Month: July 2016

Text: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-26
Date: Pentecost XI + Proper 13C + 7/31/16

Martin Luther said the book of Ecclesiastes “is one of the more difficult books in all of Scripture, one which no one has ever completely mastered.”[1] Of course then we should not be surprised that he did! For he saw the purpose, summary and aim of the author, namely, “Solomon wants to put us at peace and to give us a quiet mind in the everyday affairs and business of this life, so that we live contentedly in the present without care and yearning about the future and are, as Paul says, without care and anxiety (Phil. 4:6).” This is what is behind our Lord’s parable of the rich fool, namely, the difference between trying to lay up treasure for yourself and not being rich toward God. Continue reading “Sinners and Saints”

Text: Genesis 18:20-33
Date: Pentecost X + Proper 12 + 7/24/16

“Lord, teach us to pray” asked Jesus’ disciples. But haven’t they been praying the God-given psalms in the temple and the synagogue, at Passover and around the dinner table? Yet there is something that makes us think we haven’t been doing it right or that there is a more effective technique or maybe a secret password to get better, more immediate answers to our prayers. When the disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray,” He didn’t come up with the Rosary; not even the more ancient “Jesus Prayer,” “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” Continue reading “Pleasing Persistence”

Text: Leviticus 19:9-18
Date: Pentecost VIII + Proper 10 + 7/10/16

In today’s Gospel a lawyer intended to put Jesus to the test. He asked, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Lutheran Law/Gospel ears are instantly raised!) In typical Jewish style Jesus answers his question with another question, “What is written in the Law?” In other words, if you want to talk about salvation in terms of doing something you must look to God’s Law, there’s no other way. The man answered correctly quoting the Great Shema of the Old Testament, the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Then Jesus ends the discussion with the parable of the Good Samaritan emphasizing that second half of the Great Command concerning love of neighbor from today’s Old Testament reading in Leviticus 19. Continue reading “In Holy Love”

Text: Isaiah 66:10-14
Date: Pentecost VII + Proper 9C + 7/3/16

In today’s Gospel Jesus sends out seventy-two of His disciples to go on ahead of Him proclaiming the peace of the kingdom of God and healing the sick. They were warned that they would be variously welcomed by some and in other places rejected. However, He gave them this word of assurance which are His own words of comfort for every pastor and preacher to this day, saying, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Lk 10:16). That’s comforting because it reminds us that the power to bring people to repentance and saving faith does not depend on  anything in ourselves but solely on the power of God’s Word that we proclaim. The strange thing it seems to us is that people have the sin-inspired ability to reject God, to say “no” to His Word. In their case the very invitation of God’s grace has the opposite effect hardening their hearts. To such, all we are ordered to say is, “know this, that the kingdom of God has come near” (Lk 10:11), shake the dust off our feet as a testimony against them and move on. Move on. Continue reading “Comfort in the Face of Conflict”