About Chelsey Harmon

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Chelsey Harmon

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.

John 17:1-11

Commentary

Easter 7A

Unity, it seems, is that elusive description for God’s church. We hear the calls for it but disagree on the terms. We know it is part of God’s solution for what ails humanity, but we cannot grasp the way of sacrifice on the road to peace. We rightly identify it as the way that Jesus…

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John 14:15-21

Commentary

Easter 6A

Separating this part of Jesus’s conversation with the disciples from last week’s helps us focus on the bonded (in the sense of stuck to/with) nature of God-with-us, no matter which particular person of the Trinity it is who is with us. The ties that bind us, of course, is the love of God. If we…

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John 14:1-14

Commentary

Easter 5A

Comments, Questions, and Observations “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” These words can apply to so many different situations, but in this particular text, they immediately follow Jesus’s prophetic promise that he is about to be betrayed by one them, will be leaving them, and will be denied by one of the most loyal…

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John 10:1-10

Commentary

Easter 4A

Each year on the fourth Sunday after Easter, the lectionary brings us to a passage that relates to the Good Shepherd narrative. Notice, though, that in our passage this week, the I AM statement that Jesus focuses on in verses 7-10 are about being the door, or gate, depending on your translation. (I’ll be using…

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Luke 24:13-35

Commentary

Easter 3A

The Easter season is all about coming to faith and belief, of having the testimonies of one another be heard and trusted, of receiving personal confirmation via experience, and of being reminded that sometimes we ask for more proof than we actually need. Throughout, we see how it takes people different kinds of experiences and…

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John 20:19-31

Commentary

Easter 2A

What does it take to believe? Just that morning, Mary herself had told them that Jesus was resurrected, and the beloved disciple, having seen the folded-up graveclothes, believed something (though we aren’t sure what). Now, many of them are huddled together in fear, locked away from those who they believe want to do them harm….

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John 20:1-18

Commentary

Easter Day A

Perhaps you have heard, or even led, the same prayer as me before preaching: it’s something along the lines of, “Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts and minds to understand, and hands and feet willing to go and do what we hear from you in the Word today.” These petitions are…

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Matthew 21:1-11

Commentary

Palm Sunday

Comments, Questions, and Observations Somehow, even in the midst of the shouts of praise, the displays of adoration and respect as the crowd prepares the way for Jesus to enter Jerusalem, somehow, even with all this, this text seems understated for what it represents. Or, maybe that’s exactly what it is supposed to feel like…

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John 11:1-45

Commentary

Lent 5A

Comments, Questions, and Observations The word “love” is used only three times to describe Jesus’s feelings for the siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, but it permeates the entire narrative. Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus to let him know that their shared beloved, Lazarus, is ill to the point of death. Jesus tells…

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John 9:1-41

Commentary

Lent 4A

Thus far, the Lenten lectionary journey has brought us from Jesus’s temptations to his nighttime conversation with Nicodemus, to Jacob’s Well in Sychar. In each of these stories, we have been reminded of Christ’s lovingkindness and the very fact that it is impossible for us to understand how the Spirit is at work to change…

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