Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the e-message that went out yesterday God's people at  St. Timothy Lutheran Church.  This is my first impression of the gospel reading for this coming Sunday. 26 He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come." Mark 4:26–29 Who doesn't like a good mystery, the kind with multiple layers of intrigue in the plot? My favorites are mystery stories that let me think I know the answer to the who dun it. Then as you progress through the story you become more or less sure of  your conclusion. You go through many twists and turns in the plot until you reach the end of the story and...that's the culprit? I certainly didn...

Below is the sermon I preached on Sunday, June 7 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church. The gospel text is Mark 3:20-35 . Do you like sandwiches? What is your favorite kind? Is it peanut butter and jelly, roast beef, a meatball sub or maybe it's beef on wick. We know that a sandwich usually consists of two slices of bread with something in between them. Believe it or not, today's gospel also has a sandwich. It is a literary sandwich. This literary device is used by Mark in trying to explain a sub theme within a theme. Some scholars call this literary device, the Markan Sandwich. The Markan Sandwich begins with a story. Once you are really drawn into the story, Mark switches to another story. When that story is concluded, he switches back to the original story and finishes that.   The first slice of bread is Jesus' Nuclear family. People love to talk about the sensational and spread rumors, don't they? It was no different in Jesus...