Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the message I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran Church, Dunkirk. The text is Luke 24:44-53. Why do we celebrate Ascension Sunday? We don’t hear much about the Ascension in the New Testament. Paul doesn’t talk about it in his letters. John's letters don't say anything about this. Neither do Peter’s. The Ascension is not mentioned in any of them. If Jesus died and rose from the dead, isn’t that enough? After all, he would be alive. But if Jesus did not ascend to his Father, his mission would have been limited to the Holy Land. The disciples would have spread the faith there and died. Potentially, the Christian faith may well have died out. Jesus' ascension is an important event. It enabled the Holy Spirit to pour out its power on the early followers of Jesus. This facilitated the outpouring of power so that God’s word was spread all over, not just in a small area. In today’s gospel, Jesus is preparing the disciples not for his crucifixion, wh...

This is the sermon I'll be preaching at St. Timothy Lutheran Church's Drive-In Service (hence the reference to horn beeping) on Sunday. The text is Romans 5:1-8. How are you all doing? If you’re doing well, beep your horn. If you’re struggling a bit, beep your horn. Do you find that you fluctuate between doing well and feeling overwhelmed? Some people find themselves breaking down and suddenly crying. We are under a lot of pressure. Not only are we dealing with the Coronavirus, which has gone on much longer than any of us thought it would, but we have come face to face with protests about our own racism. That is not easy to handle. Maybe we never thought of ourselves as racist. Maybe some of us aren’t. Maybe some of us find the whole Black Lives Matter and the mere thought of being accused of racism offensive. But I think deep in our hearts, we have all been infected by this sin which is every bit as rampant and debilitating as the Coronavirus. In the midst of all of thi...

Here are some thoughts about this Sunday's second lesson that were sent out to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church. What are your thoughts? Let me know! Second Reading: Romans 5:1-8 1 Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope , 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.   6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ...

This is the sermon I'm preaching on Sunday, 5/31/20, Pentecost Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church's Drive-In Service. The text was John 20:19-23.   Looking back, is this how we thought we would commemorate Pentecost this year? It’s normally such a celebratory time. After all, it is the Christian church’s birthday! We have a party! But not this year. Rather than a party, don’t we feel a bit like the captives in Babylon who cried out,  “…we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion…That’s where our captors demanded songs, sarcastic and mocking: Sing us a happy Zion song!’  Oh, how could we ever sing God’s song in this wasteland?” (Psalm 135: 3-4). Have you felt sometimes like this time of not being able to gather inside our church building being in a wasteland? A quiet Pentecost; not that of Acts 2, a riotous Pentecost party, given the time we are living in, given the deaths of so many in this year of Coronavirus, given the death of George Floyd and ...

What are your thoughts about this passage from Isaiah? I'm curious, even though I'm not preaching this week. We have a special guest. This is being sent out to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church.  First Reading: Isaiah 35:1-10  1The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,         the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly,   and rejoice with joy and singing.  The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,   the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.  They shall see the glory of the LORD,   the majesty of our God.  3Strengthen the weak hands,   and make firm the feeble knees.  4Say to those who are of a fearful heart,   “Be strong, do not fear!  Here is your God.   He will come with vengeance,  with terrible recompense.   He will come and save you.”  5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,   and the ears of the deaf unstopped;  6then the lame shall leap like a deer,   and the tongue of the speec...

I shared these words  with the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church last Sunday, 4/14/19. This is my response to today’s Palm Sunday readings. I was moved by these words and they eloquently echoed my own thoughts. Here are excerpts from a Palm Sunday sermon by Frederick Buechner entitled “The Things That Make For Peace” from A Room Called Remember : We call it Palm Sunday because maybe they were palm branches that were thrown into the road in front of him as he approached the city-a kind of poor man's red-carpet treatment, a kind of homemade ticker-tape parade. Just branches is all the record states, but maybe palms is what they actually were, and in any case it's as palms that we remember them; and all over Christendom people leave church with palm leaves of their own to remember him by on the anniversary of his last journey, to pin up on the kitchen bulletin board or stick into the frame of the dresser mirror until finally they turn yellow and bri...

Here are some thoughts on this Sunday's gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent. It was sent to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church.   SCRIPTURE FOCUS  Gospel: Luke 21:25-36  [Jesus said:]   25 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.   26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.   27 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.   28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”     29 Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees;   30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.   31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the k...

This is the message I preached on Sunday, 11/15 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church. The text is Mark 13:1-8.  Our world seems to have gone right off the rails. Crazy and awful things are happening everywhere; we have massive swings in the weather, huge hurricanes and typhoons, a giant el nino in the Pacific, unprecedented climate change and upheaval in the middle east;   the latest of which is the 3 simultaneous terror attacks last Friday in Paris, France. When we see such images, don't we sometimes think, "Here we go again. When will the madness stop?"   It seems that today's gospel reading with its apocalyptic overtones is exactly what we need to hear. Apocalyptic describes the style of writing where the heavenly and earthly worlds seem fused. It's like the curtain in a theater being drawn back--and suddenly we see things that until now were hidden from view. Imagine a cosmic curtain, drawn back by an angel of God, that suddenl...