Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached Sunday, 10/9 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was 2 Timothy 2:8-15.   Timothy is to “Remember Jesus Christ” (v. 8), which includes Paul’s gospel; his understanding and teaching about Jesus. Jesus is resurrected and a descendant of King David. He was part of the royal line, the truly human king that God promised Israel.  Paul contrasts his situation being literally chained—experiencing the condition of suffering and death with the power of the living word of God, which is not chained. Paul does not downplay the fact that the gospel entails suffering. The German Confessing Church in 1934 had single-minded leaders. They faced those who wanted to co-opt the church to serve the state of Germany instead of Christ. They wrote, “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death” (Cochrane). Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, professor in the Con...

This is the sermon I preached on 10/2 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Luke 17:5-10.   Well, what can be said? This passage from Luke’s gospel is another doozie! I had to really do my homework to get my mind around this. Is Jesus reprimanding the apostles for their lack of faith? Is Jesus supporting the system of slavery? That can’t be our Jesus, can it? Let’s look at the context. First, we’re missing the preceding verses, 1-4, in our text for today. Those verses help us understand why the apostles were so worked up. The first few verses are about forgiveness, even when someone has sinned against you multiple times in a day. Jesus said, “If you see your friend going wrong, correct him. If he responds, forgive him. Even if it’s personal against you and repeated seven times through the day, and seven times he says, ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,’ forgive him” (vv. 3-4). This seemed so impossible. No wonder they wanted more faith.  We usually think of faith as ide...