Claimed, gathered and sent

As Bob Dylan wrote, “The times they are a changin.’ This Sunday is one of those changing, transitional times in our church year. The end of Lent is near as we move through Holy Week towards Easter. Today, we’ve heard and participated in the celebratory parade with Palms, singing “All Glory Laud and Honor,” walking down the Mt. of Olives with Jesus during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem . Did you hear the hosannas? This crowd was excited. They wanted to crown Jesus as king! When I lived in the Holy Land in the 1980s, on Palm Sunday, Christians of all denominations and languages would gather on the Mt. of Olives . We would sing, pray, and joyfully walk down the Mt. into Jerusalem . We were Christians of all nationalities and languages singing and shouting, “Hosanna!” It was like being transported back in time to Jesus ’ time. Can you imagine what it must have been like on that first Palm Sunday? This morning our readings take us to other place

Here is the sermon I'm preaching this morning at Rural Lutheran on the gospel text Mark 8:31-38. +++ In the book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning describes a common myth that flourishes today. It goes something like this: “Once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons. Discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness.” This myth has done great harm because it misrepresents the way Christian life is really live The problem is, our daily experiences fly in the face of this idea. Some say it’s simply because we don’t have enough faith. If we only said and did the right things, we could have, as one televangelist suggests, our “Best Life Now.” In today’s gospel, we find ourselves arriving seemingly in the midst of an already unfolding drama. Today we are at the turning point of Mark ’s gospel between Jesus ’ Galilean ministry a

Today we celebrate Peter's confession of Jesus as the "Messiah, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). I listened as Christ Church's pastor preached an excellent message on the Matthew 16 text. Last semester, in homiletics, I too preached on this text. Rural Lutheran, my teaching parish, was the church I had in mind in this message. Everything we do as Christians is in response to Jesus' question. *** Over the past weeks, I have had the privilege of eating lunch with several of you. Your love for this church is tangible. Everyone is concerned about declining numbers, especially those who grew up here, remembering the once full pews. We are facing many challenges which are echoed in the hymn, “The Church of Christ, in Every Age.” “The church of Christ in ev’ry age beset by change, but Spirit led, must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.” Today’s gospel text is set in Caesarea Philippi, a place noted for its worship o