Claimed, gathered and sent

  This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 9/15 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Mark 8:27-38. While living in Bethlehem, in the West Bank of Palestine, trips to the northern part of Israel were our favorite for vacations with our small children. One of the last places we visited was called Banyas, in Arabic. In ancient times, the Greek god of nature, Pan, was worshiped there. The area is located at the headwaters of the Jordan River and is very lush and beautiful.  Noted as a center of pagan worship, Caesarea Phillipi, is where Jesus asked his followers the powerful question of his identity. In Jesus’ time, “Caesar was honored in the civil religion as Lord, Savior, and Son of God. The issue of whom one confessed as Lord is already posed by the context in which Mark places this story—in a particularly powerful way if, [since], Mark and his readers live[d] in this area” (M. Eugene Boring & Fred B. Craddock, The People’s New Testament Commentary ). In Mark’s go...

This is the sermon I preached last Sunday, 9/16/18, at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Mark 8:27-38 .  Poet and novelist, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. This passage of Mark brings with it lots of questions besides those Jesus asked his disciples. For those of you who read the e-ministry, you saw some of mine. And don’t we find ourselves longing for certainty? As we look at this passage, entertain your own questions as well, for you will find that it’s good to have questions. We may not get the answer right away or ever in this life. That’s par...

Here are some thoughts regarding this coming Sunday's gospel. This was sent out electronically to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church .  Gospel: Mark 8:27-38 27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.   31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divi...

This is the sermon I preached Sun. 9/13 at St.Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church . The gospel was Mark 8:27-38. Before marrying my husband, Ray, I had a part time job at a call center in Rochester, conducting opinion polls over the phone. Sometimes they were political, oftentimes they were about various products and services. In the first few verses of this gospel reading, doesn't it seem that Jesus is conducting an opinion poll of his own? His question was simply regarding who people thought he was. This brings us to a turning point in Mark's gospel. Just who is Jesus? Who do people say he is? Jesus wasn't taking a survey to see what people thought of him. The answers others gave were all high evaluations of Jesus, but they did not confess Jesus as the definitive revelation of God, The important question is not the identity of Jesus, but the identity of God: Is God the one who is definitively acting in the Christ event or not? The discussio...