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Sermon Calvin Presbyterian/Deer Park United Church Sunday Oct 19, 2025 Kevin Parks Jeremiah 31:27-34

Sermon Calvin Presbyterian/Deer Park United Church Sunday Oct 19, 2025 Kevin Parks Jeremiah 31:27-34   You and I have spent some time with the prophet Jeremiah this fall. Jeremiah features as the continuous Old Testament/First Testament narrative in the Lectionary cycle we are passing through just now.  As we observed a few weeks ago in our first pass over Jeremiah’s words, this prophet is speaking into the political and social situation of his day, that is fraught by a people who aren’t paying good attention to proper worship, who are engaging in idolatry, and they are setting aside the covenant they have been called into.  Our first encounter with Jeremiah was in the call story, where Jeremiah hears God say:  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."  (1:5)  But Jeremiah complains that he doesn’t know how to speak because he’s only a boy. God puts that argument ...

Sermon: Calvin/Deer Park United Church Kevin Parks, Sunday September 28, 2025 Proper 21, Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost – Orange Shirt Sunday National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Sermon: Calvin/Deer Park United Church Kevin Parks, Sunday September 28, 2025 Proper 21, Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost – Orange Shirt Sunday National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15   I’m coming down from the pulpit to stand among you this morning, so we can have a more intimate moment for storytelling, and even truth-telling.    I’m going to tell you about Truth and Reconciliation, because Tuesday is the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.    My standing here, near to you, is to honour the Indigenous pattern of drawing into circles, of balance and equality.    I’m not going to ask you to move so we can have a talking circle…though that is tempting!!...but I think the next best thing is to offer a model of equality that moves me down from a high place, where I am speaking down upon you, to a level of equality and mutuality.    I liken this to the difference in Luke’s portrayal of Jesus as offering a sermon on t...