust? Aged 46, a divorced mother of four, and working for minimum wages at Asda, the name Walmart goes by in the UK, Nicky did the only thing you can d

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 20:19-35It goes by the clumsy name of reputation rehabilitation, and it is one of the fastest growing sectors of the communications industry. A reputation rehabilitation manager is where you turn when your good name has been besmirched on the Internet. So, say you are researching your family tree and you discover that your great-great-great-uncle Billy had been executed for murder in the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison. You would hire a reputation rehabilitation manager, who would make Acid Bath Billy look like a choirboy. And then, when you go to your family reunions you could mention dear old sweet, harmless Billy, and make the whole clan feel proud to be descended from such a fine and upstanding pillar of the community. "Uncle Billy”, you would say, “occupied the chair of applied electronics at one of our nation's leading institutions. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a great shock.” Just imagine how diffe

EASTER DAY 2016 LUKE 24:1-12As every parent, law enforcement officer, and township employee knows there are two ways to make people clean up after themselves. You can be the bad cop. You can nag, organize a guilt trip, make blood curdling threats of fines, time-outs, or even jail. Or you can be the good cop, and encourage responsible behavior by positive reinforcement. Well, a few years ago a city in the Netherlands went full good cop in an effort to tackle their litter problem. Down came the threatening signs warning of fines for litter louts, and in came new bins. Bins with a difference. Bins that would make it worthwhile to drop your empty chip packets into them. The bins did not give out money if that is what you’re thinking, materialists. No, these bins were programed to tell jokes. Inside each trash can was a little device that would play pre-recorded funnies every time a piece of garbage was deposited. And it worked. The litter problem was solved overnight. Now these bins were color coded accordi

MAUNDY THURSDAY 2016 JOHN 15:1-8When he takes a knife to you, it hurts. When the blade slices through your limbs you bleed. You would scream if you could, but you can’t. A voice is one more thing that God has denied you. And so you stand, broken, butchered, savaged.Your attachments lie scattered around you, victims of the pruning. There is that relationship. You know it was doing you no good, you understand it was stunting your growth, you are aware it was making you bitter, small-minded,petty, resentful. But it gave you some solace on cold evenings, some comfort when lonely. There is that object of beauty, that trinket of desire. How you saved for it, sacrificed for it, denied yourself for it. Just to possess it for a while, to breathe in its aroma, to caress its softness, to wallow in its luxury. You know it was getting uppity, forgetting who was in charge, losing sight of who it was and where it came from. Truth be told, it was starting to possess you, instead of the other way round, beginning to be

PALM SUNDAY 2016 LUKE 19:28-40 April 23 is a famous day. For one, it’s Shakespeare’s birthday. For another, it’s St George’s Day, so if you’re English April 23 is a day to celebrate. But, thousands of miles west of England, April 23 1985 was a momentous, historic, even world-changing day for less joyous reason. Not a day of celebration, but of dismay; not of glory but of ugliness; not of jubilation but of catastrophe. April 23 1985. If you were alive that day, what were you doing? Where were you enjoying that beautiful spring morning, what daffodils were you picking, what blossoms were you sniffing, what birdsong were you enjoying? I hope you were oblivious to the pain caused by that day. I hope the agony did not trouble you or the despair come near your door. Because April 23 1985 will long live in the archives of infamy. They say it was Roberto Goizueta’s fault. It was he, they said, who unleashed this new horror onto an undeserving world. How could he do it, why would he

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT 2016 JOHN 12:1-8 How much is too much to spend on your feet? Well, because I like you to leave church with your knowledge expanded, I have done some research into that question. And the answer seems to be ‘no sum of money is too much.’ I went to Gucci.com and found a pair brown crocodile skin gentleman’s loafers for $2,600. Which is a mere drop in a swamp of alligators compared with an unlaced and unworn pair of 1988 Nike Air Jordan sneakers which I found on Ebay for $30,000. But even that is a mere free-throw in the footwear hall of fame. If you have been to the Smithsonian American History Museum you will have seen a pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. Well, that is just one of three pairs that Dorothy wore in the film. One of the other two was sold at auction a few years ago for $612,000. But even those posh kicks only make it to number 9 in the list of most expensive shoes in the world. And number 1 isactually the official replica of those

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT 2016 LUKE 15:1-3, 11-32 It wasn’t the smell that made him want to throw up. But that was bad enough. The heady whiff of pigs. That’s what the pitiful wretch before him reeked of. And it wasn’t the sight of him that made him want to heave. But that dirt ingrained in his face, embedded beneath his fingernails, matted in his hair would surely have done the trick for more sensitive digestions. And neither was it those ragamuffin clothes, so badly in need of burning, that almost induced him to wretch. It wasn’t even the shocking realization that beneath the rags, underneath the pig muck, behind the aroma of goodness-knows-what, stooped the skeletal frame of his little brother. No, it was noneof these assaults on the senses that caused his belly to contort. It was the reaction of his father. That is what disgusted him. His father. A good man. Too good, the older brother thought. Soft, even. That was his problem. Always being taken in - by beggars faking poverty, able-bo

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT 2016 LUKE 13:1-9The first thing Lee does after services on Sunday is to collect all the bulletins that have been left in the pews. Then he brings them to the office where, on Monday, Liz sifts through them to see if anyone has accidentally left some money in one. Now occasionally, one of these discarded bulletins bears a handwritten message from a worshiper. For example, here’s one from last week; and someone has written in pencil two words – “Rubik’s Cube”. So this got me wondering. Why would someone write ‘Rubik’s Cube’ on their bulletin? I’m not going to conduct a witch hunt, it’s OK. You know who you are. Now, it seems to me that the only time anyone could do this is during the sermon – the rest of the time we have our eyes closed, or we’re reading, or singing. So, what was it about the sermon that made someone think of this 1980s puzzle? I like to think that it is because the sermon was ingeniously designed, perf

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT 2016 GENESIS 15:1-12You know the problem with stars? Many of them may not actually be there. It’s a crazy thought, isn’t it? But it’s quite possible that some of those twinkling balls of fiery gas could have burned themselves out millions of years ago, and we don’t even know it yet. It looks like they truly exist, but the light that will reach your eyes tonight when you gaze into the sky – that light left some of those stars millions of years ago. There’s one star in particular. It is romantically named MACS0647-JD, which is what you get when you ask a science major to name something, rather than an English major. MACS0647-JD is 13.3 billion light-years away, so in theory it could have died 13 billion years ago and it will be another 300 million years before we know it. But there it is, shining away, maybe lying to us, possibly claiming to be something when it isn’t. You know the problem with stars? We wish upon them, we fall in love under them,

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT 2016 LUKE 4:1-13His name is Matt Harding, and he dances. Boy, does he dance. Truth be told he’s not very good, like I am a reliable judge, but what he lacks in styleand grace he makes up for in enthusiasm - and in geography. Because in 2005, 29 year-old Matt Harding quit his job as a videogame designer, telling his boss that he didn't want to spend the next two years of his life writing a game about killing everyone. Then he withdrew his life savings and travelled the world. Dancing. And for the next seven years he travelled and danced, traveled and danced. It wasn’t elegant, It wasn’t agile, it wasn’t polished. But it was, in a more profound way than mere aesthetics, exquisite. He made a series of videos of himself dancing in over seventy countries on every continent, in front of some of the most cherished landmarks, and always joyously joined by local people. If, like 90 million other people, you watch any of his videos on YouTube, and you must, then you will not

3RD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY 2016 YEAR C LUKE 4:14-21 He stands on the highest peak of preaching endeavors, a colossus towering over mere mortals such as your average pastor, minister, or priest. Those of us who occupy the foothills of Mount Sermon can only gaze adoringly and enviously at his feet, because those are the only parts of him that are visible, so far above us does he tower. At gatherings of clergy, his name is mentioned in hushed tones, that is, if it is mentioned at all. Some of us are too in awe of him and too conscious of our own inadequacy, that even naming him appears disrespectful. Remembering his accomplishments urges uson to cultivate interesting verbs, to climb the dizzying heights of effective metaphors, and always apply astronomical amounts of alluring, agile, alliteration. His name is Donald Thomas, but you can call him the Rev Dr Donald Thomas, or ‘your majesty’. Quite simply, he is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having preached the longest sermon ever delivered. I

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY 2016 LUKE 4:21-30 If you were attending Mt Calvary four years ago you may remember that I had a bike accident, which involved me rolling over the hood of a car and banging my head on the less than flexible surface of Carlisle Pike. It was no big deal, and after 24 hours in the hospital they sent me home with a diagnosis of ‘post-concussion syndrome’. Now, you might think that this was a bad thing, but not at all. No. Because, now I had … a syndrome. It opened up limitless potential for getting my own way. I had the perfect excuse for being lazy, forgetful, and thoughtless. I could protest that I wasn’t really like that, but I had a syndrome. I remember a week or two later I went bowling with the youth group. Every time I sent a ball into the gutter I could say, “Sorry kids, I’m usually way better than this, but I have this syndrome.” Anyone who asked me to do something I didn’t want to, I could reply, “sorry, I’d really

2ND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY 2016 YEAR C JOHN 2:1-11A few days ago I had a meeting with my spiritual director at 9am. I had about half an hour to spare, and so on my way, I called in at Sheetz to put some air in my tires as commanded to do by my dashboard. Apparently air contracts when it’s cold and other things I would know about if I had listened in my science classes at school. So, I topped up the tires, and still had a few minutes in hand to rush into Giant and pick up some groceries. Now this was a shopping expedition worthy of note. A grocery trip for the ages. The reason is not that I corralled some bargains or even that I managed to get in and out in under a quarter of an hour. No, what made these few minutes of hunting and gathering so special is that I noticed women smiling at me. Every aisle I pushed my cart down I’d pass a female shopper and she’d look me in the eyes and smile. And I’m thinking, “Looking good today, Dunc.” So, I’m smiling back, and swaggering

BAPTISM OF CHRIST 2016 LUKE 3:15-17, 21-22 The shrine gleamed in the winter sun, as I took my place at the back of the queue of pilgrims waiting to enter. The atmosphere sparkled with excitement – the anticipation of ecstasy, which enticed the faithful to flock here from all over the world. This modern house of worship was dedicated to the glory of its god in just 2007. In fact, the deity ithouses is a mere youngster – its incarnation occurred just 130 years ago. Yet, despite its brief life, this idol has won billions of devotees (yes, that’s billions with a ‘b’) from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. Worshipers often refer to their savior as “The Real Thing”. For they have tasted and seen that their lord is good. And now, indowntown Atlanta, in the corner of Centennial Olympic Park, proudly rubbing shoulders with the 20 year ghosts of the world’s best athletes, I was visiting this place of prayer, this temple of tacky, this mind-blowing tribute to instant