Archives: Sermons

10-25-20 Trinity 20

October 25, 2020
Come to the feast, the Lord says. He sends his servants out to invite the whole world. So, it’s not men and women and boys and girls who invite him into their hearts and their lives, it’s He who invites them into His. We need to reverse the vocabulary of our current American Christian scene; this talk of us inviting Jesus into our hearts. You won’t find the Bible talking that way. Instead, Jesus is consistently the inviter and we are the invitee. Come to me, He says. Come to the feast, He says.

10-18-20 Trinity 19

October 18, 2020
The Word of Jesus is the most powerful thing in the world. The Gospel writer Matthew has been showing this in the events before today’s Gospel reading. There was a centurion whose servant was paralyzed, and he asked Jesus to do something. Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus marveled at the man’s faith, and said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment. The Word of Jesus is the most powerful thing in the world.

10-11-20 Trinity 18

October 11, 2020
When we see our failure to love. When we see our great need for forgiveness from our God. Then we have no business asking about the law. It will only condemn, expose our pride and our envy and our resentment and our apathy, and knock us further down. But this question, the question on which the history of the world turns, is what we need asked, “Who is the Christ?”

9-13-20 Trinity 14

September 13, 2020
Some punishments you can bring on yourself. But it’s also true that people suffer all sorts of horrible things not because they did anything, but because they were born a sinner into a sinful, corrupt world.

9-6-20 Trinity 13

September 6, 2020
We should have no doubt at all that the parable of the Good Samaritan is about Jesus. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. The popular misunderstanding is to make this parable a simply moral tale, like Aesop’s Fables, telling you what to do to lead a good and prosperous life, but this can only be done by ripping the parable completely out of its context.

8-30-20 Trinity 12

August 30, 2020
Usually when Jesus performs a miracle he does it by speaking. He just says it and it happens. This is what happened right before our Gospel lesson, with the Syro-phoenician woman. Jesus just says, the demon has left your daughter, and that’s what happens.
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