Claimed, gathered and sent

  This is the sermon I preached on 6/9/24 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The gospel text was Mark 3:20-35. Have you ever felt like an outsider? You are with a group of people who may be friends, classmates or co-workers, or even family. You just don’t feel like you fit in. Furthermore, you’re different; on the outside. I have often felt like that. My nuclear family was more dysfunctional than my friends’. Both my parents were alcoholics. My home life was different from that of my peers. There were only a couple of close friendships that developed during my early years. I was longing for a family. I found family in Jesus and his church. Over the years, it is those relationships that supported me through the ups and downs of life. In Christ, I had found a family that loved and accepted me just as I am.  Jesus struggled as well with being an outsider. In today’s gospel, he experienced family opposition as well as religious opposition from the scribes. Finally, Jesus explains wh...

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 6/10/18 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . It is sprinkled throughout with family pictures. The text was Mark 3:20-35. It is nearly officially summer and we look forward to all those activities in which we participate at this time of year. For you it may be boating, bicycling or traveling. Among the various summer ventures, you may find yourself at a family reunion. And often at such events, we find quite a variety of lovely and loving family members that we may know well or perhaps never met. Then there’s always a character or two who you may try to escape throughout the reunion. l to r: Nick and Sarah Van Staalduinen, Hugh & Kathy Van Staalduinen Grace Alessi (in middle) Prior to today’s gospel reading from Mark, Jesus had been quite busy teaching, healing and setting people free by exorcising demons. His popularity was on the rise. Jesus had to be exhausted, so he went home. One would expect a nice family reunion. We would exp...

This is the reflection on this Sunday's gospel that was sent out to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church. Mark 3:20-35 [Jesus went home;]  20 and the crowd came together again, so that [Jesus and the disciples]could not even eat.  21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”  22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”  23 And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?  24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.  26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.  27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed th...

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...