Category: Sermons

Palm Sunday — Luke 19:29–40

El Sinai Lutheran Church, Rio Seco Neighborhood, El Alto, Bolivia

This sermon was originally delivered in Spanish—my first sermon in the language! If you want to read it in the original language, check out the language buttons at the top of the page.

If they had known what kind of messiah Jesus is…

I have been in La Paz now for two months, and I’m really falling in love with it. One of my favorite things to do here, silly as it might sound, is ride the teleférico, the mass-transit gondola. From the heights, even the worst parts of the city appear beautiful. And the view of the mountains, the green and grey and brown hills in the foreground, and the splendor of the snow caps in the background… I don’t think I will ever get used to it.

Festival of the Reformation — Jeremiah 31:31–34. This was also my final Sunday with Faith and Bethany Lutheran Churches in Reading, PA.

Our Lutheran Church’s official representative for South America, Gustavo Driau, suggested I pick up a copy of a book called “Open Veins of Latin America.” The veins that the title refers to are the veins of useful and precious metals running through the southern part of this hemisphere, the mines and other industries of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking colonial Americas.

But it’s also a title with a double meaning. When the Europeans arrived in this new world on the eve of the Protestant Reformation, when the Eastern hemisphere was discovering again the radical grace of God that sets us free from the powers of sin and death, they enslaved the people they found already living here in the Western hemisphere, and through their own grave sin, tore open the blood vessels of these beautiful people made by God, condemning them to death.

Lectionary 28 (B) — Amos 5:6–15; Mark 10:17–31

Seek the Lord and live.

At first, I was annoyed at my schedule. If I’m here for all of October, couldn’t I have kept working? If Global Mission had just made up their minds sooner, we could have gone an extra month. But now I’ve started preparing for the move. It’s more difficult than I’d thought. Exactly twenty-one days from now, I have to hop in the car and leave, for good. I’m not sure I’ll be ready.

Lectionary 26 (B) — Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Mark 9:38–50

Before I begin, there are two details I need to address, that don’t fit in my sermon. The first is about cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye. Sometimes we try to soften Jesus’ hard sayings, and usually that’s a mistake. But this time, he is using exaggeration to make his point. There are rare illnesses that cause people to physically harm themselves. I’m certain Jesus would send them to medical professionals for help, and not want people to actually mutilate their bodies. It just needs to be said out loud.

Second, I changed words reading the Gospel. You know the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, and then translated to English. Our English Bible says, “thrown into hell,” but I said, “in the trash.” Actually, the word “hell” isn’t in the Bible anywhere. That doesn’t mean there is no hell; it just means the Bible’s words are different. Jesus actually says, “Gehinnom.” This is the name of the valley just south of Jerusalem where the city’s trash was taken and dumped. Like the mines under Centralia, Pennsylvania, at some point in history the trash caught fire, and couldn’t be put out; it had to run its course. We eventually came to think of an eternal, hellish punishment, but I personally think the idea of just being thrown away really drives the point home. Thanks, Jesus.

Lectionary 25 (B) — Mark 9:30–37

I think one of the reasons I get along so well with children is that I’m still one of them. That seems like a bad thing; an adult, “entering” middle age, who hasn’t “grown up” yet. But that’s not what I mean. I pay my bills and have a career. But in the ways it counts, I wonder if we’d all be better off if we were more like children.

Lectionary 24 (B) — James 3:1–12, Mark 8:27–38

Our biggest problem is often a failure to communicate. For example, last week, I preached on James, and said that Martin Luther, who gave birth to Lutheranism 500 years ago, was wrong to reject the book. A few days later, I got an email suggesting that I was too quick to declare Luther “wrong.” This is one of the things I love most about being pastor HERE: I have often, from a variety of people, been challenged on my theology and my reading of scripture. Some congregations are afraid to ask questions; other antagonize their pastor. Here, questions are asked with the desire to learn, to explore together, to deepen faith seeking understanding. Any worthy pastor loves the opportunity to dialogue, and I am no exception.

Lectionary 23 (B) — James 2:1–17 and, in a way, The Formula of Concord, Article IV

When Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, he wanted to skip the book of James (though he couldn’t bring himself to do it, since it IS scripture, after all). He wrote that it could not have been written by a real apostle, since it contradicts the writings of Paul and the rest of scripture. He calls it a Gospel made of straw, ready to be blown over by the slightest wind. So, whenever it comes up in the lectionary, I like to preach on it, just on principle, because I… am a little snot.

Sermon Series, Readings from the Minor Prophets — Habakkuk 3:2–4, 17–19; Revelation 21:1–6

Today is the last of our series on the minor prophets. There are seven more of them, these little books at the end of our Old Testament, and I’d encourage you to explore them if you’ve never had the chance. But today, we have a reading from Habakkuk.

Habakkuk is a frustrated prophet. Like much of the Bible writers, he believes that the destruction of Jerusalem by foreign armies is well-deserved punishment for the people of Israel. They have turned away from God, and so God has turned away from them. Fair is fair. (He’s not the best Lutheran.)

Sermon Series, Readings from the Minor Prophets — Nahum 1:1–8, 15; Mark 7:14–15, 21–30

Sacramento, California is in the middle of a crisis. Like many places in the state, unemployment and homelessness are at a shockingly high rate, but that’s not the biggest problem. The city is surrounded by wildfires running out of control. But that, too, isn’t the most pressing issue. The real challenge this week is the huge influx of people. In about three days, the city has welcomed the number of new citizens they would usually receive in nine months. With a large Afghan population already, it’s one of the places that our government and agencies are sending the masses of people fleeing Afghanistan.

Sermon Series, Readings from the Minor Prophets — Haggai 1:16b–2:9

The Israelites had been trapped in a foreign land for seventy years. Generations came and went. Their elders told stories of the beautiful land, flowing with milk and honey, they came from. Now their captors had been defeated by a new army from the southeast, and the emperor had decreed that the captives could go home. Their joy was great.

Until they got there. Jerusalem, the great city of David and the home of their God, was a ruin. What wasn’t destroyed decades ago had collapsed over the years. So had the fields. With only the poorest people left behind to tend to them, crops had rotted and decayed. There was no milk and honey here.