forest hill Musings -- weekly reflections on Scripture
Musings -- weekly reflections on Scripture
I began writing these short essays for our weekly e-newsletter. They served two purposes: First, they gave me an initial run at the Scripture that I would be preaching on -- an opportunity to start thinking about the spiritual and life questions that the sermon might address. Second, they serve as advertising; an invitation to folks to join us on Sunday morning and see how my thinking has developed between the first take on my questions and the final sermon that gets delivered.
We've started collecting these at this website so that people who aren't already subscribed to our newsletter can get a sense of what's coming up in worship. Feel free to check back weekly to see the reflection for the week, or click here to subscribe to our email newsletter and have these delivered into your inbox every Friday
Rev. Stephen Fetter
March 9, 2025
First Sunday of Lent
“Daring Questions:
1. Prayer”
Our worship themes in these weeks before Easter grow out of the questions you sent me last month. Here are this week’s questions:
- Why are some prayers unanswered?
- Is there such thing as a proper way to pray - the hows? When? Where?
- Can we just talk to God just like a child to a parent, or like a friend to friend?
- What is the sign of the cross in praying for?
We sometimes imagine that prayer is like going into the Boss’s office. We screw up our courage, put on our best game face, and gird ourselves up to ask for a raise, or a vacation, or job change. If we say the right words, and the Boss is feeling generous, we might come out of the office with at least some of what we hope for. But if the Boss is grumpy or capricious, there’s always the danger of being ejected like the President of Ukraine, with nothing but bad feelings to show for it.
Is that what God is like?
Is that why we pray?
Read more: Musings March 9, 2025 "Daring Questions: 1. Prayer"
March 2, 2025
Transfiguration Sunday
“Finding the Holy”
When I stand at the brink of Niagara Falls and watch water plunge over its rim into the abyss below, I am overcome with awe at my own insignificance beside such power. Here is beauty and raw strength that knows nothing of me, and yet moves me to tears.
Standing at the foot of the Rocky Mountains has done that to me too, marvelling up at crags that have been there for thousands of years, and will outlast me for thousands more. Gaping at the northern lights last Thanksgiving was another experience of wonder that put my life, with all its struggles and striving, into humbling perspective. In the face of that kind of immense and impersonal majesty, my oh-so-human goals are trivial.
Is the awe that rises within us during that kind of encounter with raw power also part of what happens when we find something “holy?”
February 16, 2025
Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
“Finding Blessing”
The Beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel are one of the most popular pieces of Scripture. They present an image of a transformed society under the rule of God where everything that is wrong with the world as we know it has been made new. They are inspiring, revolutionary and hopeful, and throughout Christian history we’ve re-told them in song and in readings and in prayer. These are truly some of the church’s favourites.
But we’re not reading from Matthew’s gospel. We did that two years ago. This time, we’re reading from Luke’s gospel, and in some ways it’s quite different. You still get the positive vision of a blessed world: “blessed are you who are poor … who are hungry … who weep … who are hated, excluded, reviled and defamed …” Under God’s rule all those things will be turned upside down. The wording is a bit different in Luke, but not THAT different. No one really knows whether Jesus preached the same sermon more than once (which wouldn’t be surprising for an accomplished preacher then or now!), or whether the differences just reflect the ways that oral tradition adjusted memories in the re-telling.
If the story stopped there, it likely wouldn’t matter which version we read. But it doesn’t. Luke doesn’t stop with promising blessing. He also predicts “woe.” “Woe to you who are rich … who are full now … who are laughing now … who are spoken well of …”
What’s that all about?
February 9, 2025
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
“Finding Your Feet”
The fishers were out all night, and came home with nothing but sweat and hunger pangs. Yet again, their kids would go hungry. Yet again, the tax collectors and their thugs would come calling. But then Jesus shows up, and sends them back out to sea. It’s the wrong time of day for fishing. Everyone knows fish don’t run in the middle of the day! But, miracle of miracles, the nets start to break with the haul.
We ask the wrong questions about this story. Our scientific brains want to know how something like this could happen. How did Jesus know the fish would come? How did Jesus set it up so the fish would appear on cue? How could you repeat this, so that no one would ever go hungry again? And how could a God, who presumably loves fish as well as people, send a swarm of innocent creatures into those nets, just to make a point? All our “hows” poke holes in the story, and make us doubt its value.
February 2, 2025
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
“Finding Focus”
I write this as our country teeters towards an economic cliff potentially more devastating than anything we have seen in our lifetimes. If the predictions we’re hearing aren’t exaggerated beyond belief, it’s reasonable to plan for the possibility that our lives could be completely upended in the next few months, and that no one will be left untouched. Where is God in this mess?
It’s so tempting to get caught up in grievance politics: look for someone to blame, demand revenge, and relish the thought of inflicting harm back. We want to teach a lesson, assert our rights, demonstrate strength. It’s particularly galling to see our politicians turning themselves inside out to do the bidding of a foreign power in the vain hope that it might head the disaster off at the pass, because it makes you realize how little actual independence we truly have. So much of what we have come to depend on seems to be reliant on the whims of others who are completely out of our control.