Claimed, gathered and sent

These are some thoughts regarding Sunday's gospel text that were sent to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Gospel: Mark 10:17-31 17 As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  18 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.  19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ ”  20 He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.”  21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.   23 Then ...

This is the sermon I preached last Sunday, 10/7/18 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The gospel text is Mark 10:2-16 . Several weeks before my 23rd anniversary of marriage to my first husband, he told me he didn’t want to be married anymore. He is gay. We had two children, Christian who was finishing high school and Sarah who was working.  All of us were devastated by the news. Gone were the dreams of what we would do for our 25th anniversary, which never arrived. Our family was broken and this impacted us on many levels. Christian was angry with his father for several years, but in time there was forgiveness. His father was his best man when he got married. Sarah was not thrilled about the situation, but over time, she too was able to forgive her father. In all of this, I felt like my heart was broken into a million pieces. I know the pain of broken promises, a broken marriage and divorce.  The Pharisees approached Jesus and Mark tells us it’s to test him. The...