Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

Rev. Geoff McKee has Acts 10:44-48 as his Scripture for the sixth Sunday of Easter (06 May 2018). This passage makes clear that “the unstoppable gospel of Jesus Christ is for all nations and for all races.”

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Acts 10:44-48 (New International Version)
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptised with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

I read the following recently in a blog article about racism in the Church.

“It isn’t exactly evidence of great insight, though, to say that “racism is wrong”. The more urgent question is: why is racism so persistent in human societies? Why, when we know the devastation that racism can wreak, is prejudice against someone on the basis of race or ethnicity something that is so casually evident?

Let me put it more pointedly: why is it that, even though I know that racism is terrible, I still find within my own heart evidence of racist assumptions? I still assume, pretty much, that white guys should be in charge of most things. And, as the flipside, I do catch myself suspecting the motives of people who are not like me. Typical, I catch myself thinking, they can’t control their kids. They are always stealing. They are all corrupt. They breed like rabbits.”

“Even though I know that racism is terrible…”

The Holy Spirit has been working on humanity for two thousand years, placing within most of humanity a deep-seated unease with racism.

And yet we can do our utmost to quench the Spirit of God. Some have even managed to so grieve the Spirit of God that all that is left is a chasm of darkness. [Read more…]

For the Fourth Sunday of Easter (22 April 2018), Rev. Geoff McKee’s scripture from Acts of the Apostles is the story of John and Peter’s encounter with the religious authorities after the healing of a cripple, in Jesus’ name. Geoff discusses how crucial it is that the Church should serve – and not stifle – the power of Christ. He also points out the – perhaps surprising to us – fact that the power of Jesus is not demonstrated in what he did but in what was done to him.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Acts 4:5-12 (New International Version)
5 The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’

12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

A Total Solar Eclipse occurs when the Moon moves between the Sun and the Earth, completely covering the disc of the Sun.

When this occurs, the shadow of the Moon is cast onto the Earth along what is called the path of totality. Everyone and everything within that path is plunged into an eerie darkness for a few minutes. You do not see a total eclipse – you experience it.

It is very unwise – and, in fact, dangerous to one’s sight – to look directly at the sun. We don’t do it because it is very uncomfortable and we know the dangers anyway.

So, to see the effects of a solar eclipse safely, we must use something like a camera obscura to help us. A closed box with a pin-hole will project the image and the effect can be viewed safely.

The Jews believed it was very unwise, and even perilous, for any human being to gaze directly upon the being of God.

With very few exceptions in their spiritual history, such an encounter with God brought instant death.

Yet, the people desired to be with their God and to know him. That relationship could not be experienced at a distance.

What were they to do? [Read more…]

In his sermon for the second Sunday of Easter (08 April 2018), Rev. Geoff McKee contrasts the rose-tinted view of life in the early Church found in Acts 4:32-37 with the daily struggles set out elsewhere in the gospels. “Those were the days, my friend!” He goes on to analyse and explain one of the basic statements of Christian belief – the Nicene Creed – as set out in the title to this post.

You can download a PDF version of this sermon by clicking here.

Acts 4:32-37 (New International Version)
The Believers Share Their Possessions
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Unlike me, some of you will be old enough to remember the summer of 1968.

It’s a wee while ago now, almost fifty years in fact.

If you can remember back that far, then you may remember a song that topped the charts that summer. A song written by Gene Raskin and sung by Mary Hopkin: Those were the days.

Do you remember it? Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing it! But remember the chorus….

Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.

‘Those were the days’ – how often do we say that?

We look back and we will see those days, whenever they were, through rose-tinted spectacles.

This passage in Acts of the Apostles has that kind of rose-tinted glow all around it, doesn’t it?

It’s like that through every generation.

Even for those of you who remember the great years of the 1950s in the Kirk. The old-timers back then would have been waxing lyrical about the years before the War!

So, when we’re looking at a passage like this in Acts of the Apostles, we’ve got to be careful that we don’t place it on a pedestal and admire it as a kind of exhibit.

This is not about idealised Christianity, for that would make it absolutely useless and it would set it against the rest of the New Testament witness which is absolutely grounded in the reality of the daily struggle to witness faithfully. ‘Those were the days my friend’; absolutely, but we live now and what can we learn for now? [Read more…]

Rev. Geoff McKee’s sermon for Easter Sunday (01 April 2018) discusses worldliness: concern with material values or ordinary life over a spiritual existence. Jesus knows our names and he calls each of us by name. The challenge we face is to keep looking to Jesus rather than (competitively) at the person next to us.

Download a copy of the sermon in PDF format by clicking here.

John 20:1-18 (New International Version)
The Empty Tomb
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

One of the surprising aspects for first-time Commissioners to the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly in Edinburgh is that, for many, the most moving moment of the Assembly occurs during the final session on Friday afternoon.

Some Commissioners don’t even last that long and are on their way home when the names of those ministers who have died since the last Assembly are read out by the recently retired Moderator along with the name of the last Parish in which they served.

It’s usually a long list but one finds oneself listening intently to all the personal names and all the Parishes and by implication the people who have served their local churches through the ministries.

It’s very moving.

It’s moving because it means something when a name is spoken. We all have names which are, of course, personal to us.

I’ve told you the story about ‘Fruit Stand’ before but it’s worth telling again!

When the 1960s ended, San Francisco’s Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz.

They got married and had children. But they didn’t name their children Melissa or Jack.

People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing with the likes of ‘Frisbee’ or with little ‘Time Warp’ or ‘Spring Fever’. And eventually ‘Moonbeam’, ‘Earth’, ‘Love’ and ‘Precious, Promise’ all ended up in public school.

That’s when the nursery teachers first met ‘Fruit Stand’.

Every autumn, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye and send them off to school on the bus.

So it was for Fruit Stand.

The teachers thought the boy’s name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it. [Read more…]