Claimed, gathered and sent

  This is the message I preached Sunday, at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was John 8:31-36 . Today's gospel reading is all about freedom. The whole Reformation is all about freedom as well. From Paul's declaration that we have been justified by grace to Luther's hammering his 95 Theses on the Wittenburg Church door, we are reminded of the supremacy of God's grace. What the Reformation tells us is that there is nothing we can do, say or accomplish to earn God's love. God's love is a free gift. We have problems when we forget that we already have love as a gift from God and try to earn it on our own.  Over the years, many songs have been sung about the longing for freedom--from “We Shall Overcome” to the song, “People Got to Be Free,” by the Young Rascals.  What does this have to do with the Reformation and today's gospel? Everything. As a monk, Martin Luther struggled mightily to be free from the sin he was convinced permeated his very being. He took...

  This is the sermon I will be preaching tomorrow at St.Timothy Lutheran Church's Drive-In Service. If you're in the Bemus Point/Jamestown, NY area, join us a 10 for a 30-minute service in our parking lot. You can worship from the comfort and safety of your car. There are some oddities in today’s gospel story. A foreign woman approaches Jesus and the disciples. The disciples seem to rebuff her while Jesus ignores her and then insults her. Is this the Jesus we expect? No! But we need to remember that Jesus is also human and fully so. Who is this woman approaching Jesus and the disciples? She’s a Canaanite, meaning she’s a gentile and she is nameless. A gentile and a woman--that’s two strikes against her! However, there are three Canaanite women in Jesus’ lineage: Rahab, Tamar, and Ruth (Matthew 1:3,5). Her people’s blood runs through Jesus’ veins and Jesus’ people’s blood runs through hers. As the woman approaches, she starts shouting! The Greek ...

This is the message I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Sunday, Oct. 29. The gospel text is John 8:31-36.   Today we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, a movement that not only impacted the church of that age, but all ages. What one word would you use to describe the distinctiveness of the Lutheran movement? Is it grace, justification, the good works we do through Lutheran Disaster Relief, ELCA World Hunger, or something else? These are all good answers, but they are not unique to us as Lutherans. The word freedom is the one most celebrated by Martin Luther. He was in bondage to a view of God as judge and went to great lengths to try to appease God by bringing his body into submission by extreme deprivation such as intensive fasting and beating himself with a whip. It was not until reading in the book of Romans of salvation by grace through faith that the burden of working to be saved was lifted from Luther’s shoulder...

This is the message I shared on Sunday, 10/4 with St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran c hurches. The text is Mark 10:2-16. Many of us, find it difficult to hear Jesus' words on marriage and divorce. Either we have personally experienced the pain of divorce or we know people who have. It is so much a part of life in our day, that we dare not ignore this section of Mark's gospel. Through the tears and dashed hopes, God embraces us and by his grace puts our broken lives back together. Relationships are difficult. It is not always easy for us to love the way God wants us to, by letting him love through us. All of today's scripture readings focus on primary relationships by affirming God's purpose in creation. Jesus was still teaching about discipleship. In today's reading, Jesus shows us how discipleship is lived out in the family--in marriage and divorce and in our relationship with children. Earlier in Mark (3:31-35), Jesus had announced the formatio...