Claimed, gathered and sent

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 ...

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 1/8, Baptism of Our Lord at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The scripture text was Acts 10:34-43.  What in the world does this passage from Acts have to do with the Baptism of Our Lord? Jesus' baptism was the signal that his ministry should begin. It was when the Father gave Jesus the assurance that he was the beloved Son and commissioned Jesus. God's message was incarnate in Christ, God's message was preached by Peter and the other apostles and God's message of God's inclusive love is to be shared by us as well. The first words of today's reading from Acts are, "Peter began to speak..." (v. 34). We struggle so much with sharing our faith with others. More often than not, we are associating with people who are like us--economically, racially and culturally. We do not encounter nearly as many barriers as Peter did. Yet, if we open our eyes beyond our neighborhoods, we will see many needy people ...

This is the sermon I preached this past Sunday, which was Pentecost Sunday, 5/15/16 at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran Churche s. The text was Acts 2:1-21 . Did you hear that wind yesterday? Do you think that's what the apostles heard when the Spirit appeared or do you think it was bigger and stronger than the wind that blew yesterday? In the book of Acts, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of wind and fire. We often describe the Holy Spirit as being like the wind. You can't see the wind, but you can see the effects of the wind when it blows through.   The same can be said for the Holy Spirit. You can't see him, but you know when he's made his presence known. What comes to mind when you hear the word Pentecost? Do you think the apostles were   bewildered by the sound of the wind? Do you picture all the apostles with little tongues of flame dancing on their heads? Do you think of the apostles addressing the crowd and each person hearing them ...

This is a picture of Jacob's Well by David Roberts from 1839. Below is the sermon I preached at Bethel Lutheran Church in Portville, NY. It is based on John 4:5-42. We all have different paths that have brought us to faith in Jesus. Some have dramatic conversion experiences from of a life of sin and unbelief to a life of faith. Others have a relationship with God from childhood and cannot remember a time when God was not real to them. God meets us wherever we are. Jesus engaged Nicodemus differently than he engaged the Samaritan woman in today’s gospel. He tailored the encounter to the needs of the hearer. Nicodemus was Jewish. We are told his name. He came to Jesus in Jerusalem. The Samaritan woman is a Gentile. We never find out her name. Jesus came to her. Nicodemus could not wrap his mind around a new, spiritual birth, while the woman struggled to understand what it meant to have living water. There are several unusual characteristics about Jesus’ meeting wit...

Every two weeks, a small group of us who are older seminarians (second career or third, fourth whatever) get together for lunch on Friday at one of the local restaurants (that has good food cheap). We did this yesterday, much to my husband's delight since the refectory was serving fish and chips for lunch and Ray is not a fish aficionado. We had been there a while eating and talking. Each of us was quite relaxed because although there was lots to be done this weekend for teaching parish and classes, we were finished with classes for the week and could let our hair down. Friday after classes is sacrosanct for this group. We do not do schoolwork on Fridays after class. That's what Saturday is for! After a while, a gentleman approached us and asked if he had heard correctly that we are involved with church and faith. We responded in the affirmative. He proceeded to ask prayer for someone he knew of that just had a baby and was in critical condition. We assured him she would be ad...

I have learned a lesson this week. In my hurry to visit family for the holidays, I decided to leave the laptop at home. The semester is done, I really wouldn't need it, right? Wrong!! It happens that in talking with a pastor friend, he asked me to preach this Sunday at his church. I brought no commentaries, laptop, or preaching preparation aids of any kind. Thankfully, the public library is open for a little longer and I've been able to access some fine online helps. I will be preaching on the gospel text in Luke 2 on Jesus' presentation in the temple. Unlike myself, Anna and Simeon were prepared. They waited faithfully for God to fulfill his promise of a Savior and Messiah with hearts open and ready for whatever God planned. Several things have struck me in reading the text. The first is the evident work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Simeon and Anna. Look at this snippet from the text regarding Simeon's watchful attitude, "...looking forward to the consolati...

My thoughts on the meaning and importance of baptism as well as the mode and timing of one's baptism have changed significantly over the years. I was baptized as an infant into a family that did not participate in the life of the church. As a teenager I had a religious experience that some would refer to as being "born again." After some time, I was baptized again, as a believer by immersion. I then, saw no validity in my infant baptism. I have now been a Lutheran since the late 1980s. Lutherans primarily baptize infants. This is something I have struggled with for a long time. Was it really valid if the recipient was not exercising faith? What if the parents of the child did not believe? What if it was being done simply for "fire insurance," just in case there might be something to this God thing? Or, what if the baby is baptized because the parents have caved into pressure from other family members? My appreciation of infant baptism, including my own, began w...