Claimed, gathered and sent

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...

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 2/25/18 at St. Timothy. Lutheran Church.  The text was  Mark 8:31-38.  Immediately before today’s gospel reading, Jesus had asked his disciples who people say that he is. This is where the light went on for Peter and he made the confession, “You are the Messiah” (Mark 8:29). Peter certainly gave the right answer and was likely thinking of the attributes given to whoever would be the Messiah. The Messiah, people thought, would deliver them from the crushing rule of the Romans. The Messiah would fight their enemies. Basically, the Messiah was a strong king-like figure. But, now Jesus fleshes out for Peter and others what that is going to look like. They were completely unprepared for the reality. “Jesus began to teach them” (v. 31). Hadn’t he been teaching the disciples all along? Maybe, but this was different. This wasn’t teaching about miracles and healing. This is the turning point in Mark’s gospel, marking a ne...

This text leaped out at me as a continuation of God's word to the congregation I'm serving, Bethel Lutheran Church in Portville, NY. It's from First Peter .  Here's the message: Our world is full of suffering. We see it in the senseless deaths of university students in California. We see it in the abduction of 200 plus Nigerian schoolgirls by extremists. Parents send their children to school every day fully expecting them to return home safely. But these children in countries separated by language, customs and many miles did not.Many in our own congregation are suffering physically or emotionally with diseases of all kinds. Suffering is pervasive in our world. The letter of First Peter frequently addresses this aspect of the Christian faith. Both ancient and modern interpreters consider this letter to be one of exceptional clarity in the way it articulates the gospel. Martin Luther ranked it among “the true and noblest books of the New Testament.” T...