Like many of you, I’ve been following the Rio Olympics these past two weeks. I like watching the Olympics. I like the events and the competition, and I like the stories, of the athletes and their families, stories of Brazil, the host nation. On Thursday I watched the 200m final between Andre DeGrasse and Usain Bolt, and I enjoyed not only the race but also the whole back story, the bromance between Bolt, the champion and DeGrasse, the young challenger. I was reminded of another of the great Olympic stories, the one told in the movie Chariots of Fire. It is the story of Eric Liddell of Scotland, who after years of training is accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Par
Our first reading this morning from Isaiah is known as the song of the vineyard: Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines; He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? What more could I have done? If this was country music you’d call this a hurtin’ song. But these are our scriptures, and we so call this a lament. I heard this song on the radio this week. On my way home one afternoon there was an interview on As It Happens with the father of Aaron Driver, the would-b
I don't know if you've noticed, but there's an election going on in the US. And of the millions, maybe billions of people who have noticed, many of them have been drawing comparisons between the conventions that took place recently, the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention. But there is an even greater contrast and that is the contrast between the things said at the Republican National Convention and the things said in today’s gospel. Donald Trump told us to be afraid, to be very afraid. Jesus begins today’s gospel by saying “Be not afraid.” And believe me, believe me, it matters immensely which one of these two you’re going to believe. Jesus says “Be not