Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached at S t. Timothy Lutheran Church on Sunday, August 14, 2022. The Gospel passage is Luke 12:49-56. Dear friends in Christ. Am I the only one here who struggles with the words of this text?  If Jesus seems unduly harsh in today’s gospel, admit it. This text is full of opposites: fire and water, peace and division and then finally a weather report. Don’t you feel pulled apart just hearing this lesson? Where is the Jesus of peace, the One who brings families together? This seems like angry Jesus here. There seems to be so much accusation in his words throughout the text. What are we to make of all this? I must admit, when I read this for the first, no second, even third time, it rubbed me the wrong way. Does anyone else feel that way? Let’s see if we can break this passage down a bit to hear what God might be saying to us today. In my studies this week, I found something helpful about the fire Jesus is talking about. At first, I think we all assume the fir...

  This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, August 7 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The gospel text was Luke 12:32-40. Do you remember the game show, “Let’s Make a Deal?” On the show, guests choose between various doors concealing contents. In the beginning of our gospel are three doors we, the contestants, can pick from. Rather than numbers, they have words on them. Door One is, “Kingdom,” Door Two is “Sell,” and Door Three “Purses.” So, we find out a bit about what’s behind the doors, but not much.  Let’s check out Door One, “Kingdom.” The host opens the door and we see more. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Oh, Jesus gives the kingdom. It’s not something we have to work to get. Even with nothing in our hands, we can have the kingdom because the king has us. The whole kingdom. Yup. Children of the King live in the kingdom here and now and in the future. Door One’s pretty good then. Let’s check out the others. D...

  I've gotten a bit behind, but this is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Sunday, July 31. The text is Luke 12:13-2 1.   Diseases are all around us—the latest forms of COVID, Monkeypox and others. Another that’s been around for quite a while is Affluenza. Young and old, rich and poor suffer from it. In societies like ours, it has reached epidemic proportions.   Affluenza even rears its ugly head throughout scripture; in both testaments. In today’s gospel, we see a pointed parable concerning Affluenza. A disagreement over the division of an inheritance introduces the parable. This issue is all too familiar to many of us. We have seen families violently, irreparably divided over inheritance issues. Jesus tells a parable to address it and how we hear the parable is influenced by this introductory issue.  A farmer was blessed with a bumper crop. It doesn’t say the man has done anything wrong toward his employees or anything else. The farmer wa...

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Luke 11:1-13 . Long ago and far away, when my children were tiny, we frequently got together with other young couples from church for fellowship. One such couple was captivated by what was called the prosperity gospel . The husband said we should call him “Millionaire Mike” because he had given so much, He figured that since God gives a hundred-fold, God owed him a lot of money, so much so that he would be a millionaire. Mike seemingly had scripture to back him up, but it was wrenched out of context. Within these few paragraphs Luke gives us a context to know that we shouldn’t get the idea that God will give us everything we want if we only ask.  We must be discerning about everything people teach, supposedly from the scripture. Scripture gives us parameters. Paul told the Corinthians, “… I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). To the Galatians he w...

This is the sermon I preached two Sundays ago at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Luke 10:38-42. Ah, another story that we know. It’s not only familiar, but we’re pretty sure we know what it means, don’t we? Devotional books tell us to be like Mary and not like Martha, but is that what this gospel says? This episode begins with a journey motif, tying this scene to the preceding one, of last week’s Good Samaritan. This is part of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Here Luke highlights the overarching concern with extending or refusing hospitality to those on the road. The fact that this is Martha’s home tells us that there is no man around as head of the house. We have no mention of Lazarus, but because of the similarity to the Gospel of John’s telling of this scene, we can assume these two women are Lazarus’ sisters.  Being Martha’s home tells us about her status. Martha is portrayed as one of the women who supported Jesus and his mission from their own resources (8:1–3). Of cou...