Claimed, gathered and sent

Here are a few thoughts on this coming Sunday's gospel. The text is Mark 9:38-50.  I cannot tell you how many times I looked at this passage from Mark before I could make some sense of it. The second paragraph is hyperbole on steroids! But what really made me read and pray and wrestle with the text is the last few words, "...and be at peace with one another." That seems to summarize everything that precedes it. Just before this passage, the disciples were out ministering to people, but they were unable to exorcise a demon. Then, here comes some outsider who successfully exorcises a demon. Look at these words in verse 38, "because he was not following us." There's something wrong with the pronoun us. It says nothing about this man believing in and following Jesus, but the problem was he did not follow the disciples. He was not part of their group! They were jealous! This unknown person did what they could not. Jesus then continues the dialogue, ...

This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church on Sunday, 9/20. The text is Mark 9:30-37.  "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow black and white they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world." Don't we get all mushy gushy when we read of Jesus' interaction with little ones? They're so cute and innocent. How we wish we had more of them here at church. Today, our gospel is about the second of Jesus' three predictions about his approaching suffering and death. There is an identical pattern in each of the three predictions. First, Jesus teaches that he will suffer and die. Second, the disciples are confused and misunderstand Jesus' meaning. Third, Jesus spends more time   teaching his disciples. In today's gospel, the whole point of the secrecy about Jesus and the disciples passing through Galilee until they got to Capernaum...

This is the sermon I preached Sun. 9/13 at St.Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church . The gospel was Mark 8:27-38. Before marrying my husband, Ray, I had a part time job at a call center in Rochester, conducting opinion polls over the phone. Sometimes they were political, oftentimes they were about various products and services. In the first few verses of this gospel reading, doesn't it seem that Jesus is conducting an opinion poll of his own? His question was simply regarding who people thought he was. This brings us to a turning point in Mark's gospel. Just who is Jesus? Who do people say he is? Jesus wasn't taking a survey to see what people thought of him. The answers others gave were all high evaluations of Jesus, but they did not confess Jesus as the definitive revelation of God, The important question is not the identity of Jesus, but the identity of God: Is God the one who is definitively acting in the Christ event or not? The discussio...