Luke 11:1-13

A man was praying eagerly: “Oh Lord, I believe in you. Nothing is impossible with you. To you, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Lord, I have something to ask you for. Can you just tell me the winning lottery numbers for this week!” And God’s voice boomed from above, “Okay. No problem, My son. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Tomorrow, as in one day, might be a thousand years to God.

God’s concept of time (Kairos) is significantly different from ours (Chronos). This is where many believers struggle with confusion, frustration, setbacks, or even doubts, leading them to ask, “Does God really care about me? Is God even real?” We want it now, but God gives it later, and sometimes much later, like a couple of decades later. And at other times, God gives something totally different. Or even… God never gives it.

Many Christians tend to view prayer like operating a vending machine. What would you normally do to get something from a vending machine? Well, the first thing you will do before you actually insert coins is to make a choice. You’ve got to decide which item you want to have. Then, as you put your coins in the machine, you know exactly what will pop out. If something else pops out or even nothing pops out, you instantly know that the machine is out of order. I think many Christians view prayer like that. When they pray for something, they expect that God will answer their prayers in the way a vending machine should work.

In a Christian survey done in many churches in the US years ago, they found that ‘unanswered prayer’ was one of the main barriers for many churchgoers. Because of their unanswered prayers, many believers would stay away from growing in faith. Prayer is more than an emergency magical lamp rubbed in a crisis. The truth is, many people give up on prayer because they haven’t received what they prayed for.

This leads us to ask some questions such as: “How do you pray?” or “Why pray at all?” And above all, “What do you pray about?” We are not alone. Those disciples of Jesus had that question, too. In today’s gospel story, Jesus was praying in a certain place, when one of his disciples came up to say, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” And Jesus said, “When you pray, say, “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

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Lent 4 Eph 2:1-10 ; Jn 3:14-21

Way back in 2021, I did my first sermon here (or ever) and I talked about my discomfort with unconditional love. I want to return to some of those ideas today, and I’m sorry if you have such a perfect memory that that bores you.

Late in high school at one point, I was in the backseat of my mum’s car when she was talking to a friend about the friend’s son. More specifically, talking about his hair. A few years before that, this teenager had moved from a boy’s school with a pretty strict military-inspired dress code, into a public school, and had grown a lush mane of hair. Just so much wavey healthy hair. It was clearly an expression of freedom and release, and at the time I had heard my mum and this woman discuss it and how positively this reflected his sense of creativity and joy returning.

Now, a few years later, he was considering shaving it all off. That wasn’t the reason the mum’s were talking, though. The point was a funny anecdote about the things teenages say, because apparently one of his friends had said “but your mum loves your hair! You’re sure she won’t like… disown you?” Cue both mum’s bursting into giggles.

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Genesis 9:8-17

Good morning, everyone! My name is JJ, and it is lovely to see you here today.

Today is the first Sunday of lent, which absolutely made me feel like the year is moving very quickly. Lent means different things to different people in this congregation – some of you may pick up a focused study, some may take up a fast or cut something non-food-ish from your lives, and some might not really notice it is happening.

Lent, like advent, is a kind of waiting phase in the church year. But in the same way that easter is a bit more emotionally mixed than Christmas, lent is a bit more mixed than advent. The roguish younger brother to your prince charming. Where advent is joyful eager waiting, lent is penitent, lent is reflection.

In a move that is more serendipitous than calculated, by the end of our lenten waiting, fasting, reflecting, we will have received not only the joy and sorrow of Easter, but a new minister. So today I want to invite us to do some reflecting – to sit in the posture of reflection – as we make the slow trek towards welcoming Hugh and Yoonhee into our community, and prepare to build the next bit of our story together.

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Those of you who were here last week heard me go on about how demon possession was an antiquated idea. Whether you agreed with me or not I came down pretty strong that explaining illnesses by attributing them to demonic possession was a concept from a culture that didn’t understand all we know now. I basically said the bible was wrong. Was that brave or foolhardy? I don’t really know.

But as I was preparing this week’s service I saw that the gospel reading was Mark 1:29-39 which is a story about Jesus healing the sick and in particular casting out demons from people.

So, who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour?

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