Category: Sermons

The Third Sunday in Lent (B) — Exodus 20:1–17
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

This Lent, I’m preaching about living more like Jesus. We can learn what God is like, and while we’ll never be perfect, we can try to come closer to that ideal. We saw with Noah’s family at the flood, God can destroy, but chooses instead to create, because he loves creation. And last week, God promised a child to Sarah and Abraham, but God couldn’t keep it simple. God’s radical generosity overflows, giving gift after gift.

Today we encounter Israel in the desert. They’re escaping from Egypt and come to Sinai, God’s mountain. God tells Moses that he wants to make the Hebrews his greatest, most treasured possession. They wash and purify themselves to prepare for God’s arrival, and on the third day, God’s presence in smoke and fire appears.

The Second Sunday in Lent (B) — Genesis 17:1–7, 15–16
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

This season of Lent, my plans are to talk about how we can imitate–or at least, live more like–Jesus. We can take a good look at what God is like, what his various characteristics are, and start to get a sense of those we might emulate. Last week we talked about how God is creative, not destructive. God’s heart breaks because of our injustice, but breaks even more at the idea of ending our evil by removing us altogether. After the flood, God promises to look for other ways to redeem us and all of creation.

Today, the Church reads the story of Abraham and Sarah, and the promises given to them. Their covenant is made several times in Genesis, and our version today is from chapter 17—somewhat more straightforward than the stories in chapters 15 or 18. While it’s a simple account, there are some wonderful, interesting little details.

The First Sunday in Lent (B) — Genesis 9:8–17
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

The fifteenth century “Imitation of Christ” is one of the great classics of Christian spirituality, but I’ve never read it. It seems ridiculous to me. Become more like Jesus. We fail before we begin. It’s one thing to follow his teachings, to live like Jesus wants. That’s hard, but maybe possible; if not, he wouldn’t have said it. But to live like Christ himself? Jesus is God, made flesh. I am very much not God. I cannot even begin to approximate him.

Transfiguration of Our Lord (B) — 2 Kings 2:1–12; Mark 9:2–9
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

In my sermon two weeks ago, I talked about knowing God versus truly loving God. I mentioned that the only ones in the Gospel of Mark who actually recognize Jesus are the demons and unclean spirits. Everyone else, even his closest disciples, are out to lunch.

Today would seem like an exception to the rule. Peter, James, and John are up on a mountain with Jesus, and they get to actually see Jesus transfigured before them with their own eyes. They truly get to know all of it, everything about who he truly is. The Messiah of David. The Holy One of God. The Power and the Glory, the King of Kings, the Light of the World, that the darkness cannot overcome.

Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany (B) — Isaiah 40:21–31
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

In its way, this has been a scary week, though at least I have been spared from the snow. For those of you who don’t know, last Sunday [at Faith], someone became very ill and had to be taken to the hospital. Although his issue was unrelated, they always do a Covid Test these days, and he tested positive. We’d had a possible exposure at a “mass gathering,” (only 10 people were present), and had to quarantine. Me especially, since I was with him when he lost consciousness and bashed his head on the bathroom sink, and so I was the one who picked him up off the floor, and that means I had physical contact and was likely to get sick.

First Sunday of Advent (B): Isaiah 64:1–9 and Mark 13:24–37
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

You can feel the yearning of Isaiah’s words: “O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” Despite the fact that this prophet knows that the “day of the lord shall come as destruction from the Almighty (Isaiah 13)” he still begs for that day to come. No, for God to come. In his time, God seemed so distant. But if God would just show himself, all the nations would know there is a God. Even the earth itself would respond to the glory and power of the Lord, celebrating with its own power, leaping and quaking, whole land masses displaced with only a fraction of the power God possesses.

Fourth Sunday of Easter (A) — John 10:1–10
Trinity Lutheran Church, Pleasant Valley, PA
Bethany Lutheran Church, Stony Creek Mills, PA
Faith Lutheran Church, Mount Penn, PA

Good readings inspire good questions. The fourth Sunday of Easter doesn’t usually get a lot of questions, though, with readings so familiar and well-loved. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” It brings us comfort, not challenge. Maybe that’s what we need most right now. Still, I can’t help but ask.

The First Sunday of Lent (A) — Genesis 2:15–17, 3:1–7; Matthew 4:1–11
Bethany Lutheran Church, Stony Creek Mills, PA
Faith Lutheran Church, Mount Penn, PA

The LORD God took the human and put it in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the human, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

It’s nice to work in the church again. Teaching last year was fun, and I hope I can do it again. But I’ll need to include congregational work in there as well. Preaching and teaching, singing and worship, sharing each others’ lives, are vital in real life of faith. Having them again, I’m certain I cannot live without them.

Festival of the Transfiguration (A)—Exodus 24:12–18; 2 Peter 1:16–21; Matthew 17:1–9

Come up the mountain.

In Exodus today, God’s people have already left Egypt, following God’s directions to the mountain called Sinai. Wondrous things happen on mountains. People believed gods lived there. It makes sense; it climbs into the sky, reaching up to the clouds, into heaven, beautiful and breathtaking. The perfect place for God’s splendor, or at least God’s unreachable-ness. The Israelites at Sinai knew they stood in the presence of the Almighty.

“I am the Alpha and Omega,” Jesus says. “The beginning and the end.”

Elsie’s beginning, it seems, was some distance away, in England, the other side of the pond. Far away today; further away (it seemed) when she came to the shores of America with her new husband, Frederick, a soldier from the States. It’s funny that war can actually bring people together, sometimes.