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Text: Jeremiah 23:16-29
Date: Pentecost XIII + Proper 15 + 8/14/16

What’s all this? Casting fire on earth, distress, no peace but division, divided against each other? ‘Sounds awful. Today’s lessons sound like reading the newspaper with all the world’s daily tragedies, turmoil, desperation and death. Then Jeremiah’s report of false prophets and the threats of “the storm of the Lord,” wrath, a whirling tempest, the anger of the Lord. “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” It’s bad enough having to endure the criticism and persecution of the world each day, but in line with the Gospel, today’s Introit says we will continue to have troubles and divisions even within our closest relations, even in the Church of all places. “It is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng” (Ps 55:13-14). Continue reading “Climate Change”

 

Text: Genesis 15:1-6
Date: Pentecost XII + Proper 14C + 8/7/16

Thousands of years before Vincent Van Gogh pondered and painted it and Don McLean sung memorably about it, look at him! Abram, outside, in the dark, looking up into the sky, saw the Starry Starry Night. Continue reading “Starry Starry Night”

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”

Text: 1 Kings 19:9b-21
Date: Pentecost VI + Proper 8 + 6/26/16

What do you do when you get frustrated? Can you just calmly let it go and not let the problem bother you? Or do you get angry? More times than not we are reminded that “Getting mad doesn’t help.” To be sure we are surrounded by multiple frustrations usually involving disagreements with other people but sometimes frustration at ourselves, our circumstances, our inadequacies, or just plain stupidity as when you accidentally break something or injure yourself. Who do you get mad at when you stub your toe? The scripture before us today reminds us that anger, a show of power or retaliation is rarely helpful. The answer of God to His people when facing difficult situations is to be found in God’s Word. Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller recently wrote on his Facebook page, “we are prepared for the coming trouble not when we have guns and food, but when [we] know the Scriptures, the Catechism, the Liturgy, and the hymns.” I thought, how timely were these words especially as we look at today’s scripture readings. Continue reading “Getting Mad Doesn't Help”

Text: Isaiah 65:1-9
Date: Pentecost V + Proper 7 + 6/19/16

In today’s Gospel Jesus heals a man possessed by a demon. There were differing reactions. “When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled.” When the people from town came out and saw this man sane, clothed and sitting at Jesus’ feet “they were afraid” and “asked him to depart from them.” You see, on the one hand no one could deny what they saw with their own eyes. But instead of sensing and maybe believing a divine miracle they didn’t want anything to do with it. They rejected the miracle and the man who performed it. Continue reading “Demons Before Us”

Text: 2 Samuel 11:26—12:14
Date: Pentecost IV + Proper 6C + 6/12/16

Have you ever said, “I can forgive, but I can’t forget”? Many think that receiving forgiveness is easy but extending forgiveness to someone else is more difficult. Today’s “Lesson in Forgiveness” turns that around. Both the Pharisees in today’s Gospel (Luke 7:36—8:3) but especially King David in our Old Testament reading demonstrate that receiving forgiveness maybe isn’t always as easy as you might think. With a parable Jesus enlightened the Pharisees and Nathan the prophet broke through the hard shell of guilt bringing King David to true repentance and faith. Continue reading “A Lesson in Forgiveness”

Date: Pentecost III + Proper 5C + 6/5/16
Text: 1 Kings 17:17-24

Elijah was the mightiest prophet of God. Whereas all the other prophets are introduced to us with words like, “The Word of the Lord came to…,” Elijah the Tishbite just suddenly appears on the scene as if he needs no introduction, certification or proof. How different the apostle Paul who we heard today laying out the evidence of his argument to be a bona fide apostle even though he did not accompany the others “during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21-22). Elijah was sent to call God’s people back from their infatuation with the latest religious fad, namely, the idolatrous worship of Baal. He simply shows up and predicts drought and famine, “except by my word,” that is that he would call an end to the punishment at the proper time. Continue reading “The Word of the Lord is Truth”