Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for Sunday 13 December 2015:

The TV is full of it at the moment.

On the cooking channels and even on some of the more mainstream channels: Nigella’s Christmas Recipes, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, River Cottage …

All the celebrity chefs are at it.

Just “do this” and you will have a stress-free Christmas that will be the tastiest ever.

Some of the recipes are simply fabulous, others downright weird, while yet others require ingredients that are just not that easy to find outside of multicultural cities.

But, while these shows and the recipes on them may be good, none of them guarantee you joy at Christmas. None of them guarantee you the real spirit of Christmas.

For that, I think, we need to turn to a minor Old Testament Prophet and a prolific letter writer. For they have the secret to joy at Christmas. And it is not in the way you baste your turkey or in what is lying under the Christmas tree. It is something much cheaper and much simpler. [Read more…]

This is Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for “Christ the King” Sunday – 22 November 2015:

According to one writer:

“The Sunday of Christ the King is the day for all us disobedient ones to repent; and to renew our obedience. Then we may prepare for Christmas, and the birth of great David’s greater Son.”

It is the last Sunday of the Christian year. It is the climax of all that we have been thinking and learning about over the year. It is a time when we celebrate that Jesus is not just our Saviour but Lord of our lives, our King and head of the church.

It is a time for celebration, a time for rededication, a time to refocus ourselves on the important matters of life.

Never in history has that been more important than today. [Read more…]

The Sermon by Rev. Graham Crawford for Sunday 01 November 2015:

Today is All Saints’ Day.

It is a day that has been underplayed in the Presbyterian church over the centuries because of our desire to downplay canonisation and sainthood.

However, in our desire to downplay that aspect, we have swung the pendulum too far the other way. We have forgotten that the real reason to celebrate this day is to recognise the efforts of our predecessors to live lives of effective discipleship and thus to pass the faith on to the generations that followed them.

I suspect that if I were to ask you about Saints in this church you would mention folks like Joe Edwards, Greta Flett, my predecessor, George Cordiner, and others.

None of them are canonised. You will not find them listed in the Book of Saints. None of them were perfect, either. But they were all faithful stewards of the Gospel, disciples of Jesus Christ and saints of this church.

Today, in the lectionary passages that are suggested, we are being encouraged to ask the question: “What makes a person a saint?” [Read more…]

This is Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for 04 October 2015 – World Communion Sunday –

Over the years people have described life in many ways:

• Life is like a box of chocolates, according to Forrest Gump,
• Life is a Fury, slinging flame, according to Tennyson,
• Life is an empty dream, according to Longfellow, and
• Life is a joke that’s just begun, according to Gilbert.

Life is many things to many people but one thing is for sure that  – for many people – life ain’t a bowl of cherries. Or, if it is a bowl of cherries, someone has eaten half of them and left you the stones! [Read more…]

The Evening Communion (last Sunday of each month at 6pm at St James’ Church) Sermon from Rev. Graham Crawford for 27 September 2015:

124 1-5 If God hadn’t been for us
—all together now, Israel, sing out!—
If God hadn’t been for us
when everyone went against us,
We would have been swallowed alive
by their violent anger,
Swept away by the flood of rage,
drowned in the torrent;
We would have lost our lives
in the wild, raging water.
6 Oh, blessed be God!
He didn’t go off and leave us.
He didn’t abandon us defenceless,
helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.
7 We’ve flown free from their fangs,
free of their traps, free as a bird.
Their grip is broken;
we’re free as a bird in flight.
8 God’s strong name is our help,
the same God who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 124 involves a whole catalogue of life events which are, at best, unpleasant.

When bad things happen

They are the things we like to keep hidden. The things that we do not like to talk about, in case they infect us with their unpleasantness. [Read more…]