St George's Sermon Blog

  Matt 4:12-23 This week we continue ongoing Epiphany series about what it means to be called be called by God and how we live and grow as Jesus’s disciples.   Which seems fitting as we gather together to reflect on our ministry together at our annual meeting, rejoice in all we have done in the past year and begin to look toward our future together.   To help us on our journey, in our lesson is week, we essentially heard another version of the story from last week about Jesus meeting and calling Peter to be among his first disciples.   Only this time we hear it from the Gospel of Matthew . So one day, Jesus is walking by the sea in Capernaum and he meets two pairs of brothers Peter and Andrew and James and John while they are out cleaning up after a night of fishing and he calls them to follow him.   He tells them he will make them “fishers of people” and they immediately leave their stuff and follow him.   Now often when we hear this story, it is eas...

  Matt 3:13-17 This is the start of the season after Epiphany here in the church.   It is the season of time between Christmas and Lent where we begin to discover who Jesus is and what it means to be his disciples.   It is a time we will begin to consider what it means to be called by God and how that affects us.   Over the next several weeks we will hear a whole series of readings where Jesus suddenly appears in the lives of those around him and we will see how his presence changes everything.   And how being near Jesus gets people to do all sorts of new, weird and scary things.   How Jesus pushes people out of their comfort zones and into new things.   And how amazing things happen when he does. This first week we hear the story of the Baptism of Our Lord from the book of Matthew.   In this story Jesus comes into the wilderness to be baptized by John.   And John flatly refuses.   Because the whole idea is absurd in the face of it...

Matt 2:13-23 Today is the second Sunday of Christmas the bookend to the Christmas season.   On Christmas Eve we all heard the old familiar story of Mary and Joseph huddled around the baby Jesus peaceful in the manger.   We heard of glad tidings of great joy announced by the host of heavenly angels and the joy of the shepherds come to worship the Messiah.   We welcomed the new light coming into the world and rejoiced at its appearing.   But today, we hear the dark side of the Christmas story.   Today we turn to the Gospel of Matthew and we hear a very different account.    One that many, probably most of us would rather ignore.   In fact, it never ceases to amaze me how many lifelong Christians remain totally unfamiliar with this story.   For although the first visitors to the newborn Jesus, the shepherds, the angles and even the magi were all joyful and filled with praise, beneath their glad tidings danger was lurking.   For in thi...