Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached at St. Mark and St..Timothy  Lutheran churches on Sunday, 12/10/17. The text is Mark 1:1-8. In Matthew and Luke, we have detailed stories of angels and shepherds and magi and angry kings. John’s gospel is an entirely different matter. But you have to love Mark’s version of things. He cuts right to the chase. There is no birth story. His gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The rest of the gospel explains how he can make that claim. But the beginning of the good news is not the gospel or anything else in the New Testament because the story of salvation and God’s loving interaction with humanity began in Genesis “In the beginning;” in creation. Immediately after Mark’s introductory verse, he goes back to the prophets of Israel and the promises God made through them. Mark cites Isaiah, but what we have here a mash-up of Isaiah, Malachi and the author of Exodus (Exodus 23:20; Malachi 3:1; Isaiah 40:3). We hear “the voice of o

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 12/3/17 at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran Churche s. The text is 1 Corinthians 1:3-9.    Imagine that you spent a year and a half getting a new church up and running. When you left to work with other churches, the church was growing. Leaders were emerging and the congregation seemed healthy. All was well. Then a delegation from the young church arrives. They bring word—via a letter—and that letter carries bad news. The church is fighting. There are visible factions. Some are in danger of returning to their old lives to serve their former gods and to resume life as they once knew it. Others are lording their so-called knowledge over those whom they deem weaker in the faith. The weaker members are being intimidated by some of the stronger, more experienced believers. This resulted in some being anxious about their own status before God and they were apparently confused about the second coming of Christ. Class divisions are even evi

This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran churches on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017. The text is Matthew 25:14-30.     Last week when the church council met, one of the topics we discussed was stewardship, since it is that time of year. Upon reading today ’ s gospel, my reaction was, “ Oh good! This is about stewardship! ” Well, the more I studied, the more I realized that stewardship, as we envision it, is not the thrust of what Matthew is saying to us.    Looking at the cultural context, let ’ s see if we can get a handle on what this parable is about. First of all, what is a talent? Doesn ’ t talent mean that someone can sing or dance or do stand - up comedy well? Isn ’ t that why we have shows like “ America ’ s Got Talent? ” In Jesus ’ time, a talent was not an ability, but rather a very large sum of money — between 75-96 pounds of silver. One talent was equal to 15 years of a laborer ’ s wages. Five talents would be more than a lifetime ’ s