Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached today at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The gospel was Matthew 16:13-20.   Caesarea Philippi is beautiful. It is lush and green with a spring that is a source for the Jordan River. Situated at the foot of Mt. Hermon, which is the only place in the land where you will find snow, in which my then young children played.  It is not by accident that Jesus and his disciples find themselves there. Pastors Eric Fistler and Robb McCoy describe the scene:  Caesarea Philippi, [is] home to all sorts of crazy, pagan, awful stuff…our world, …our country, …our community, [can make us] feel overwhelmed and disgusted.  Even at those times, our job as a church is to confess Christ… whether it is popular or not…our confession…is that he is the Christ, the anointed savior, son of the living God. (Pulpitfiction.com) Martin Luther's view of the situation is this: Jesus takes occasion to reveal himself to the apostles. He shows what Christ really is, how we shal...

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, Aug. 20 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Matthew 15:21-28. What’s wrong with Jesus? He just doesn’t seem like himself, does he? Of course, he recently lost his cousin John to a terrible death. He has been trying, not very successfully, to get some downtime by himself. Was he just having a bad day?  We’re used to our Lord being moved with compassion for the crowds. Here, he initially ignores a woman's cries and doesn’t answer her. When he does answer her, it is to inform her that he was only sent to the Jewish people. Ouch. She was hopeful, but she is not qualified to have her prayer answered. Then, to make matters worse, Jesus calls her a dog. There’s no way to soften this insult. Children and dogs do not get the same food.   A non-Jewish foreigner, the woman is one of Israel's traditional enemies.' They worshiped the false god Baal. (The Jewish Annotated New Testament). And yet, this unnamed woman knew enough of Jesus...

  This is the sermon I preached August 6 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The passage is Matthew 14:22-33. The Sea of Galilee is not a sea. It is a lake, often called Kinneret. It is larger than Chautauqua Lake, but not a lot. The word, translated ”sea,” could also be translated “Lake.” Given the storm we find the disciples in, it’s no wonder translators opted for “sea.”   The sea was understood to be a living, chaotic, potentially deadly spirit (David Ewart, holytextures.com). And it was between 3 and 6 am when Jesus was walking toward the disciples. How would you feel? Don’t things always seem worse in the middle of the night? And in a storm? The disciples were frightened. Scripture says they were “terrified” when they saw Jesus walking in the storm on the sea. The word used here for “terrified” can also be used to describe a sea that has been agitated and stirred up. In other words, the disciples' inner state is now a perfect reflection of their outer circumstances (Ew...

  This is the message I preached on Sunday July 30 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 . So… I have to admit that when I first read this gospel passage, I thought, what in the world am I supposed to do with this? I did a bit in the e-ministry, yet found that I could not morph that into a sermon. We’re not going to do a flyover of all five of these parables, but are taking two that are similar, yet have differences as well, the treasure in a field and the precious pearl. The purpose of parables is to shake people up with the unexpected. They are to afflict the comfortable; being thorny and disturbing. We are not to walk away from parables saying, “Oh, what a nice story.”  How are these two parables similar, how are they different and what does that mean for us? Professor Amy-Jill Levine writes: The parables share common ideas, characterizations, and results. Both depict a person who sells all that he has to purchase something desired. Both also...

  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. ...