River East Church Podcast

River East's adult Sunday School ministry is affectionately known as "Cross Training." Since there was no sermon this past week, by popular demand, here is Gerald Loewen's presentation on attachment theory, originally offered on January 19, 2025, after the worship service.The Q+A section of this session got quite personal for several individuals, and so it has been omitted from this recording.

On January 19, Aaron dove into the many mysterious aspects of Luke 4:14-30. Rather than finding clean answers, he rested on the questions, inviting us to hold them together as the community of believers.

Sorry for the delay—we unfortunately keep running into recording issues!On January 12, Mary Anne dove into the story of Jesus' baptism in Luke 3:1-22, helping us see the many different registers that baptism can take.Once again, the original audio for this sermon was unable to be published, and so a re-recording is here instead.

Still playing catch up!On December 29, 2024, Gerald Hildebrand took us through Luke 2:21-38, and the Gospel's unusual inclusion of two elderly prophets: Anna and Simeon. "Want to know what's really going on? Ask an old person."

We're catching up on uploads after the Christmas break!On fourth advent, December 22nd, Mary Anne offered this short homily focusing on the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:26-45). The sermon was complimented with an original ballet piece, created and performed by a member of the congregation—as piece which unfortunately doesn't translate well to the podcast medium!Please Note: Unfortunately, the original audio file for this sermon was corrupted and unusable. This is a re-recording (hence the different audio quality).

River East Church has a long-standing tradition of holding a 'Music Sunday' on Third Advent, meaning we forgo a sermon and instead have a service of songs, poetry, and other artforms.Thus, we once again are drawing into the archives for sermons this week's episode. This time it's a sermon first preached by Aaron in Advent of 2022, entitled "Emmanuel Who?" This sermon dives into Isaiah 7:10-16, and asks why the Gospel of Matthew chose to quote this text when announcing the coming of Christ.

This Second Advent, Aaron used the readings from Joel 2:12-13, 28-29 as a way to explore Christ's Incarnation (as well as some tropes from Star Trek). Is the Incarnation best told as a 'rescue plan' for humanity? Or as a 'master plan?' for all creation?

On December 1, First Advent, Mary Anne reflected on the famous story of Daniel and the Lions' Den (Dan 6:6-27). Instead of viewing this story as lauding the personal piety of one man, perhaps we can see it as a story of strategic resistence against an Empire, rooted in the hope of God.

By popular request, we're re-uploading this memorable Advent sermon for our 'From the Archives' upload. "The Holy Pooper" was originally offered on Christmas Eve, 2023, where Aaron viewed the familiar text of Luke 2 through the figure of "El Caganer"—an irreverant addition to Catalonian Nativity scenes.

On November 17, Aaron's picked up on the theme of 'infection' or 'spread' of holiness in Isaiah 6:1-8 (and elsewhere in Scripture), drawing an analogy with the 'zombie walk' phenomenon of the mid and late 2000s.

This Peace Sunday, Mary Anne examined the cliff-hanger ending of the book of Jonah (Jonah 4:1-11), alongside the Joseph Campbell's 'Hero's Journey.' How can we as peacemakers release our anger in a healthy way?

This All Saints Sunday (November 3), Mary Anne offered reflections on 1 Kings 17:1-24, exploring sainthood as "someone who is growing in discernment about God's voice, and as a result, is being transformed by love."

On October 27, 2024, Aaron combined the prog rock album "Question Mark," the lectionary passage (1 Kings 5:1-5, 8:27-30, 41-43), and reflections on the paradox of God immanence and transcendence.Note: for the sake of copyright, we have edited out the musical excerpts that were shared on Sunday. If you want to get deeper sense for the music, we encourage you to listen to Neal Morse's 2005 album "Question Mark" for yourself—best done in one continuous sitting, if you can!

Occassionally, River East doesn't have a traditional sermon to record on a given Sunday; maybe we had a potluck, storytelling, or just a service of singing. In those instances, we'll upload a sermon "From the Archives"—a sermon from the past that either stands out in our memories, or is relevant to our particular moment.This sermon does both. It was originally offered on March 27, 2022, by RECer Edgar French, who coordinates the Spiritual Care and Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Manitoba. At the time, River East was exploring the virtue of Humility, one of the seven Sacred or Grandfather teachings of the Anishinaabe, embodied by the wolf. Edgar's words on 1 Corinthians 5:16-21 were memorable, and dovetail well with our focus on God-centred storytelling in a complex world.

On October 13, Mary Anne explored Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 1:9-11, 19-20, 2:1-10. On the way, we learned how the British National Anthem evolved over time, and concluded with some singing ourselves!

On October 6, Aaron tackled the story of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32:1-14, sprinkling in some insights from Plato, Jonathan Haidt, and a strange prayer from the Babylonian Talmud.

On September 29—the Sunday before the Nataional Day of Truth and Reconcilliation—guest preacher Tobi Jolly reflected on current Indigenous realities while also exploring texts regarding the Passover (Exodus 12:1-13, 13:1-8).Tobi is a community worker who spent the last several years working with Indigenous people, families and communities experiencing trauma. She says: "I am learning how to hold both my Christianity and Indigeneity together, with some moments of clarity and inspiration, along with some steep and uncomfortable learning curves....Reconciliation for me is figuring out how to find new meanings in many things I thought I understood."You can learn more about Tobi here.

On September 22, 2024, Mary Anne highlighted a pattern of exile and exultation found throughout the story of Joseph: Genesis 37:3-8 17b-22, 26-34; 50:15-21.

On September 15, Aaron used Genesis 15:1-6 and the story of Abram under the stars to reflect on prayer .Note: this is actually re-recording, as the mic dropped out a few times on the original Sunday.

On September 8, 2024, Mary Anne kicked off our year with the narrative lectionary, offering this sermon on Genesis 2:4-7, 15-17; 3:1-8.

It's the first episode of our podcast experiment! Subscribe for more sermons, announcements, and other updates, and we'll see where this thing takes us.