Rev. Chelsey Harmon lives in Vancouver, BC and is a bivocational pastor at The Bridge Community Church (CRC) in Langley, BC. Chelsey is also on staff at Churches Learning Change, a non-profit that aims to help congregations and leaders pursue personal and congregational transformation. She earned her M.Div. at Calvin Theological Seminary (2009), a ThM in Spiritual Theology at Regent College (2023) and is currently a part-time PhD student at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity where she studies historical examples of Trinitarian mysticism and theology.
Chelsey has been writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website since 2019.
Luke 6:27-38
Commentary
Epiphany 7C
From the highs of naming names and giving the high and mighty the what for last week, we come down to the realization of what God’s mercy means for all of us this week. It turns out that those who are blessed are meant to love, do good towards, and bless and pray for those…
Luke 6:17-26
Commentary
Epiphany 6C
Along with a number of his others disciples, the newly minted inner twelve have come down the mountain with Jesus. The plain where Jesus stops them is full of people: great crowd of disciples, great multitudes from all over. They are all there because of Jesus. The people have come to hear him and be…
Luke 5:1-11
Commentary
Epiphany 5C
I’m intrigued by the way Jesus enlists Simon Peter at each stage of this miracle, and how, by doing so, Jesus leads Peter to conversion. The story begins with Jesus teaching a large group of people. As more and more gather and push in on him in order to hear his unique take on the…
Luke 4:21-30
Commentary
Epiphany 4C
We really run the gamut of human emotions during Jesus’s first preaching assignment in his hometown. How does the congregation go from being amazed, all eyes fixed on Jesus, to so livid with him that they try to lynch him? I emphasised the moment of the Holy Spirit at work as Jesus preached in the…
Luke 4:14-21
Commentary
Epiphany 3C
Jesus’s opening teaching session in the gospel of Luke is divided between this week and next. The division affords us the opportunity to hold off on the challenge that Jesus’s prophetic voice will always bring to us as we listen to him. And in light of the Epiphany season, we can read our current text…
John 2:1-11
Commentary
Epiphany 2C
Every time the lectionary brings us back to this story, I appreciate the symbolic nature of Jesus’s miracle more and more. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lived another three years and had all the more time to experience the goodness of the Lord—that is, if I was curious enough to wonder where the good times came…
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Commentary
Epiphany 1C
We’re well into the new year now. The decorations have come down, holiday breaks are over, life is getting back to normal and we’re all getting back to it. When it comes to Jesus’s ministry, Luke, it seems, also wants to get on with it: unlike Matthew and Mark and John, Luke puts Jesus’s baptism…
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Commentary
Christmas 2C
George Beasley-Murray describes this second half of the gospel of John’s prologue as an echo of the Exodus narrative, particularly verses 14-18. As the Israelites made their exodus from slavery in Egypt by the salvific passover work of God through the prophet Moses, they entered the wilderness full of unknown and were challenged to come…
Luke 2:41-52
Commentary
Christmas 1C
We know where to find him. That’s the sense I keep coming back to with this lone story about Jesus as a teenager. Maybe it’s the stage of life I’m in. Maybe it’s world events and how some of us seem to have lost the plot on what it means to be a Christian. Maybe…
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
Commentary
Advent 4C
We don’t hear Mary and the angel’s conversation this year but we do witness its aftereffects. Seized with anticipation of a fellow miracle-receiver, Mary hastens to the countryside to find her elder cousin Elizabeth. The thing is, we’re told that Mary was given the scoop about Elizabeth’s pregnancy from the angel Gabriel, but not vice…
About Chelsey Harmon