Jordan Rimmer Sermons

This parable from Matthew 20 is one of the most frustrating parables that Jesus taught. It is just so unfair that all the workers get paid the same. It is outrageous. But perhaps that is the point... And maybe there are some practical implications for this parable instead of just the spiritual insights that are often taught...

This sermon is on the parable of the unjust judge and the tenacious widow of Luke 18. This is a difficult parable because Luke gives and intro about the meaning of the parable and Jesus teaches after he parable and these two "hints" don't exactly line up. This is a simple story with riches of meaning that many people have never heard and many pastors have never preached. Bring it.

In this sermon I look at how Jesus talks about his kingdom using parables in Matthew 13. These have real world applications for us, because we are part of this kingdom, even though it does not always feel like we are or we don't always live like we are.

    This is one of my favorite passages of scriptures. It is so overly familiar to most people that they miss the depth of the parable. I even think that calling this the parable of the prodigal son is a misleading but you will have to listen to understand why.

   In this sermon I launch a series about the Parables of Jesus. I begin with some introductory comments on what parables are and how we need to interpret them. I then tackle the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example.

 This sermon is a history of communion from the Passover meal to our practices today. I pay special attention to the beliefs about communion, the names for communion, and the way it is practiced. I made major use of a powerpoint presentation that you do not have on the audio. 

In this sermon I reflect on Hebrews 12 and the Great Cloud of Witnesses. I have had the text on my mind since I spent time in England where people are actually buried and memorialized in the church. While this is not always a good idea, I think we Protestants may have missed something here. At the end of my sermon I invited people from my church to come forward and write names of important people to their faith who have gone on to glory.

God is constantly living a big story and inviting people to play a part in His story. What if the way God leads us is also a model for how we should lead others?

 In this sermon I look at the body imagery of the Apostle Paul and think it through in terms of story. We as people embody our stories- we physically move into the stories that we see ourselves in. Marketers know this and invite us into a story with their products as part of the embodiment of our story. How does story give insight into how Paul talks about the faith? How do we learn to embody God's story about us instead of the world's story about us?  

 Here I use the story of Nathan and David to look at how our lives our like stories and story can help us grow in our faith. I apologize for the abrupt start to the recording but I did not hit record for the first 2 minutes.

 God said above all the commandments to remember the Sabbath and that the person who does not keep the Sabbath should be removed from the community or even put to death (Ex 31:12-17). Why is Sabbath so important to God? Why don't we practice Sabbath? How do we start a Sabbath habit in our world today? Many of the thoughts of this sermon came from or were inspired by Sabbath as Resistance by Walter Brueggemann.  

                   In this sermon I look at two aspects of our Christian Faith--The Me Gospel or personal salvation and The We Gospel of the kingdom or social justice. These are like two sides of the same coin. When we get too out of balance and emphasize one over the other, then the faith becomes warped to a point that it is no longer Christianity. I am indebted to the book Me and We by my teacher Leonard Sweet which helped me think deeply about this topic.

This is the conclusion to my series on the book of James. James is giving advice for staying a doer of the word throughout all of life's circumstances. We should lean into God through prayer and praise and into one another through confession and prayer. I also take some time to talk about anointing with oil because after the sermon I anointed those who wanted to with oil and prayer while they came forward for communion.

  On April 26 Westminster Church accepted 5 new members and we did an infant baptism.  I took a few minutes to explain membership and baptism and what we believe about them.

 In James 5:7-12, James encourages his readers to be patient and establish their hearts because Christ is coming back. But shouldn't Christ's return mean we should be doing more?

 James has some harsh and bity words to say to the rich in this passage.  But does God think we should all be poor?  Here I compare a few other texts to try to develop a theology of wealth and possessions.  More than that, I make the argument that we should be going through this same process for every area of our lives.  

 I recently took a trip to Toronto, Canada to do research on Henri Nouwen.  Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest who taught at Notre Dame, Yale Divinity School, and Harvard Divinity School.  He wrote a number of books about Christian spirituality, leadership, and loss.  He spent the last 10 years of his life living in L'Arche Daybreak.  This is a community of disabled adults and their assistants where I went to stay for a couple of days.  I wanted to understand how Henri's personal story impacted his ministry.  I was surprised to learn a lot more about life, ministry, and myself on the trip.  This sermon is my attempt to share this experience with my congregation.

This is my sermon from Easter 2015.  I use the story of the road to Emmaus to talk about the meaning of Christ's resurrection.  It is about more than "God-talk."  It is about living the Resurrection Life.

When Jesus comes into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday He is actually walking into a ton imagery and expectation.  As we begin to see all of this symbolism we begin to have a richer understanding of what happens on the rest of Holy Week.

 In this sermon I develop the symbol of the cross.  How could this "emblem of suffering and shame" become such a symbol of hope and power?  I also talk about different types of crosses, the motion of crossing yourself or doing the sign of the cross, and the idea of carrying your own cross.  I reference a Powerpoint slide that is posted here.