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Beyond the Big Stick

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8 November, 2026Pastor John Strelan

Sermon - Beyond the Big Stick - Pastor John Strelan.pdf
GF@H Proper 27 Pentecost 24A

I grew up in an era when corporal punishment was still an accepted part of society. It was still used at school, and at home, as a behaviour management technique. At my high school we would revel in the Schadenfreude of walking past the line of students sitting on the bench outside the principal’s office waiting to receive the cane. Thankfully I was never on the receiving end of the principal’s switch, but I did get a few spankings from my father in my childhood years. I like to think that the time-limited physical pain I experienced did not result in longer term psychological or emotional pain, but who knows? What I do know is that out of all the spankings I received I cannot remember a single incident, or the reason behind any of them. What had I done to deserve that punishment? Even at the time, I’d probably forgotten what I’d done by the time dad got home from work and had to deliver the punishment threatened by my mother with “Wait till your father gets home!” The only incident I do remember is the time my father came home after a long day at work, took my brother and I to our bedroom to deliver the socially accepted and expected punishment for some long-forgotten misdemeanor, took off his belt and said, “When I hit the pillow, you yell, ‘Ow’!”  

 

That’s what I remember all these years later. I remember the grace. That’s what has stayed with me. I still remember the grace.

~ Pastor John Strelan


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If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here

Amos 5:18-24

The day of the Lord

18 Woe to you who long

    for the day of the Lord!

Why do you long for the day of the Lord?

    That day will be darkness, not light.

19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion

    only to meet a bear,

as though he entered his house

    and rested his hand on the wall

    only to have a snake bite him.

20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light –

    pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

21 ‘I hate, I despise your religious festivals;

    your assemblies are a stench to me.

22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

    I will not accept them.

Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

    I will have no regard for them.

23 Away with the noise of your songs!

    I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24 But let justice roll on like a river,

    righteousness like a never-failing stream!

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