Back to the Garden

A sermon preached on Sunday, November 19, 2023, at St. Thomas, Morden. Propers 392; Jg 4:1-7; Ps 123; 1 Th 5:1-11; Mt 25:14-30. The British philosopher, Mark Fisher , once wrote, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Fisher was fascinated by the fact that while our society routinely creates movies about the world ending, in the world these movies depict, the basic realities of our capitalistic economy remain resolutely unchallenged, even as this economic structure drives the world to its destruction. Our moral imaginations are trapped, Mark Fisher argues, in a structure he calls “Capitalist Realism” - a situation in which we deeply believe that something like a capitalistic economy is fundamental to human nature. Rather than correctly seeing capitalism as a contingent economic structure that arose relatively recently in Western society, we instead are led to believe that this economic system just is how the world works. Capitalist accumulation, on t...

  Readings: 2 Chronicles 6:12-21; Matthew 5:1-10  Introduction “ Christianity has a very long history, and a lot of it is terrible. It’s tempting to deal with this history by disavowing it, by suggesting that real Christians would not do the kinds of things that actually-existing-Christians have done. ” (Marika Rose, Theology for the End of the World , 13) Have you ever played that ice-breaker game, “Two truths and a lie?” I thought that since I’m brand new as the Diocesan Discipleship Developer, I’d start off by sharing two truths and a lie about myself that you can come ask me about after the service. First, when I was a child, my family farmed ostriches for a few years. Second, I have a beautiful golden retriever named Duke. Third, my wife and I decided to sell our car back in 2020 and now enjoy the car-free life through a combination of cycling , transit, and a membership in the Peg-City Car Co-op . As I said, please come introduce yourself and let me know which of these y...

Presented on May 12, 2023 to the Diocese of Algoma Synod I’m very grateful to John Gibaut and to the Synod of Algoma for giving me a few moments today to share a bit about the task of theology and the work that we do at Thorneloe University.  I was once asked by a friend of mine if studying theology was destroying my faith in God. This friend was worried that too much studying about God was somehow in conflict with my ability to know God. I remember being confused and, honestly, a bit offended by the question, but it’s a sentiment that I’ve encountered only too often since. “Theology” is seen by many Christians today as something that is at best, a dubious enterprise. For some, it is an obsession with the minutiae of doctrines and dogmas that just gets in the way of the more important business of ‘doing’ our faith. For others, it’s a way of dressing up hurtful ideas in fancy language that can be used to beat already far too vulnerable souls into submission. For an increasing major...

  Intro Our lessons this evening bid us to consider the nature of the Law. When the Bible speaks about “the Law” what kind of thing is it referring to? When Jesus goes atop the Mountain to interpret the Law of Moses, what is that thing that he is interpreting and what is the status of the interpretation that he gives? Bridge - Problematic The 17th century theologian, Richard Hooker identifies the Law of Moses with “the divine law” itself, given by God near the dawn of the world to holy men, written at God’s instruction by Moses himself (Book I, XIII). For Hooker, this divine status of the Law laid down in Holy Scripture is the primary rule and authority which is sufficient for the making known of all “duties supernatural,” that is, those things pertaining to salvation. This authority and sufficiency of the divine Law contained within the Scriptures is, for Hooker, a check against any excessive demands that may be made upon believers by the canons of the Church, and of course, here ...