Claimed, gathered and sent

  This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on 7/23/23. The text was Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.  Today you will hear another seedy sermon. Last week, the seeds fell on different types of ground. In today’s gospel, the ground is not the issue, but the seeds that are planted.  In the beginning of our parable, all is well. Good seed is planted and starts to grow. The problem is that greedy weeds, also known as darnel, also started growing. These weeds have a root system that spreads deeply and widely, intermixing its roots with the roots of the surrounding plants and greedily sucking up the water and nutrients of the soil (Rev. Nanette Sawyer, Greedy Weeds).  How could this be? The master deduces that an enemy had sown the weeds’ seeds! Is Jesus teaching people how to farm? No. Remember the beginning of the parable, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” Jesus is teaching how life should be lived.  Malina and Rohrbaugh’s Social Science Commen...

  This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church this Sunday. The text is Matthew 10:40-42 .  A tale of two churches. I got acquainted with Church One during my first year of seminary. It was my teaching parish. That’s where I spent most Sundays, engaging in a variety of roles--student, assisting minister, and sometimes preacher and teacher. I will never forget my very first Sunday there. The pastor asked me to visit “incognito.” He told me not to wear a clerical collar to identify me as a seminarian, so I could experience this church as a visitor would. It was a tiny congregation, so anyone different would stand out. No one seemed to notice my presence, however. No one greeted me other than the pastor’s wife. Many of you know that I was not raised Lutheran. My stock answer for why I became a Lutheran is that the Lutherans were friendly, so this experience was puzzling. I was disturbed by the coldness of the congregation. This was unlike any experience I had ever...

  This is the sermon I preached Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church , Bemus Point, NY. The gospel text is Matthew 10:24-39.   When perusing portions of the Bible, it is a natural tendency for us to simply focus on the particular passage we have read. If we do that in Matthew's gospel, it looks like Jesus talks to the disciples many times about many things. However, we are still in the section where he is preparing his disciples for their work of spreading the gospel in his absence. Jesus here connects love of God, which results in following Christ, giving us life abundant. Every family has secrets, don’t they? There is the long-perpetuated family narrative of a situation. Then, much later, you find out what really happened. I’ve found this in my own family. The teenage children tell you they are doing such and such with their friends that evening. It’s late. It’s past their curfew. Where are they? Then there’s a phone call. Everything is fine. No need to worry, you’re told. ...

  This is the sermon I preached Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text is Matthew 9:35-10:8.   Jesus was a great, accomplished, sought after teacher, to which the gospels attest. But Jesus didn’t just talk. Healing followed teaching. They went hand in hand. Jesus “healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives” (Matthew 9:35). I don’t know about you, but there was a time in my life when I felt like there was not one single thing under control in my life: my marriage, my health, finances. I felt like everything was swirling around me.  Things happen in life over which we have no sway. We may or may not have degrees of control over what’s happening. All we can manage is our response to it. Will we be victims? Will we place the blame on others? Will we go to our friends and talk about the people who are doing us wrong? About this, Chuck Swindoll wrote: …we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot chang...

This is the sermon I preached Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26.   Isn’t Jesus always getting into trouble? He hangs out with the wrong people, the inappropriate people, the people he was told to stay away from, the great unwashed. Why can’t he just learn to fly under the radar? Life is so much more comfortable that way. He could still do good, heal a few people, but the right kind of people—the good religious people who don’t stir up trouble.  In today’s gospel, we find an array of characters: good religious ones, on the inside of society and those on the outside of society by virtue of their birth or their diseases.  We have three distinct movements in this passage, which is why three different people read this passage:  The call of Matthew (v. 9). The account of Jesus’ table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners (vv. 10-13). Sandwiched stories of restoration of synagogue leader’s daughter (vv. 18-19, 23-26) and woman w...

  This is the sermon I preached today at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The gospel is Matthew 28:16-20.  If you've been with me in a restaurant, you know how hard it is for me to decide what to order. Likely, I will take a survey of what everyone else is ordering to see if their choices appeal to me. Generally, I whittle the possibilities down to at most 2–3 items. By the time it's my turn to order, I may order one of those possibilities or something completely different. This is a very time-consuming process. Just ask Ray.  The dilemma I face when I have to decide what to eat at a restaurant is similar to the one faced by the disciples when they had to decide between worshiping the Lord and doubting his authority. Another way to put this could be, is he or isn’t he?  The reaction of the disciples to seeing Jesus may seem a bit odd. After all, they have spent three years with Jesus—listening to his teaching, watching him work miracles and witnessing his death. After t...

This is the message I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran Church, Dunkirk. The text is Luke 24:44-53. Why do we celebrate Ascension Sunday? We don’t hear much about the Ascension in the New Testament. Paul doesn’t talk about it in his letters. John's letters don't say anything about this. Neither do Peter’s. The Ascension is not mentioned in any of them. If Jesus died and rose from the dead, isn’t that enough? After all, he would be alive. But if Jesus did not ascend to his Father, his mission would have been limited to the Holy Land. The disciples would have spread the faith there and died. Potentially, the Christian faith may well have died out. Jesus' ascension is an important event. It enabled the Holy Spirit to pour out its power on the early followers of Jesus. This facilitated the outpouring of power so that God’s word was spread all over, not just in a small area. In today’s gospel, Jesus is preparing the disciples not for his crucifixion, wh...