Claimed, gathered and sent

  Boy, am I behind on posting. I feel like I've just emerged from a cocoon. I was at home for two weeks with Covid, a sinus and ear infection. Tuesday was my first day out of the house. Anyway, here is the sermon I preached on 9/1 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text is Mark 7:1-8,, 14-15, 21-23.   Here again, we have Jesus and his conversation partners talking past each other. Last week, it was Nicodemus who could only understand physical things. Today, it’s the Pharisees and other religious leaders. They looked at the outward, while Jesus considered the inward, the heart.  Let’s not be too hard on the Pharisees. They were, in fact, a reform movement within Judaism. The Pharisees believed every Jewish person could be a priest to God. They made the Jewish faith more accessible to the average person.  They loved God’s law, seeing it as a great gift. The law is so important in Judaism that there is a celebration about its giving, called Simchat Torah. On this holiday, the childr