Reformation Sunday Know God, Know Ourselves This is a Sunday packed with beautiful images, deep-seeded ideas, and a rich history. For life-long Lutherans, these things can provoke a sense of pride in our denomination, but Reformation Sunday is not “Lutheran Pride Day.” Instead it is a day focused on knowing God truthfully and in the…
God Gives More than Enough The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. It is the “first day of the week” (John 20:19), the day of the new creation, but to those locked away in the upper room in fear, the world is as it always has…
The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. Overhearing Jesus At the ascension we, like the disciples in today’s reading in Acts, are left looking at the sky. But in the High Priestly Prayer (John 17), Jesus brings us back to earth. In the prayer he speaks…
Not Orphaned The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus promises us in today’s gospel. God is not some ruthless heavenly spectator judging us as on reality television, relishing our failures, wishing to exchange us for a better or…
The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. The words of today’s gospel are most often heard during a funeral service. It is a popular choice of scripture for that occasion because the words provide wonderful assurance that the one who has died in Christ has…
The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. An Abundant Life Abundant life is promised to those who follow Jesus. But what is meant by abundant life? Some Christians, and much of contemporary American culture, interpret an abundant life to mean the “good life” of many…
The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. Welcomed with Open Arms Thomas is not the only one missing from the assembly the Sunday after Easter Sunday. We are not told why Thomas is missing, but we do know why plenty of other folks are absent…
What is it about the night that invites questions? As our head rests on the pillow and shadows stretch out on the bedroom wall, questions, like field mice, begin to emerge from the nooks and crannies of our mind. At first, the questions are utilitarian: Did someone let the dog out this evening? Are the…
The time after Epiphany is the church’s time to invite us to come and see who this one born in a manger will be, and to discover what this one born to a young woman might mean for us and for the world. Today’s gospel tells us that Jesus is the “Lamb of God who…
The doctrine of the Trinity invites us to consider how a God constituted by relationship—the Father with the Son, the Son with the Spirit, the Spirit with the Father—draws us into that relationship with God and one another. Gradually or suddenly, through the work of the Spirit, we come to know our belonging to the…