Allen Lunneberg

 

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Text: Mark 13:24-27
Date: Last Sunday of the Church Year + 11/22/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

My Lord, what a morning—the morning of our Lord’s promised and blessed return. Whoever thought that such an otherwise fearful sign in the heavens—“when the stars begin to fall”—would signal not terror but rather the greatest, most comforting event in our lives and in the history of the world? That which has been longed for since the first disciples stood with their necks craned to the sky at their beloved Lord’s ascension, indeed, since Abraham once gazed at the unnumbered stars in the firmament, since Adam and Eve heard that their offspring would be the morning star of the salvation of the universe, since in our own baptism we were called God’s stars, is now fulfilled in His promised return, “when the stars begin to fall.” He comes “to take us to be where He is,” when the stars begin to fall; to take us to Himself, to raise us from our graves, to change us to be like His glorious body, to give us those new white robes and usher us into the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end, “when the stars begin to fall.” “They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light” (Rev. 22:5), “when the stars begin to fall.” Indeed, they…we…“those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the firmament of the heaven and as the stars for ever and ever,” “when the stars begin to fall.” My Lord, what a morning…when the stars begin to fall. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 13:1-13
Date: Pentecost XXIV (Proper 28) + 11/15/09 (11/12/00)
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

As we approach the end of the liturgical year the lectionary turns to the theme of the Last Things, the Last Day, the “parousia” or second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the question is, Are you prepared? Are you prepared for the Lord’s return? for your last day? for the last judgment and for your destiny of either eternal life through the forgiveness of your sins or for eternal suffering and death through unbelief? As when a person prepares for a long trip or an extended vacation by packing suit cases and travel bags, or as a person prepares for Christmas by decorating a tree, putting colorful light displays outside like a number of my neighbors were doing yesterday, then ordering, purchasing and wrapping gifts, just what does a person prepared for the Last Day look like? What’s involved with that preparation? (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 12:38-44
Date: Pentecost XXIII + 11/8/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

As we approach the end of the liturgical year, we approach the telling of the end of our Lord’s earthly ministry, and of this world of sin, separation and death, and the beginning of the new heavens and the new earth for which we long in the day of the resurrection of all flesh, the Day of Judgment. The events leading up to Jesus’ central, most important work the Holy Church celebrates in detail during Holy Week and Easter, namely, His one, singular offering of Himself to bear the sins of many, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says it. All the Evangelists paint the picture of the drama building between Jesus on the one hand and the official religious establishment on the other. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with the establishment or “organized religion” as some call it, meaning established divisions of various kinds of service in the Church. It’s just when the institution forgets its original character and mission and begins to operate only for the purpose of its own self-preservation that it incurs the judgment of God. This was the situation that prevailed in Jesus’ time. In fact the mystery is how God used the very spiritual deadness of His people and His official religious teachers and representatives to bring about the Gospel of forgiveness and freedom for the whole world through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God, on the cross of Calvary. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 10:23-31
Date: Pentecost XX + St. Luke, Evangelist + 10/18/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Today’s Gospel is a continuation of last week’s story of the Rich Young Man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. The whole story, verses 17 through 30, used to be read as one on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost in Series B of the lectionary. It is therefore a unique challenge to preach on each half of the story over two Sundays with little reference to the other half. The first half ends with the young man going away sorrowful because he couldn’t imagine doing what Jesus told him to do, namely, to sell all he had and give to the poor and then to come and follow Jesus. In preaching on that text last Sunday we focused on Jesus’ identity and how a person inherits eternal life only by way of repentance and faith in Jesus. Today the second half of the story has Jesus turning to his disciples to help them analyze in an even deeper way the disciple’s changed relationship with the world and the cost of following Him. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 10:17-22
Date: Pentecost XIX (Proper 23) + 10/11/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

For the rich young man who came to Jesus, when he asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he showed that it wasn’t his riches that was the problem. He was seeking to be justified on the basis of his own, outward keeping of the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. Jesus knew that the Law of God had not yet done its complete and proper work in this young man’s heart. For the proper work of the Law is not to “straighten you out,” but to make a man despair not only of earthly possessions and money but of the Law itself! That is, to realize and face the impossibility of being saved by means of works of the Law. It means to make us despair in order that we may flee for mercy to God’s grace alone as the only hope. So Jesus challenged him, saying, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” The key, of course, was not in the “selling all you have,” but in the “follow me” part. But then, what do we see? We then read that the young man was disheartened and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He didn’t “get it.” He did not follow Jesus. For him the answer Jesus gave was too much. For him that price of inheriting eternal life was too high. And he went away sorrowful. (more…)

Text: Mark 10:2-16
Date: Pentecost XVIII (Proper 22) + 10/4/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Do people desire to become Christians or to be the more committed Christians primarily because they are thinking about going to heaven when they die or is it because they are looking for something that can make sense out of our otherwise confused lives right now, today? It may be one or the other or even both. On the one hand, Jesus came, and, in today’s Gospel, we see Him more and more determined to make His way to accomplish His sacrificial death on the cross. He came for the purpose of dying for the sin of the world and to open the kingdom of heaven to all. On the other hand, there is also concern for how we make it through our days in this life, even while we wait for sin and death to be done with and attempt to walk along the path of faith in Christ, living in the forgiveness of our sins. So while we are concerned about salvation, about heaven, about what our destiny and lot will be after this life, we also hope to lead lives of faith now, lives that at least try to be pleasing to God and receive and reflect His guidance and blessing even amid the difficulties and problems that sin causes every step of the way. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 9:38-50
Date: Pentecost XVII (Proper 21) + 9/27/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Today’s pericope helps us understand what has gone just before in Mark’s Gospel, and to better understand our own task of confessing Christ in our world today. I mean, didn’t you think it strange that the disciples suddenly started arguing about who is or will be the greatest among them? Where did that come from? Were they that petty? When’s the last time you got into an argument about who is greater than whom? I thought so. Probably the last time was when you were a child! Or when you were being childish! And then what about this oddity that suddenly Jesus’ disciples were unable to cast out a demon from a young boy, something that they had previously been fully authorized to do? (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 9:30-37
Date: Pentecost XVI + 9/20/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

This is now the third and final time in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus tells his disciples about his coming passion, death and resurrection. And their reaction just seems to get worse every time he brings the subject up. The first time (8:31-33) Peter rebukes Jesus and becomes the unwitting tool of Satan himself. The second time (9:9-12) followed Jesus transfiguration and the inner group of disciples were left with more questions than answers. This third and last passion prediction so stuns them that they were, literally, speechless. “They did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him” (v. 32). They don’t get it yet, that the way of the Christ, and therefore of his followers, is the way of meekness as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). The Messiah is, as Jeremiah prophesied, “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer. 11:19). Taking a child for an object lesson, Jesus illustrated the peaceable innocence and meekness that characterizes Him and therefore is also to characterize those who follow Him in the way of the cross. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 9:14-29
Date: Pentecost XV (Proper 19) + 9/13/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

When the Blessed Virgin Mary inquired of the angel as to how it would be that she should bear a child without a human husband, she was told, “nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37). By faith in that word she conceived and bore the Son of God. When the disciples heard Jesus suggest the difficulty of the rich young man and people like him to enter the kingdom of heaven at all and asked, “Who, then, can be saved,” Jesus said, “with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26). I have been blessed to know a few people of some earthly means and wealth to also be examples of generous and lively faith. Jesus Himself, before His suffering and death, in the Garden of Gethsemane, prayed, “Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk. 14:36). In the Book of Hebrews faith is defined as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). “By grace you are saved through faith,” says the Apostle Paul, “and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). It appears that this thing called “faith” has to do with issues that are beyond our manipulation or prediction. Yet faith, in the Bible, is not blind, it is not just a hunch or a wild bet or wager based on your wildest dreams or desires but is, rather, the appropriate God-given response to the promises of God. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 7:31-37
Date: Pentecost XIV (Proper 18) + 9/6/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

In today’s Gospel, Mark the Evangelist clearly has in mind the prophecy of Isaiah that we heard earlier, “Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not!’…. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped” (Is. 35:4a, 5). For the Jewish scribes had always said this would be a sign of the Messiah to come. Well, today, here He is. And so we repeat the comforting prophetic word at His coming to us today, “Do Not Fear.”

There are many kinds of fear. One is the fear of failure. It can probably be said of all of us that we can all do a few things well. Perhaps it can even be said that each one of us can do at least one thing well. But of none of us can it be said, “He or she has done all things well.” For, many times we fail. There is only One to whom that tribute can be paid, and we are here in worship on this day to join the chorus in the tribute that began in the region of the Decapolis, and has grown in great crescendo through the centuries to this day, saying of Jesus, “He has done all things well!” He is why God can say, and we can say to each other, “Do Not Fear.” (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 7:14-23
Date: Pentecost XIII (Proper 17) + 8/30/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

St. Mark, in his Gospel, has been telling us of the initial criticisms of the Jewish leaders against Jesus by blaming Him for not training His followers correctly, that they are guilty of breaking the religious rules regarding ritual cleanliness and purity. As Mark tells it we discover that the real problem with Jesus’ enemies was their own hypocrisy, that is, relying only on the outward appearance of following God’s Word, as He quoted to them the Bible passage, Isaiah 29:13, “this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me” (Is. 29:13). Today’s Gospel tells of Jesus’ final words to them here, before moving on, revealing the heart of the matter, namely, sin. When it comes to God’s Laws of ritual purity, it is not, as they were thinking, what you eat or what enters your body from the outside that makes you unclean, but rather what proceeds from the inside, “from the heart.” It is the same with any sin or evil a person does. It is not, ultimately, the fault of the environment or of poor training or upbringing. “The devil made me do it” is not an acceptable excuse. By “the heart” the Bible means, of course, the center of a person’s personality, where the ego, the self and its will and its thoughts dwell. Like the physical organ called the heart, it is that center also of your personal and spiritual being. (more…)

 

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Text: Mark 7:1-13
Date: Pentecost XII (Proper 16) + 8/23/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

From the beloved and award-winning musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” the song, “Tradition!”—

Who, day and night, must scramble for a living,
Feed a wife and children, say his daily prayers?
And who has the right, as master of the house,
To have the final word at home? The Papa! Tradition!

Who must know the way to make a proper home,
A quiet home, a kosher home?
Who must raise the family and run the home,
So Papa’s free to read the holy books? The Mama! Tradition!

At three, I started Hebrew school. At ten, I learned a trade.
I hear they’ve picked a bride for me. I hope she’s pretty.
And who does Mama teach to mend and tend and fix,
Preparing me to marry whoever Papa picks? The daughter! Tradition!

The Papa, The Mama, The Son, The Daughter! Tradition!

That could be the theme song of today’s Gospel where the word “tradition” is repeated no less than six times! “For the Pharisees and all the Jews…hold to the tradition of the elders.” “There are many other traditions that they observe.” They ask Jesus, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders?” Jesus calls them hypocrites and answers, saying, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” And He points to the Fourth Commandment and accuses them of “making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.” (more…)