In many fields of study, one of the ways to begin to understand a piece of work – a play, a novel, a symphony, an ideological system, a school of philosophical thought — is to identify the key concept around which the work is structured.     What is the fundamental idea, or the […]

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  I once heard a member of this congregation, who is an avid fan of the works of William Shakespeare, make the comment that one experiences “King Lear” in different ways at different stages in life.      It was an interesting insight.     His observation was rooted in his awareness that our place […]

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  “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have all turned to our own way, And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.   It is almost impossible for us, as Christians, to read or to hear these words from the 53rd chapter of the Book of Isaiah, and not […]

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  The year was 1933, and the place was a large congregation in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania called Shadyside Presbyterian Church.   The minister at the time, whose name was the Rev. Hugh Thompson Kerr, had served as the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1930, and wanted to find a way to use the celebration […]

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  My father will be turning 85 next month.  This tends to surprise many people who meet him, especially in light of his continued good health and his outgoing demeanour.   As some of you know, my Dad continues to live in the house in Cambridge that he shared with my mother, who passed away […]

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  The second stained glass window in the gallery on the far side of the church depicts a relatively common scene from the Gospel stories – the disciples are gathered around, and Jesus is holding a child in his arms.  The image conveys the gentleness, the kindness, the care that Jesus was so often depicted […]

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  Take my life, and let it be, Consecrated, Lord, to thee; Take my moments, and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise.   We are going to be singing these words in a few minutes.  Many of us have sung these words so many times that we can probably sing them without much […]

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  Jesus just wanted to get away. He needed a break, a time out, from the crowds and the questions and the challenges and the demands and the badmouthing of his critics. He needed to get far enough away so that people would not know where he was or what he was doing. He set the “Out of […]

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Tomorrow is Labour Day.   Regardless of how it felt during our school years, Labour Day is not simply the last gasp of summer holidays before the school year begins.   Rather, our annual celebration of Labour Day, in Canada, traces its origins to the activities of a labour union, in Toronto, in the 1870s. […]

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