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Berwick Trinity United Church, 240 Commerical Street, Berwick, NS (2026)

08/30/2026

Reflection- Based on Matthew 16:21-26
When I think back on my love of reading as a pastime, I realize more and more that I owe much of my love of books to my mother. It was she, after all, who used to read to me at all hours until I learned how to do it for myself, and when I got older she would introduce me to some of her favourite stories and authors, allowing me to share in them as well. But, as I get older, I find myself remembering more and more one lesson about the love of books that my mom passed down to me-one that is a more of a cautionary tale than anything else.
Whenever my mom would pick up a new book that she was going to read for her own enjoyment, she always did the same thing. She would pick up the book, flip to the last chapter, and proceed to read it first. And then, if the ending was not one that ended in a happy or satisfactory manner, she would set it aside without turning back to the beginning to read. She did this with practically every one of her books, and one day as I watched her carry out this ritual, I decided to ask her why she would always read her books backward, and not continue with the story once she knew the ending. And I will never forget what she told me, which was “I don’t want to keep going with the story if it doesn’t have a good ending”.
Even as a young person, I had a hard time understanding that particular brand of logic. I might take a peek at the last page or the last chapter of whatever book I might be reading, but something always compelled me to keep reading the story from beginning to end. Some of those stories were even ones that my mother had discarded, because her enthusiasm for the story had turned sour once she knew how it ended. It never really made sense to me, but it was one of many areas of life that my mom and I had to learn to agree to disagree about during my years of growing up.
In our reading from Matthew’s Gospel today, we find none other than Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ most committed followers, fighting the temptation to drop out of the ongoing saga that is the ministry that He and the other disciples have agreed to be a part of as followers of Christ. Remember, it was only a few lines ago where Peter made his daring declaration that he believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was none other than the Messiah, the one sent by God to restore the dignity and freedom of the people of God in their lifetime. To be fair,, this admission of faith probably came with a lot of long held expectations about how this larger than life saviour of the people would bring about this new era in the people’s history-many of which probably involved a great deal of fighting and bloodshed, all of which would come to an end when the Messiah emerged victorious and ready to take over God’s kingdom here on earth, with a fully engaged entourage of believers and supporters by his side.
This is what Peter and the others expected would happen, because in their vivid yet limited imaginations, this was the ONLY way that such an outcome could be achieved by the One that God had provided them with in this time and place. This was the only ending that made sense, and this was the only ending that they could accept for a story that they had just recently promised to be “all in” on. To remain open to any other kind of outcome would mean accepting failure and humiliation as being an acceptable result of their faith and dedication, and that was something that this band of believers just could not fathom as having any part in Jesus’ story.
And yet, when Jesus begins to tell His followers what will happen next in their shared story, this is exactly the chain of events that He describes to those who were now part of the journey with Him, as they had promised to be. What Jesus details is not a story of easy victory or foreseeable triumph after so many years of being oppressed at the hands of the state and religious authorities. No, what He regales His disciples with is a story where He will be defeated by those who now had, and would then have the upper hand. He would lose His life, dying like a common criminal who would be made an example of by way of the ultimate method of public execution-crucifixion. Even though there is some mention of a reversal of these fortunes once the dust has settled, Peter and the others are not able to look past the more dramatic and gruesome parts of the story that He has just shared with them, so shocked and appalled as they are by them.
In an effort to salvage the situation, Peter tries to silence Jesus’ attempts to unflinchingly share the whole story with them, telling Him not to delve into such uncomfortable outcomes, because to do so would make this story utterly unpalatable for those who might yet still be attracted to following Christ in the times ahead, let alone those who had recently declared their own commitment to the one they believed to be the Messiah. Jesus responds to this reaction by declaring both Peter and his views on the subject to be unacceptable, because this would be how things would turn out, whether or not those closest to Jesus would approve of it, before going on to declare that now that all of the disciples knew how this particular story would end, they now had to decide for themselves whether or not they would stick with it.
Jesus explains that this way of life would not be an easy or a glorious one, and that those who followed it would just as likely wind up carrying their very own cross someday, as being too closely associated with Jesus would make them a threat to the status quo as well. And as such a life, it would require a deeper sense of commitment from those who chose to engage it than would a life that was a bit less controversial or disruptive to those who would disagree with it and would have the power to s***f its’ influence out. It’s not enough for Jesus to simply have His followers’ word that they were in this with Him-they would have to hold on to their beliefs as this uneasy story unfolded before them, not wavering or flinching from what reactions would be inflicted upon them because they had made this their story as well. It would not be an easy path, but eventually it would lead them to a world and a way of being that would remain true to all that they believed about the power of God to change the world and their lives for the better. If they could uphold their commitment to a story whose ending might be different from what they had expected.
It’s often surprising that after two thousand plus years, the story of Jesus still finds a way to resonate with us, with all of its messiness and complications. It seems like a story that could have been discarded centuries ago, in favour of other, more positive narratives that can offer comfort with happy endings and heroic outcomes. And yet, here we are, along with communities just like ours, gathering on a given day at a given time to hear the story again, even though we know its twists and turns by heart. Perhaps the story is not over yet, and we are still taking it in and making it our own, allowing it to make us more resilient and determined as a people to ensure that the hard parts of the story don’t get the last word, and that a good outcome can still be gained at the end of the day. May it be so. Amen.

08/23/2026

Reflection- Based on Matthew 16:13-20

A family of four decides city life doesn’t suit them anymore
So they sell their house in the suburbs and buy a dairy farm, complete with a dozen livestock.. After a week or so, the dad and 2 sons are out mending the fences, when their neighbor comes driving up the road and stops to introduce himself.
“How y’all doin? My name’s Al, and my friends call me Big Al. Are you folks new to the trials and tribulations of ranching?”
The father said yes, and the pleasantries continued until Big Al asked if the family ranch had a name.
“Well,” said the father, “I wanted to name it “The Flying Q”, but my wife suggested “The Lazy A”, my older son Gary was partial to “The BAR-J”, and the younger one Steve liked “The Pistol T.” So we had a family compromise and named the ranch “The Flying Q Lazy A BAR-J Pistol T Family Ranch.”
“That’s quite a mouthful,” says Big Al. “But where’s all your cattle?”
“Well,” said the father, “so far, none have survived the branding.”

The longer I live as someone who aspires to follow in the way of Christ, the more I have come to understand one uncomfortable yet simple truth, and it is this: The faith we know as Christianity has a very serious branding problem, one that springs from how those of us who seek to represent ourselves as followers of Christ in the world behave in that same world. Too often when the word “Christian” is uttered in mixed company, certain images of those who represent that particular faith come to mind, and lately, it has been harder and harder to reconcile those images with what the person we know as Jesus had in mind for the way of life and ministry that would one day bear His name.

This problem is one that cuts along denominational lines, but is only, I would argue, partially responsible for this identity crisis. To use a sports analogy, if Christianity was a game that we were all attempting to play together during our time in the world, it wouldn’t really matter at the end of the day what particular TEAM we were playing with as we participated in upholding the image of Christ in the world. What would matter is how we as individuals played together in that game-how we treated each other, how we cared for each other, how we combined our efforts to make this world, our world, God’s world, a better place, all while expressing our commitment to representing Christ and Christ’s way using whatever outward expressions felt meaningful to us. For example, would a gold cross worn around someone’s neck as a form of jewelry retain its original meaning, if the someone behind it had made it their life’s work to uphold policies and ways of being that are a direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus Christ? Would a mega church that was standing room only on a Sunday really be able to claim that its leaders and members were truly following the way of Christ if, during a torrential hurricane, they refused to offer their space as shelter to those in need? Would someone, anyone, who was bold enough to speak about the love of God as expressed through Jesus, then claim, with a straight face, that such a love should have limitations, ones that made it acceptable then to shun those who might be different from them in some way shape or form, all while making it impossible for them to have access to the same rights as others? Would someone who could quote Gospel passages off by heart, chapter and verse, still have the same sense of credibility if they were to support leadership that lived by a set of values that was antithetical to the ones that Jesus sought to impart to the world? Would Jesus, could Jesus, and anyone’s relationship with Him, possibly survive the ways in which His brand is being misrepresented in some circles that claim to hold Him and His teachings to be something sacred?
This is the very question that comes before Jesus and His original band of followers in our reading from Matthew’s Gospel today. As the group makes their way into the territory of Caesar Phillipi-an area once known as being favoured by the Gods of Greek and Roman mythology, and one currently known as the location of one of King Herod’s many vanity projects- a grand palace given as a gift to the God Augustus and upheld by his son Phillip, who named it in his own honour-it’s as if there are any number of gods or influencers vying for the loyalty of ordinary mortals such as the disciples, and so, in the midst of so much architectural and cultural splendour, Jesus decides to ask His students to place HIM somewhere in the visible hierarchy that is at this moment surrounding them and taking their breath away.
Jesus does this to get a sense of how His followers understand Him and what He is really all about. After all, by this point in the story, these disciples have been following Him for a while, and it’s important for them to know who Jesus is, and why He and His way are worth living up to. What better place to get these answers than in a place that held so many reminders of who the disciples COULD be following in this day and age-past gods or present dictators-both influences that would need to be set aside and even ignored if they were truly going to be representing someone as radically countercultural as Jesus of Nazareth.
And so He opens the conversation with this question-who do other people say that I am? Who am I to the masses who know me as the Son of Man-and knowing me in this way, who have they made up their minds about who I am to them? In response, the disciples offer up various kinds of hearsay that they have become privy to over the course of their journey, name dropping such late great leaders of the faith as John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah, while acknowledging the commonly held belief that Jesus was someone who reminded the people of the cloud of past prophets who had reminded them of God’s great and everlasting connection to them, even in times of great trial and controversy.
Only partially satisfied with these responses, Jesus then asks these individual disciples, the ones who have gotten to know Him on a much more up close and personal level than anyone else, this much more pointed question-”But, who do YOU say that I am?” Forgetting all of the other influences around you right now, forgetting even those from the past who had done their best in their eras to represent God’s true nature to the people of God, Jesus asks these followers to decide for themselves who and what Jesus is, and why He is here with them now.
Speaking for His colleagues, Simon Peter makes a declaration-He has recognized, through Jesus’ words and actions up to this point, the brand that Jesus is trying to promote in the lives of the people of God. This brand is none other than Messiah, a member of God’s own family, sent by God to make a difference in the world. The same person that people like Peter and his fellow disciples have been waiting for to liberate their people and set them free in God’s name. The person who, because of who they truly are, would have their undying loyalty, even in the midst of so many other idols who could be seeking their attention and their commitment in the world right now.
In response to this declaration of brand loyalty, Jesus declares these disciples, through Peter, the ones who would carry that same brand into the world so that all people would come to recognize and find rest within it. And how would they, these ordinary individuals with their lofty ideals and deep aspirations, do this? By showing through THEIR example who Jesus was, is, and would be in the lives of the whole people of God. Their words, their actions, their willingness to fully and sincerely live according to the teachings of Christ-these would be the things that would reveal Jesus and the saving grace of His identity to the people. The people who would themselves become bearers of the brand of Jesus would learn about it from watching and listening to how these, the closest followers of Jesus, treated each other and how they behaved towards others who had yet to find a place for themselves within this new world order. And it was through this type of brand representation that all that Jesus sought to represent in the lives of God’s people would thrive and flourish and grow in such a way that it couldn’t help but take on a life of its own. Maybe this is why Jesus is so quick to follow up His bestowing of His mission on the newly identified rocks of His foundation, Jesus immediately tells these same followers NOT to tell anyone that He was the Messiah-because to merely tell them through superficial things such as easily spoken words, beautifully built construction projects, and maybe even visually impressive merchandise-would not, could not be enough to change the world in the ways it needed to be changed to make things better forever for the whole of God’s creation. No, if these disciples were going to align themselves with Jesus as the Messiah, they would, as His brand ambassadors, have to live and behave in ways that SHOWED others that He was the Messiah, in ways that could be both understood and never denied.
The same stands true for us as Christians doing our best to live up to Christ’s example in our day and age. It’s not what we wear, what we say, what scriptures we can recite, or where we establish our physical presence in a given geographic community that identifies us as followers of Jesus-those things offer only a glimpse of what we are really trying to be all about in the name of the One who calls us to be one in God’s name. No, when it comes to truly representing all that Jesus represented in His life and ministry, it is how we act and how we behave towards each other that brings Jesus’ brand of faith to life, and brings life to it as well. By committing ourselves to this challenging, radical way of being, we do more to make God’s dream for humanity and creation come true than all the cross pendants, all the mega churches, and all the impressive regurgitations of sacred scripture in the world could ever hope to do. People will come to know us as Christians who live Christ;s way behind these doors, by how we behave and interact with all people beyond these walls and beyond these doors. That’s the way it’s been since the beginning, and it’s the way it will be as each of us and all of us move into our shared future in Christ’s name, together. Amen. and Amen

08/21/2026

Just a friendly reminder that our service this week will be happening at 11 AM in Harbourville, at the North Mountain Tapestry. Hope to see you there

08/16/2026

Reflection- Based on Matthew 15:10-20, 21-28
(Slide #38)A couple of years ago, the CBC Radio program “Under the Influence” did an episode dedicated to advertisements that were popular in years past, but could never, EVER be used today. (Slide #39) Many of these ads were from the fifties, but some were even from as recently as the 1980’s and 90’s. The reasons that these ads would not be acceptable in today’s current cultural climate is varied, based on the ads themselves, but by shining a spotlight on them in this day and age, host Terry O Reilly shows in painful detail just how outdated these ads were in terms of the attitudes that they expressed towards such things as gender roles-(Slide #40)there was many examples that boldly suggested, for instance, that a happy marriage depended solely on how clean a wife could keep her husband’s clothes and house(Slide #40), or failing that, how good she was at making coffee or what kind of desserts she could put on the dinner table after the evening meal . (Slide #41) There were also a series of ads where medical professionals would serve as spokespersons for their favourite brand of (I’m not making this up) cigarettes.(Slide #42) Another series of ads encourages new mothers to add soda to their baby’s bottle to encourage them to drink their milk(Slide #43), alongside ads featuring mothers who were singing the praises of any number of chemical fertilizers on the market for their ability to keep bugs off of the fruit that their families would consume. (Slide #44) And these were just a few of the campaigns that were covered……
Even hearing about these outdated ads and the ideas that they promoted about such things as gender issues and what substances are safe to put into our bodies in this day and age can cause us to shake our heads, because for the most part, we have a different understanding about issues such as these-one that is based in a different mindset informed by a deeper understanding of who we are and what we are about as human beings living together in community. That being said, there are likely ideas that we hold to be sacred today that will make us, and our descendants, shake their heads and maybe even cringe twenty five years from now, even as we accept our need to change our minds and attitudes yet again for the sake of progress.
(Slide #45) Our reading from Matthew’s Gospel begins on just such a challenging note, with Jesus offering for His students and His followers a whole new understanding of what would or would not make them unclean in the eyes of God. This teachable moment comes from some negative feedback that the local religious authorities had given Jesus about how His followers were not faithfully observing some of the more widely accepted policies around purification, after having sat down to one too many meals without taking time to wash up first. (Slide #46) In the eyes of these Pharasaic leaders, the disciples were behaving in a way that made them unacceptable in the eyes of God, and therefore would be unwelcome at any civilized table where they were hosting a meal. To be fair, there were many of these kinds of rules that governed what was and what was not acceptable around a typical first century middle eastern table, and the disciples were regarded as having broken most if not all of them, according to those who held those rules to be sacred. (Slide #47) These rules were intended to separate the people of God from those who would forever be outside of God’s sacred circle, and the Pharisees were doing their best to warn Jesus that His disciples had better start respecting those regulations before they found themselves on God’s bad side for all time.
(Slide #48) It is here that Jesus takes the opportunity to rewrite these rules of honour and etiquette for not only His current team of followers, but all those who might come after them some day, taking into account the things that TRULY mattered to God and making those things the focus of what the people of God should be paying attention to in their efforts to stay in God’s good graces. According to Jesus, God could care less about what the people put into their bodies or what they did to their bodies in preparation for any kind of social gathering-God had in fact designed those bodies to have only a fleeting relationship with those elements of cleanliness anyway. No, the God that Jesus was connected to cared far more about the things that had the ability to harm people where it mattered most-in their relationships with each other, and so expected the people of God to work on making sure that those aspects of living were kept in top notch shape, even if it meant that their hands and their eating habits were less than perfect. It mattered far more to God how God’s people were treating each other in their day to day lives that their table manners and dietary habits ever could.(Slide #49)
And yet, no sooner do Jesus and His disciples leave that ugly setting with their newly informed morals intact, than they run into a real time situation where they proceed to uphold the very same cultural prejudices that they had just denounced moments ago.(Slide #50) As unbearable as it is for us as faithful Christians to consider, it’s clear that when the Canaanite woman puts herself and her pleas for help directly in the path of Jesus and His entourage where she assumed that they could not be ignored, that neither the disciples nor Jesus have ANY intention of helping her. The disciples just see her as an annoying pest whose cries for assistance are bugging them, and Jesus Himself has concluded that she is something less than human, and therefore not worth even a pittance of His time. This response may have been due to nothing more than deep seated cultural conditioning, the kind that had taught these men that people of a different gender and from a different culture than themselves were somehow beneath them, but this would have the the SAME culture that had just finished shaming them for ignoring another set of purity laws. (Slide #51) It’s disturbing in this moment to see members of the Jesus community so blatantly upholding and defending these toxic attitudes taught to them by their culture of origin,especially after so boldly declaring that this is the very stuff that God was opposed to.
(Slide #52) But thankfully for Jesus and His crew, the lesson that had begun around that infamous dinner table was still ongoing, only this time in a very different context. This time, it is the unnamed Caananite woman who takes the lead in challenging the outdated and harmful ideas that threatened to stand between her and the care that her daughter needed in that desperate moment. (Slide #53)Even when Jesus resorts to derogatory slurs to defer the woman in her quest for assistance, the woman uses that same language to argue that the God she believes it, the one that Jesus is known to represent, would not deny someone like her what she and her loved ones needed to survive, just because they might be different in some superficial way that had somehow made them lesser in the eyes of others. When Jesus goes low, the woman goes high, in direct defiance of the cultural attitudes that were intended to keep them and those like them firmly and fully apart in all ways. And it is here that the progress that began around that contentious table blooms into fullest flower, with Jesus looking beyond what He has been taught in order to see what truly needs to be unlearned, now and in the times ahead. And like any good student, Jesus immediately applies what He has learned in this situation, by not only granting the woman’s request, but by referring to her with a term that indicates that He has finally come to respect her as a fellow human being, as beloved by God as any of those that already identified themselves as being part of God’s inner circle.
(Slide #54) As we take an unflinching look at our culture in this day and age, it can be disheartening to see so many of the outdated and harmful attitudes of the past having such a strong resurgence in our current time. And yet, even if these attitudes were learned in the past, and in some circles are being taught again to a whole new generation, they CAN be unlearned, so that something more healthy and life giving can take its place in our minds, our hearts, and our relationships with others.(Slide #55) These toxic mindsets of blind hatred and stupid fear can be, must be challenged whenever they rear their ugly heads, so that they can be exposed for the ridiculous things that they are, and then fully discarded as something that has no place whatsoever in a world that pays tribute to a loving, all inclusive God, one that has never wanted barriers of ignorance and tribalism to exist between members of God’s own family. This time in history is a shadowy one, but it is possible to learn how to do better and BE better for one another, in this community and beyond. May it be so. Amen.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/long-before-there-was-the-marlboro-cowboy-there-was-the-marlboro-baby-1.7191691

08/11/2026

Our United Church neighbours at Aylesford United Church and Kingston United Church have challenged us to a Church Sign Battle, so here is our first entry!

08/09/2026

Reflection- Based on Matthew 14:22-33

This past week, I came across an interesting quotation that said the following:
“Sea Otters hold hands while they sleep, so that the waters that they are sleeping in can’t pull them apart. The phenomenon is called “rafting”-whole families of these little creatures floating together, paws linked and interlocked,drifting through the night as one. These creatures were never formally taught to do this-this is just what love in community looks like when you live on moving water. And don’t we all live on moving water-a place where time pulls, life drifts, currents come? Let us learn a lesson from this-to hold hands with our people on purpose-the Sunday call, the standing dinner invitation, the goodnight text-it’s not sentimentality, it’s just good seamanship”.
I start with this quote because in our story from Matthew’s Gospel also refers to a time when Jesus’ disciples find themselves alone on waters that are moving in ways that cause them to be in distress. Even though some of these individuals had once made their living out there on the waters in the fishing industry, the waters on which they find themselves are behaving in ways that they are finding it hard to stay on top of for very long. In some translations of this story, the waters are described as “working against” the disciples, as if this natural setting has taken on human characteristics that make it into an enemy that the followers of Jesus must engage in a fight for their lives.
At this point in the story, the disciples are facing these turbulent waters on their own, because Jesus had insisted on staying behind to dismiss the crowd that had gathered for that pop up picnic of bread and fish that we heard about last week. All through that night and into the morning, the disciples found themselves having to hold their own against those dangerously rough waters, fighting fear and fatigue just as much as they were battling the waves that were threatening to take them down. In the midst of such mind numbing and strength sapping chaos, it’s little wonder that when the disciples were able to look up long enough to see Jesus making His way towards them, they jumped to the conclusion that He must be dead, and that was was before them was nothing more than a spiritual apparition. Fear had taken over their minds and hearts in the midst of that dangerous situation, and it was telling them to expect nothing less than the worst-that Jesus was now a ghost, coming towards them in the midst of all of this ongoing upheaval.
It is here that the storytellers of Matthew begin to emphasise the supernatural elements of the story, particularly the ones where Jesus is somehow able to make His way across these stormy waters on foot. This is the part that we are all expected to remember-that Jesus was able to walk upon these waters, and the fact that even His closest disciple is not able to do the same is a sign of weak or absent faith on Peter’s part. It’s the kind of larger than life detail that we as readers and listeners all these years later are expected to take to heart and look to as an example in our own lives-the ones where we are always seeking to live up to what Jesus was able to do in our own lives of faith.
But what if by paying so much attention to what Jesus’ FEET are doing in this story-walking across the surface of the water-we are missing something that could be more important to our lives as a people and as a people of faith? What if, instead of focussing so intently on the location of Jesus’ feet in the action of this story, we turned our attention to what a different part of Jesus’ anatomy does in this dramatic moment. I’m talking of course about Jesus’ HANDS-the ones that He uses to haul Peter back to the surface after he becomes temporarily submerged under the waves. In that moment, it’s unlikely that Peter would have heard anything that Jesus might have been saying to him about the overall status of his faith in Jesus, but the sensation of Jesus reaching out to pull him free of the currents that were threatening to sweep him away from all that was familiar and safe. Much like the otters that we looked at in the opening lines of this reflection, Jesus’ hands reach out to keep Peter and the other disciples connected in real time and in real ways to the community that they were trying to form even in the midst of turbulent waters such as these.. The community that was able to be affirmed by words of faith once everyone was safely back in the boat and the storm died away, leaving behind calm and peace in its wake.
It’s hard in the 21st century to really know what to do with a story such as this, with so many supernatural elements that make it so much larger than life that it’s hard to find anything for us as ordinary humans to emulate in our own lives. But if we can shift our focus just a bit, we can find parts of the story that have been hiding in plain sight, showing us how we can live our faith to its fullest, by using our hands, our words, and our hearts to reach out to one another in ways that provide us with the spirit of community that can help us to weather whatever storms or moving waters might come our way in this life. We may not be able to walk on water, but each of us and all of us can move in a direction that brings us closer to one another, and as we do so, we can all of us reach out in ways that keep us connected to each other, and to Christ who brings us together as one. May it be so. Amen.

Berwick Trinity United Church

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