Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 5/14 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church , Bemus Point, NY. The Tex was John 14:15-21. Like some of you, I am a visual learner. Pictures help me to understand things better. Well, I must say that today’s gospel is a visual learner’s dream. The timing of this passage is a continuation of last week’s gospel. Jesus is still preparing his disciples for the time when he will no longer be with them physically.  John’s writing is typically dense and twisty--Jesus is in the Father, if you’ve seen Jesus,  you’ve seen the Father. Jesus asks the Father to send the Spirit. It makes your head  hurt. In seminary, we had a class on the gospels. We had to choose which of the four,  we wanted to concentrate on for Greek translation. Our prof warned us that we would regret choosing John’s gospel because of the language. It has the most difficult Greek of the four gospels. I must say, however true that may be, it remains my favorite gospel. I love th...

This is the sermon for 5/17/20 for the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church . Here is the YouTube of me preaching the sermon if you're interested. The text is John 14:15-21 .   Today’s gospel is part two of Jesus’ final words to his disciples before his crucifixion. It is bookended by “Keep my commandments,” but not like the Ten Commandments. Rather, Jesus’ commandment goes back to Holy Week, to Maundy Thursday, when Jesus said to the disciples, “ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Today we find Jesus’ commandments also couched in terms of love. In fact, in John’s gospel, love is the only commandment Jesus gives. The gospel text begins talking about obedience through love. Jesus’ words begin with love and end with love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Here and in the last verse of today’s gospel, “keep” means “to retain in custody, keep watch over, guard.” Anoth...

This was shared with the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church . What are your thoughts? Gospel: John 14:15-21 [Jesus said to the disciples:] 15 “If you love me , you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.   18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”   I’ve highlighted a few verses in Sunday’s gospel to visually demonstrate how this read...

When I looked at the gospel passage from John 14:15-21 , verse 18 was like a neon sign and I knew that was the message for the folks at Bethel Lutheran Church   in Portville, NY. This is my sermon based on the gospel passage: What comes to mind when you hear the word orphan? Maybe you think of the TV ads for various organizations that ask you to support an orphan who lives overseas. You may be supporting one of those children. The story of Jane Eyre may come to mind or Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Or maybe you know someone who as a child lost his or her parents thereby becoming an orphan. We typically think of children when we hear the word orphans , but any of us can be orphaned at any age. In Jesus’ time, orphan was a common metaphor to describe disciples left without their masters. The phrase “leave you orphaned,” could also be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.” One who was orphaned was without the aid and comfort of those who serve as associates or frie...