Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Trinity Sunday, 6/16/19. The text was John 16:12-15. This is Holy Trinity Sunday. What comes to mind when you think of the Trinity—questions, confusion, a puzzle, a mystery? It seems to me that just when you think you have a bit of understanding, it all starts to unravel as you think of something else. This is a difficult concept to wrap our minds around. For centuries, the early church struggled with a right and proper interpretation and understanding as they formulated the doctrine of the Trinity. The more I read, the more I see the wisdom of Dr. Jerry Christianson who taught The Early Church and its Creeds my first year of seminary. He explained the Trinity as a love relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as God is all about relationship, so too the Christian life is all about relationship: our relationship with God, our relationship with each other and our relationship with our community. ...

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 5/27/2018 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Romans 8:12-17 .  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is something we will never fully understand in this life because it is a mystery. So, I’m not going to try to explain it. However, I love how the mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, who lived from 1099-1179, described the Trinity as “sound and life…wondrous splendor…and which is life in all things.” How does that “sound and life” infuse us and infuse the church? It all starts with the work of the Holy Spirit. That is how God’s people become so intimate with God. By the Spirit, the deeds of the body are put to death .  Here “death” points us beyond mere physical death. We will all die someday. However, Paul is talking about the life-destroying power of death that in partnership with sin and the law, keeps life from being what God created it to be (Boring & Craddock). Paul contrasts two ways of life with two different resul...

This Sunday was Good Shepherd Sunday. The gospel was John 10:11-18 . Below is the sermon that I preached at St. Timothy's and St. Mark's. In the 1980s, my family and I lived in the Holy Land, in Bethlehem. We had the opportunity to observe many shepherds herding their sheep. Some gently and carefully led their sheep. Others drove the sheep, angrily hitting them with a rod. The good shepherds stood out. Throughout scripture, the image of a shepherd is a positive one. God, kings, Moses and other leaders are described as shepherds in their care of the people. A few minutes ago, we heard this imagery in the 23rd Psalm. In today’s gospel, we see the tender relationship of Jesus and his sheep. The shepherd initiates contact with the sheep. They don’t have to go off in search of a shepherd. He comes to them. Often, the sheep of more than one shepherd would be enclosed in the same pen. But in the morning, when it is time for the sheep to be s...