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Hespeler, October 25, 2026 © Scott McAndless – St. Andrew’s Hespeler Heritage Sunday
Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46

We gather today to celebrate the legacy of St. Andrew’s Hespeler Presbyterian Church, one of our two founding congregations. St. Andrew’s Hespeler was founded in 1855 and moved into this building in 1920. And the question is: how do you celebrate the legacy of something that has been around for 171 years and in this place for 116 years?

Character of Moses

The editor of the Book of Deuteronomy had to deal with the same question. At the end of the book, the main character of four of the first five books of the Bible finally dies. And Moses has an incredible legacy to celebrate – a 120-year legacy, close to the same amount of time that St Andrew’s Hespeler has been around.

He set his people free. He then stood up to the mightiest empire that had ever existed, defeating their superior army. He also gave his people a kind of constitution, a code of laws, that they could live by and led them through forty of the most difficult years of wandering you could imagine.

Who Wrote the Story of his Death?

According to tradition, the first five books of the Bible were all written by Moses. Now, modern scholars disagree with that and have demonstrated that these books were written by several authors and then edited together. But let’s just go with the tradition for a moment and imagine that Moses did write it all.

But even if that were true, readers very early on realized that there was no way that Moses could have written this final chapter of Deuteronomy. How can anyone write an account of their own death? So, somebody else took on the task of summing up 120 years of life and accomplishment in one chapter.

Summing up his Legacy

And how would you do that? Wouldn’t you do it something like this:

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord told him to look backwards at everything he had accomplished. God showed him the corpse of the Egyptian he had slain and buried in the sand. God showed him all the plagues that rolled over the land of Egypt, bringing death and destruction. After that came a wonderful panoramic view of the battle of the Red Sea, with the water standing up straight and the chariot wheels stuck in the mud.

And then there was another battle; Moses wasn’t quite sure if he even remembered who they were fighting that time. But Moses was up on a hill overlooking the battlefield, holding his staff up in the air. When he held the staff up high, the Israelites won, but when he grew weary and let the staff fall, they started to lose.

Forty Years of Wandering

This was followed by an extended montage of the forty years travelling in the wilderness. There were arguments and people complaining. He saw the manna falling on the ground and quail flying over the camp in droves. And then Moses watched as his younger self stepped forward, staff in hand, and struck the rock bringing forth great streams of water.

But everything paled in comparison to the reprise of what happened on Mount Sinai, where Moses stood serene on the peak while the people did their best to break every commandment they could on the plains below

And as Moses stood there on the top of Mount Nebo, he gazed over everything that he had done. And Moses said, “I am weary, Lord.” And Moses died there on top of Mount Nebo. And the people came and buried him and created a great mausoleum that they could visit regularly to remember and honour everything Moses had accomplished.

Honouring Our Past

 That is how we would do it. When we want to honour a legacy in the church, we put up plaques and tell stories about the way things used to be. In fact, we do even more. We idolize and idealize the way things were.

Even more importantly, we make the past the model for the future of the church. If there was some program that we ran years ago, something that really seemed to connect with the community or fulfill a need, we insist that we’ve got to keep running that program.

And if, by chance, people no longer respond to that program like they once did, we don’t consider cancelling it. And we certainly don’t suggest that maybe it no longer fulfills the need that it once did or that society has changed so much that it just doesn’t work for people anymore.

What do we do? We criticize the people who are trying to run it now – maybe they’re not trying hard enough or maybe they don’t do it right, which is to say in the ways that we used to do it.

We’ve Never Done It Like That

And the other part of that is how we react when somebody suggests that we do something new or do it differently. I think we have all heard the refrain that goes up immediately: “We’ve never done it like that before.” And when the new thing runs into some inevitable roadblock or problem, we don’t give it a fraction of the patience or extra effort that we do to the thing that we always used to do that isn’t working so well anymore.

But, more than anything else, we judge the present of the church by the past. For example, every church I have been at over my whole career has felt embarrassed by and even apologized for its Sunday School. In many cases, this is despite the fact that they have an active and engaged group of children in the church. They have great teachers and successful activities. So, why do they feel embarrassed?

How Sunday School Used to Be

Well, it is because they remember what Sunday School used to be back in the Baby Boom years. Oh, the stories I have heard. “We used to have so many kids that we had to pay the Fire Marshal off to look the other way.” “We had so many classes that one of them had to meet in the men’s bathroom.” (That is a story that I have actually heard at St. Andrew’s Hespeler.) There are stories of wonder to rival the tales of the children of Israel in the wilderness.

And when that is how you define a successful Sunday School, anything smaller than having to pay off the fire marshal is just not going to measure up. So, is it any wonder people have a hard time seeing the success that they actually have?

What Is Success?

What’s more, I am not entirely sure those Sunday Schools were the success we all thought they were. Yes, they were a lot of fun, and people got a lot of meaning out of them, but we should ask what the definition of success is. Is it to fill up classrooms and men’s bathrooms? Or is it to develop Christians who will benefit from walking in the faith their whole lives long?

I think it is the latter and if it is, then we have to reckon with the fact that the generation of children that filled our church classrooms and gymnasiums in the Baby Boom years is the same generation of adults that abandoned the church in greater numbers than any generation before it. I wouldn’t lay all of the blame for that at the door of the Sunday School, of course. But it should at the very least make us pause to re-evaluate our definition of a successful Christian Education program.

So we often focus on the past to honour the legacy. But if we focus in the wrong ways, it can actually compromise our present life. It can lead to judgement and disappointment where none is merited. It can make us focus on recreating the church that we remember from the past rather than building the church that is needed for the present moment. We can end up ransoming our future to pay for our past.

Deuteronomy’s Tribute

So I think that whoever added the final chapter of Deuteronomy found a better tribute to the legacy of Moses. He didn’t tell us that God made Moses look back. He told us that God showed Moses what lay ahead. “The Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar.”

This makes it clear that Moses’ legacy is not what he did. It is what he made possible. And what he made possible was for his people to live free in their land into the future. The successes and the failures of the past had to fade away before that. And it didn’t matter that Moses wouldn’t get to live through any of it – that the closest he would get was this glimpse from the top of Mount Nebo. The future would be his legacy, not the past.

Burial of Moses

This point is given extra emphasis when we are told that God buried Moses. “Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.” This might seem to contradict what I just said because it says that Moses was to be buried outside of the land for which he had done everything.

It would contradict if some great mausoleum were built for Moses in that valley in the land of Moab. Then the people would return there to celebrate his legacy and remember the past. But there was no memorial; no one knew where he was buried at all. So there was no place to go back to. That is the point.

The only way that the people of Israel would have to truly honour the memory of their great leader was to live out the vision that he lived for and died for in the new land that God was giving them.

Celebrating Our Legacy

So here we are, gathered to celebrate the 171-year legacy of a congregation that has worshipped in this place for 116 years. What do you think is the best way to honour that legacy? We don’t forget our past, of course. We honour the memory of all those who have gone before and their faith and their ministry and service.

But let us not build the kind of memorial that God didn’t let the people of Israel build for Moses on Mount Nebo. Let us not build something that we have to keep coming back to. Let us especially not build a mausoleum to their accomplishments that will cause us to judge or reject new possibilities because they do not resemble the accomplishments of the past.

Moses Not Permitted to Enter

Moses was not permitted to enter into the future that had been promised. And I know that often seems unfair. He did so much and worked so hard to make it possible. How could he only be permitted to see it from a distance? Even the Bible struggles with this notion of Moses not making it in, offering different and conflicting reasons for why he wasn’t allowed to enter.

But I think that element is in the story to remind us of an important principle. If the church has its priorities straight, we will all be committed to acting and working for goals that we may not see come to fruition for our own sake. We work for a future we may not enjoy ourselves.

Something Bigger Than You

It is not, of course, that you don’t personally get anything out of your participation in the life of the church. If that is not happening, we are definitely not doing church right. But your growth, your fulfillment, your comfort and blessing cannot be the only reason for your participation. It has to be about something bigger than you. It has to be about something bigger than me. It has to be about a future that we may not be able to participate in.

That is the legacy we have received from those who have gone before and that is the legacy we need to be willing to work for. That is why Moses went up Mount Nebo to look forward, not to look back.

Watch sermon video:

https://youtu.be/gMkR3R5tibc

Hespeler, October 11, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Harvest Thanksgiving
Isaiah 25:1-9, Psalm 23, Philippians 4:1-9, Matthew 22:1-14

Don’t you just love it when you are reading a passage in the Bible, and you come across a name that you just can’t figure out how to pronounce? No, am I the only one who is thankful when he sees a verse like this one we read today: “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal Syzygus, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel.”

Why do I love verses like that so much? Is it because I like to torment the worship assistants who read the Bible passages on Sunday morning? Of course not! Well, okay, yes, but only a little bit.

Real People

No, the real reason I appreciate these names is that they remind us that these letters were written to real people. We often read these scriptures as texts that are there to communicate big and universal truths that we are supposed to take and apply to every situation.

Now, I am not saying, of course, that you can’t find universal theological truths in these passages. They are certainly there. But when Paul wrote these words, his goal was not to write theology. He was writing to real people – people like Euodia, Syntyche and Syzygus – and giving them real advice to help them with their real struggles.

The passage we read this morning has much to say to us today. It is fitting that we read it on this Thanksgiving Sunday. And I want to reflect on the universal theological truths that it has to teach us about giving thanks.

But before we turn to those ideas, I wanted to remind us that that was not why Paul wrote them. He wrote them for Euodia, Syntyche and Syzygus. Remember them, because we are going to come back to them before we are done here today.

Why Is Thanksgiving Important?

Why is Thanksgiving important? I am not just asking why it is important that we have this holiday at harvest time when we get together with loved ones and enjoy the bounty of what the land has produced and talk about how blessed we are. I mean, a table laden with turkey, stuffing and all the fixings is justification enough for that alone.

But I’m asking why we put such importance on people being thankful. I can think of a couple of reasons that might be part of the answer, but I don’t think they are reasons enough alone.

Drilled into Us

For one thing, most of us have had the importance of being thankful drilled into us since childhood. We were given lessons, sometimes painful lessons, about the importance of expressing thanks under all kinds of situations.

And I’m sure you remember those lessons. How your parents told you that it was important for you to say thank you to your aunt when she gave you a gift, even if you didn’t appreciate that gift in the least. I remember being obliged by my mother to write a thank-you note for every single gift that I had received for Christmas or for my birthday. I remember how much that felt like an insurmountable task even if it was just a question of writing a few sentences on a few cards to maybe less than five people!

Social Skill

But the importance of it was instilled in us. And I think we understand why that was such an important lesson to receive. So much so that, when we had our own opportunity to raise a child, we did our best to pass that lesson on. But why is it seen as such an important lesson? Why do we teach children to say thank you, even if sometimes they don’t feel particularly thankful?

We do it because we know that people who express thanks make a better impression. They come across as grounded and trustworthy. They are the kind of people that people want to deal with. Learning to be thankful is, in other words, a social skill that will serve you well as you make your way in the world.

And I do not quarrel with that at all. I agree that learning to express gratitude is a positive and useful social skill and that the more we all use it, the better society will be. But is that why we teach that giving thanks is important in the church? No, that is not the reason.

Vance and Zelenskyy

There is another reason why people assume that saying thank you is important. Do you remember the scene over a year ago when Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, had a famous meeting with the American President in the Oval Office?

At one point, the Vice President, J.D. Vance, said this to him: “Have you said ‘thank you’ once this entire meeting? Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.”

That was a statement about the importance of saying thanks, but the reason for saying it there was not really about social skills or about building a more respectful society. It is clearly not about that because, of course, Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians have not hesitated to express gratitude to any supportive nation.

Managing Powerful People

No, Vance was concerned about Zelenskyy saying thank you for another reason. It was about power and how we treat people who have it. There are people who have the power to do things for you or give things to you, but you have to treat them right.

Such people tend to be somewhat self-centred or narcissistic, and so you have to use things like praise, flattery and lots and lots of gratitude. We all know people who are like this. We have all learned to treat them accordingly whenever we need them to do something for us. And Vance was simply doing the courtesy of informing Zelenskyy how the administration he represented needed to be treated.

So, there is another, different reason why it can be important that people learn to be thankful. It is a useful tool for manipulating powerful or influential people. But is that why we teach that it is important to be thankful in the church?

Managing God

In the life of the church, we are dealing, after all, with the most powerful being imaginable. We believe that God can do anything we ask or desire. And we have all learned how to speak to powerful people. Is it a surprise that we should speak to God in the same way?

Anyone analyzing our prayers and worship and noticing how we make a point of praising God and thanking God for just about everything might conclude that we are doing what Vance wanted Zelenskyy to do: buttering God up so God will give us what we want. In fact, many people who are part of the church may think that is exactly what we are doing.

Humans have historically treated their gods like that. They saw it as transactional. You gave your god a sacrifice, a promise or praise, and you could expect that in return, your god would make your crops grow or give you a child or whatever else you wanted, after which, of course, you had to make a point of thanking your god so that they didn’t take it away.

Does God Need Our Thanks?

But is that why we praise and thank the God we have come to know through Jesus Christ? Is our God a selfish and narcissistic being that we need to manipulate in that way? Maybe some people think that. Maybe you think that sometimes, but the answer is no.

God doesn’t need our praise and thanksgiving to be persuaded to do things for us. God doesn’t love us or want to give us good things because we have said or done the right thing. The Bible reminds us again and again that God’s love and care for us comes despite our sins and failures.

What’s more, the God we meet through Jesus clearly doesn’t need our praise or thanksgiving. God is no narcissist; narcissists are people who are trying to compensate for deep self-doubts. God is not on a power trip; God has more power than we can imagine. To treat God as someone that we can manipulate with cringing gratitude is to misrepresent God. It is creating a false idol, worshipping a God who does not exist.

Euodia and Syntyche

So, if we don’t teach gratitude as a social skill, and we don’t use it as a way of manipulating God, why do we put so much emphasis on giving thanks in the church? Why have we gone so far as to create a festival for it? Well, that brings us back to our good friends Euodia and Syntyche, as well as the loyal Syzygus.

When Paul wrote this letter to the church in Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche were in a bad place. They were obviously leaders in the church, but they were at odds with each other. It is easy to see that this was making them miserable. And so, Paul asks Syzygus to help these women change their perspective.

People Who Have Been Richly Blessed

The name Syzygus means companion or partner, someone who accompanies you on your journey, and Paul clearly wants Syzygus to join these women on a journey to a new way of seeing things.

But let us also take note of the names of these two women. Euodia means “prosper on the way,” and Syntyche means “good fortune.” I think we are meant to understand these are women who have been blessed in extraordinary ways.

They have received so much, but they don’t see that, do they? They have been arguing with each other. They have only been focusing on the negative and made themselves miserable.

And we all know people like that, don’t we? We know people who have received much good fortune and prosperity, but because they can only see the negatives, they have become sour and bitter. And Syzygus is given the difficult job of helping two people like that change their moods!

Rejoice!

But don’t worry, Paul doesn’t just leave him there. He goes on to give Syzygus exactly the information he needs to change the perspective of these two women. He writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

Now, that is admittedly somewhat troubling advice. Even though he repeats it twice, it is not really advice that is easy to follow. People generally cannot make themselves joyful just because someone tells them to rejoice.

Turning Anxieties into Prayers

But Paul isn’t finished. He goes on to explain how Euodia and Syntyche can change their thought patterns and how Syzygus can help them. He doesn’t just say, for example, “do not be anxious,” he offers the antidote to anxiety, which is learning to “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Turning your anxieties into prayers, supplication and thanksgiving allows you to let go of the things that weigh you down. You recognize that you do not have to carry them alone, that they are not your responsibility and that you can offer up what is not under your control to God.

Changing Thought Patterns

And then Paul continues with this challenge to reprogram your thought patterns: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think aboutthese things.”

Rather than focussing on the negative, as I am sure that Euodia and Syntyche were doing, we can focus on the positive. There is much that is positive to be found. Let our thoughts focus on these things and you will be amazed at how it changes your perspective.

So, to return to our opening question, why do we encourage people to practice thankfulness in the church? It is not because we want to teach a social skill or shape society. It is not because we think we can manipulate God with our thanks.

It is for our sake. It helps us focus on the positive, the Euodia and the Syntyche of our lives. It changes how we look at the problems we have to face. That is what Paul wanted Euodia and Syntyche to realize, and it is what he wants you to realize too. It is what he wanted Syzygus to help these women to see, and he wants you to help others see it too.

You can join us

Watch Sermon Video Here:

https://youtu.be/AktxBU6smUo

Hespeler, October 04, 2026 © Scott McAndless – World Communion

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20, Psalm 118:19-29, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46

T

he stones had been cut and shaped at the quarry. They were then loaded onto carts that had been specially built to carry the extraordinary weight and hauled by teams of oxen to the building site. As they arrived, they were unloaded by teams of burly slaves and left in piles.

It was the job of some of the labourers to look through the stones and sort them by size and shape, as certain stones would be needed for various parts of the structure.

Reject Pile

But there was one stone that they didn’t know what to do with. It had no faults or cracks, but it was neither perfectly square nor rectangular. It had an odd trapezoidal shape, and it didn’t seem like it would fit in anywhere.

They didn’t have a lot of time to consider. There were so many stones to sort and so little time to get the work done. So, they simply put the stone on the reject pile and moved on. And there the stone sat as the work on the great temple got underway.

The cornerstone was laid, and the expert builders went to work laying out the stones in perfect lines. They built without mortar because mortar does not last forever. Only the force of gravity would hold this structure together. The seams between stones would have to be just right. The distribution of weight would have to be perfect, for this was a building that was meant to stand until the end of time.

 The Life Paul Had Built

As Paul of Tarsus, also known as Saul, looked at the life he had built, he felt as if he had built it right. He had started with the right foundation, his identity as an Israelite. This had been marked into his very flesh by circumcision on the eighth day of his life. He knew where he had come from, tracing his family to the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew through and through.

But he knew it wasn’t enough for him to rely on his ethnic identity. He had embraced the covenant that God had made with his people entirely by vowing to live his whole life according to the law. That led him to become a Pharisee, part of the religious party that carefully studied the law of Moses and showed people that it was possible to follow it in very practical ways.

The Followers of Jesus

In fact, he committed himself so completely to following the Law that, when he heard of a group of people who had a different understanding of how to follow it, he devoted himself to eradicating their way of life from the earth.

They were followers of a teacher from Galilee named Jesus, a man who had been crucified by the Romans. They were obviously deluded fools because they claimed to have seen the man alive even after his death. But Paul knew that this man had taught things that did not fit with what he understood about the Law, so there couldn’t be any truth in that.

Jesus was unusual, a misfit, and so Paul did his best to make sure that the man and his ways were expelled, forgotten, and thrown on the reject pile of history. He became a zealous persecutor of all those who dared to follow in the way of Jesus.

Something Missing?

As Paul looked at his life, he saw that he had built it well with strong lines and firm foundations. Every part of his life was perfectly proportioned. The seams between his convictions and his actions were just right. And the distribution of priorities was perfect. When he held the law up against the life that he was living, he could look at it and declare that it was perfectly righteous.

And yet, deep inside, he felt as if something was missing. He could not say this to anyone, but he seemed to lack one thing that could tie the various parts of his life together and give it all meaning.

The Arch

The temple walls rose steadily. As the labourers laid each stone, the master masons came around with a simple plumb line, a lead weight on the end of a string, to check that each line was perfectly righteous.

But as the walls rose, they came to the place where they would have to join two sections across from each other to form a gate. The temple was not being built for the sake of God; it was for the people. They needed to be able to come and go – to step out of their ordinary lives and into the nearer presence of God.

And so, once the walls had risen above the head of the tallest man, they began to lay stones leaning outward across the void. These stones, because they were not laid flat, were not stable like the others. They had to build wooden scaffolding across the gate to support them, for otherwise they would all come crashing down. And the further out they built, the more unstable the entire structure became. Gravity, that force that was supposed to make the building firm, had now become their enemy!

A Building Crisis

There finally came the point when all the stones that could be laid without crushing the scaffolding were in place. The manual labourers were at a loss. The whole structure now seemed to be so unstable that they were afraid to even come near.

They called out to the master masons in their fear, and they came over. As soon as they saw the problem, they knew exactly what to do. They described to the labourers a stone that should have come from the quarry. It would have had an odd shape, not square but more of a trapezoid.

Finding the Rejected Stone

As they described it, one of the labourers remembered the stone they had not known what to do with and had left on the reject pile. They quickly went to the pile and, after a fair bit of searching (for a great deal of refuse had been cast there in the meantime) they found it and brought it back.

The master masons told them exactly where they had to place it on the very centre of the arch. As they put it in place, all the instability disappeared in a moment. The force of gravity that had threatened to destroy all their work a moment before now pulled all of the stones together so tightly that it was clear that this arch would stand forever. And it was all thanks to that one odd stone from the reject pile.

Building Over the Void

Paul felt as if there was some force in his life that, like gravity, was dragging him downwards. It didn’t make any sense; he felt as if he had built his life around all of the right priorities.

The problem was that he felt increasingly uncomfortable with persecuting the followers of the way. Yes, he still thought that they were living out the Law wrongly, but there was no question they were good people who were living lives of compassion and care. He didn’t want to admit it, but he increasingly felt that they didn’t deserve to be so abused.

Doubling Down

But, as people often do, he attempted to drown out the objections of his conscience by becoming even more extreme in his abuse. He “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:1-2)

As he headed down the road to Damascus, he kept telling himself that he was only doing what needed to be done. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that the structure of his life was off balance and that, at any moment, everything might come crashing down all around him.

Finding Jesus

When the risen Jesus, the very person whose memory he had been trying to eradicate, appeared to Paul, he told himself that he must reject him. How many times had he said that this man was the origin of everything that was wrong with the world? But somehow, he couldn’t do it. He fell to his knees in wonder and in awe.

And suddenly, at that very moment, everything just kind of clicked into place. When he had rejected this Jesus, it had felt as if everything in his life was about to fall apart. But now he realized that, if he allowed Jesus to have a place in his life, everything could make sense.

But not only did it bring meaning to his life, but it also opened up new possibilities – new doorways and entrance arches, you might say. For if Jesus could appear to the man who persecuted his followers, what else was possible? Maybe, Paul thought, a way could be opened for even Gentiles to be justified outside the Law.

The Story of the Stone

The master masons who planned the temple had always known that an oddly shaped capstone would be needed to hold the whole building together. But they didn’t explain those kinds of things to the common labourers who were supposed to just do what they were told without needing to understand it.

So, when the labourers expressed their surprise at how a stone that they had thrown in the reject pile had come to be placed in such an exalted position, the masons did not contradict them. The story of the rejected stone became a tale that was repeated to every worshipper who came to the temple.

Soon it came to be considered an essential part of the tour. Visitors who came to Jerusalem insisted that they could not leave without having someone point out to them the stone that the builders rejected.

Processional Psalm

In fact, it became so famous that, when one of the Levite musicians wrote a processional Psalm to mark a special festival, he included this verse to be sung as the procession passed under the arch:

“Open to me the gates of the Temple; I will go in and give thanks to the Lord!

This is the gate of the Lord; only the righteous can come in.

I praise you, Lord, because you heard me, because you have given me victory.

The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all.

This was done by the Lord; what a wonderful sight it is!”

And once a reference to the stone had made it into the scriptures, well, talk about it increased all the more. Before long, the stone that the builders had rejected became a symbol for the Messiah, the one whom God would choose, even if he was rejected by others, to bring hope and salvation to the whole nation – to bind them together as the capstone bound the arch on the temple together.

The Most Important Stone

And so, Paul of Tarsus realized that the stone that he had rejected because it didn’t fit with his preconceptions of the world or of God, the stone that he had cast on the garbage pile because he thought it was useless to the life that he had built, was actually the stone that he needed the most. And the more he allowed that stone to bind his life together and give meaning to it, the more he found that the other parts of his life that had seemed so important began to fade away, to seem like garbage by comparison.

Jesus and the Stone

One day, near the end, when he was in Jerusalem, Jesus gestured towards the stone in the temple arch, and he said, “Haven’t you ever read what the Scriptures say? ‘The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all. This was done by the Lord; what a wonderful sight it is!’”

He said it as a challenge to you and to me to move Jesus from the reject pile – that place where you put all the things that don’t matter, that don’t really influence or change you – to put him in that position where he has the power to pull your life together and begin to transform the world. Paul put Jesus in that position in his life, and it really did change the world. I expect no less from you when you do the same.

Watch sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/mBKFSllbAYs

Hespeler, September 27, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32, Psalm 25:1-9, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32

The Apostle Paul loved the people in the church in Philippi. Even though he was in prison when he wrote to them, and it was probably dangerous to do so, they supported him freely. The joy that he takes in them comes across on every page of this letter.

But for Paul, something was still missing. The church in Philippi was not united. They were disagreeing and arguing with one another. Perhaps they even had differences over their support for Paul.

And so, in his letter, he entreats them saying, “make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”

And I do not think that Paul is speaking only for himself here, nor is he just speaking to the situation in Philippi. This is also Jesus Christ’s priority for the church. It is Jesus’ priority for us.

What Jesus Delights in

Jesus takes delight in many things in the life of our congregation. Jesus loves it when we worship with full hearts. Jesus loves our joyful music. And when he sees us doing what we can to feed the hungry, to offer clothing to those who do not have enough, Jesus is ecstatic. When we welcome people as they are, when we listen to their problems to connect them to people who can help them find solutions, it warms Jesus’ heart.

But Jesus never stops looking for that one more thing that would make all of his joy in us complete. He wants us to be united, to share the same mind and the same love and be in perfect accord.

Completing Jesus’ Joy

That is more important to Jesus than that we be seen as successful as a church, or that our pews be full, or that we meet our budget. Just us being united in one mind is enough to bring to Jesus utter and complete joy.

And surely you all want that, don’t you? Just think, you have the power to give to Jesus a joy that is complete in every way. How could you not want to do that?

But there is one problem, isn’t there? We are all different. We all have different concerns, different worries, opinions and priorities. How can we put all of that aside to create that one-mindedness that will complete Jesus’ joy?

Practical Advice

Well, fortunately the Apostle Paul doesn’t leave us hanging on that account. He tells us how we can do that seemingly impossible thing. He starts with some real practical advice. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit,” he writes, “but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.”

And that is all really good. But I know, and I imagine that you also know, that that is often easier said than done. There are times when, for example, I act in selfish ways or in ways that are only concerned with my own ambition, but I am not always aware of it when I do that. It can also often be very easy to confuse my own interests with the interests of someone else. We are just human after all, and we make those kinds of mistakes all the time.

Same-Mindedness

So, Paul gives us the tool that will allow us to find that same-mindedness. And it is a tool that is available to all of us as followers of Christ. “Let the same mind be in you that wasin Christ Jesus,” he says.

That makes a certain kind of sense, doesn’t it? If we can all manage to let the mind of Christ enter into us, well, then we will all automatically have the same mind, won’t we?

The Mind of Christ

That just leaves one niggling little question. How do we get the mind of Christ into us? It can’t be a question of intellect. We can’t all get as smart as Jesus because he surely has depths of knowledge and understanding that none of us can attain.

But don’t worry, Paul is not done. He goes on to tell us exactly what he means by the mind of Christ. The passage that follows is truly remarkable because most biblical scholars agree that Paul didn’t write it. He seems to be quoting something to them that they have heard before. It is probably a hymn or song that they sing as part of the life of their church.

Ancient Hymn

The Letter to the Philippians was probably written sometime around 60 ad, maybe thirty years after Jesus’ resurrection. But this hymn that Paul quotes is older than that. It has been around long enough to be well known and familiar to everyone. So it might have been written much closer to the time of Jesus.

It could be older than all of the Gospels, older than most of the Letters of Paul. It might even be one of the first things that anybody ever wrote down about Jesus. That is quite something to consider!

And I would, in fact, encourage you to take some time to consider this extraordinary passage. Meditate on it. It will reveal to you aspects of the person of Jesus that probably never occurred to you before.

The Story of the Christ

It is a hymn that celebrates the story of the Christ, but not the story as we usually tell it. There is nothing about a birth in a manger or a ministry in Galilee. It is rather the story of the cosmic Christ. It begins with Jesus being in the presence of God and having the very form of God. Apparently, for Jesus, equality with God is something that is within his grasp.

But having all of that, Jesus simply gives it up. Rather than seizing all of the rights of divinity, as he could, he lets go of it. He empties himself. It is literally the same word you would use for pouring water out of a cup or emptying a bucket. Jesus then takes on a new form, a human form. But not just human, specifically the form of a human who is a slave.

The Twist

And then, of course, comes the big twist in the story of Jesus. Having become a slave, he is exalted and given a name that is higher than any other name in all of creation, a name so exalted that, at the sound of it, every being on earth, in heaven and under the earth will spontaneously bow down.

And why is Jesus given such an exalted title? Is it because of that whole part about him starting out in the very form of God? Is it his divinity that provokes such a reaction?

No, not at all. It is rather his extreme humility, service and obedience that cause God to exalt him. And Paul adds the point, probably the only words in this hymn that he added himself, that this service and obedience were so extreme that they included Jesus’ death on a cross.

Paul doesn’t tell us what the mind of Christ is. Instead, he points us to this extraordinary poem about the story of Jesus. And I believe that right here you will find directions for how you can have the mind of Christ in you.

Original Nature

The poem starts with a statement of the original nature of Christ. “He existed in the form of God.” And for you, having the mind of Christ has to begin with an understanding of your true nature. And no, you are not in the form of God. That is something unique about Christ. But I’ll tell you what you are.

You are created in the image of God. That is something common to all humanity. You are also beloved of God. You are someone for whose sake Jesus was willing to suffer death, even death on a cross. You are someone chosen, redeemed and saved by God through Jesus Christ. All of that has been given to you, not because you deserve it, but because you are willing to put your trust in Jesus and what he has done for you.

Having the mind of Christ begins by making that the foundation of your identity and self-worth. There are many other things about you that make you special and unique, and God loves all you accomplish through them. But knowing that this is the foundation of your self-worth means that you cannot think more highly of yourself than the others in your church who have the same foundation of their worth.

Not Grasping

So, you start by knowing who you are in Christ. The next step to obtaining the mind of Christ is to choose, like Jesus, not to grasp that worth, but to be willing to set it aside. Empty yourself of it. That does not mean that you forget your true worth, of course. Jesus never forgot where he came from. But it does mean that you choose, like him, to devote that worth to service and obedience.

Jesus taught us again and again that we attain our greatest power through service. “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” he said, “and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.” (Matthew 20:26-27) And I realize that choosing to serve does not always come easy. Not all of us are equipped to serve in every way, and it may take some discernment to find a place where you can serve. But when you do, Paul’s promise is that you will find that the mind of Christ forming in you.

Choosing Service

How many in this church have found that place where they fit in, whether it be in offering food to the hungry, or leading in worship, serving as an elder or deacon, or in so many other ways? I have seen how you have deepened in your faith and grown in compassion as you have done these things. This is the mind of Christ growing in you.

Exaltation

So, you develop the mind of Christ in yourself by knowing who you are and choosing to put who you are to work in acts of service. But there is one more verse in the hymn that we need to cover. For, even as Jesus was exalted and given a name that is above every other name, we are given a share in that exaltation.

And yes, part of that is that have the hope and expectation that after we die, we will be raised up to a new life in an existence far beyond our present understanding or imagination. That hope sustains us even through the darkest times of this life. And knowing that hope is a part of having the mind of Christ.

Owning the Name

But remember always that this exaltation is not just for another life. For in this world, we claim the exalted title of Christ. That is what we mean when we call ourselves Christians. Owning that name and being able to carry it in this world is something we should cherish always. We have a share in that name that is exalted above every other name in heaven, on earth and under the earth.

And sure, not everyone we meet will recognize the importance of that name. But we know, don’t we? And that knowledge contributes to us having the mind of Christ.

So, when you understand what Paul means by having the mind of Christ, you realize that it is something we can attain in this world. So long as you know the foundation of your worth, so long as you embrace the role of service for which the Holy Spirit has equipped you, and so long as you hold onto the hope and power that is in the exalted name of Jesus the Christ, the mind of Christ will be found in you.

So, hold onto those truths, my friends. For, if we can do so, we will be of the same mind. And won’t you love to know that, in so doing, you will make the joy of Christ Jesus (and Paul) complete.