Gut-Wrenching Hospitality: Sermon on Luke 7:11-17

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Third Sunday after Pentecost C
June 3, 2016

We often associate hospitality with luxury. Just think about the hospitality industry for a moment. Have you ever stayed in a really nice hotel? I mean one where the beds are made up with extravagant linens and the towels are thick and the pillows are real down pillows, and there may even be a complimentary robe hanging in the beautifully appointed bathroom. It’s the kind of hotel that doesn’t offer a free breakfast. People who stay in these hotels aren’t looking for a free breakfast. But there might be fresh flowers in your room and a chocolate truffle on your pillow.

Even a modest hotel – the kind that does offer a complimentary breakfast bar with make-your-own waffles – does its best to make guests feel they are being treated to something special. That’s what hospitality has come to mean – being treated to something special, maybe even something luxurious. But no matter how luxurious the accommodations, it’s always good to get home, to sleep in your own bed. That’s where we experience hospitality at its best: at home.

Luke’s gospel describes a completely different kind of hospitality than the hotel industry has in mind. Continue reading →

Be Amazing: Hospitality with Authority – sermon on Luke 7:1-10

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May 29, 2016

Luke mentions authority more than any of the other gospel writers. Usually, Luke is referring to Jesus and the way he teaches with authority, or heals with authority, amazing the people who gather around him. Sometimes it’s the Jewish leaders who question Jesus about his authority to do these things.

But in today’s story, Luke tells us about someone else who holds authority, and this person is an outsider, a Roman centurion. He’s a mid-level military leader who knows his own place in the chain of command. A Roman centurion is about the last person you might expect to come to Jesus, asking for help, and yet, that’s exactly what happens. Continue reading →

Dangerous Hope – Sermon on Romans 5:1-5

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May 22, 2016 Trinity C

We viewed this clip from The Hunger Games to introduce the sermon.

Just to be clear, even though he may look sweet snipping roses, President Snow of The Hunger Games is a bad guy. He is evil personified. And while his reasoning may be based on false assumptions about what hope actually is, he does make a good point when he says, “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.” And a lot of hope – that’s a dangerous thing. President Snow likes his hope in small doses. He uses hope to get people to do exactly what he wants them to do. But he doesn’t really understand what hope is.

At least a dozen times in Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, we find him talking about a particular kind of hope, and today’s passage gives us one of them.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. – Romans 5:1-5

The thing about Romans is that you have to hold the entire thesis in your head in order to examine a small chunk of it so it makes sense.[1] This passage is a perfect example. Paul starts off with the word, “Therefore,” and that’s a sure sign we’d better go back and read chapter four, so we’ll know what he’s referring to. Continue reading →

Now It’s Your Turn – sermon on Luke 24:44-53

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Ascension Sunday
May 22, 2022
Video

We began celebrating this season of Resurrection on Easter Sunday, with the first few verses of Luke 24. Today, we hear the end of that chapter. The gospel writers aren’t clear on how much time passes between the joy of Easter morning and Christ’s ascension into heaven. In fact, only Luke and Mark actually describe Jesus’ final leave-taking, and Luke gives two different versions of the story. But all four Gospel writers agree that Jesus gave his disciples an assignment before he left them. He passed the baton, so to speak. “I’ve done what I came to do,” he tells them, “Now it’s your turn.”
Continue reading →

Get Up and Go – sermon on Jonah 3:1-5, 10

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May 1, 2016 Easter 6C

Did you ever try to run away from home when you were a kid? Do you remember why you wanted to run away? I remember the time I got so angry at my mother that I decided I just had to leave. I think I was about eight years old.

I had some vague notion in my head that people who ran away from home had to tie up all their belongings in a bundle and hang it on the end of a stick. But I didn’t have a stick, and I didn’t know how to make a bundle, so I settled for the next best thing: A plastic doll case. I couldn’t squeeze very much into it, so I took just the essentials: a favorite stuffed toy, some socks, a comb, a small box of raisins in case I got hungry … that was about all that would fit.

As I made my way across the back yard, I ran into our neighbor, Mr. Perry. “Where are you going?” he asked me.

“I’m running away.”

“Oh, well I was hoping maybe you could help me crank the ice cream.”

Mr. Perry made peach ice cream that was to die for. As I turned the crank on the ice cream freezer, we talked. To this day, I do not remember what had made me mad enough that I thought I had to run away from home, but by the time Mr. Perry took the paddle out of the ice cream and handed it to me to lick, I wasn’t mad anymore. I took my plastic doll case back up to my room and unpacked it.

My mother never even knew I’d left the house.

Like my eight year old self, Jonah got so mad, he decided to run away. I really was surprised when I realized that the story of Jonah was missing from our 31-week walk through the Bible. How can you skip Jonah? It’s a universal story. Every known religion has some version of the Jonah story in its mythology. Continue reading →

Making All Things New – sermon on Revelation 21:1-6

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April 24, 2016 Easter 5C

Will your mourn with me? Will you rejoice with me? Twice before I have preached on this text from the book of Revelation, but they were both funeral sermons. Twice this week, we have gathered in this sanctuary to celebrate the promise of eternal life for members who have gone to be with the Lord.

Friday night, as I finished one funeral sermon and sat down to review my notes for this one, I was listening to a live broadcast of The Minnesota Chorale and the Minnesota Orchestra performing the Brahms Requiem under the direction of Helmuth Rilling. Some of you know that I sang under Herr Rilling’s direction for eight years, and we performed this beautiful work by Johannes Brahms at least twice in that time. I knew what to listen for on Friday night. “How lovely is thy dwelling place… blessed are they who die in the Lord …”

Brahms didn’t use the standard Requiem Mass Latin text, but put together selections from scripture, using the Luther Bible. He wanted the words to be easily understood in the language of the people. It was a new way of presenting a Requiem. No composer had ever done something like this before. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. All flesh is grass.” This beautiful music has given comfort to many who grieve.

But something stood out to me this week, as we laid Mike and Florian to rest, and as I listened to Brahms. Continue reading →

Fish and Sheep – Sermon on John 21:1-19

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Easter 3C
April 10, 2016
Watch a video of this sermon here.
An updated version of this sermon can be found here.

Many psychologists will tell you that there are two things all human beings need in order to live happy, productive lives: we need a sense of belonging, and we need a sense of purpose (David Lose). By “belonging” I don’t mean “fitting in.” In fact, fitting in might be the exact opposite of belonging. When you try to fit in, you adapt yourself to a group’s expectations. When you belong, you don’t have to change a thing. You are accepted the way you are. Being accepted as we are by a larger group gives us a stable view of ourselves, and helps us shape our individual identity, according to the psychologists.

And a sense of purpose gives us a reason to get up in the morning. We need to believe that what we do matters, that we make a difference in the world. Our sense of purpose drives our decisions about the way we spend our time and energy and financial resources. Believing that your life has meaning and value can motivate you to face challenging circumstances with courage and perseverance, even joy.

We need to feel like we belong, and we need to feel like we have a purpose in life. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus offers us both. Continue reading →

What’s in a Name? Sermon on Acts 2:37-47

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April 3, 2016
Watch a video of this sermon here.

When my older son was in third grade, he decided to change his name. The name he had been given at birth was no longer an option. A girl in his class had the same name. It was spelled differently, but it sounded the same. They were both Gail. And that would not do. So for several months, he tried out different options. The one that lasted the longest was “Spike.” Over the summer, the name thing seemed to be less of an issue, but when school began in the fall, I wondered what he would want to call himself. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. On the afternoon of the first day of fourth grade, I got a phone call from my son’s teacher.

It seems she had distributed index cards to each of her students at the beginning of the day, and had asked them to write across the top of the card their full names, as those names appeared in her official records. Then she said, “Underneath your full name, write the name you want me to call you. For example, if your name is Robert but you want me to call you Bobby, write it down so I’ll know.” My son had written “Gail Young II” across the top, and underneath that, he’d written, “Kevin.” The teacher wanted to know where this name had come from. I had to think a minute. It did sound familiar. Then it struck me. Kevin is Bruce’s middle name. My son, Gail, had decided to name himself after his step-dad, Bruce. That name has stuck, more or less, for more than 25 years.

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare’s Romeo once asked Juliet. While a rose by any other name might smell as sweet, in the Bible, a name has great significance. A name carries with it the essence of a person’s character. Your name defines what kind of person you are. But what happens when your name changes? As we move from the shock of Easter morning into the beginning of the Christian era, we find a group of Jesus’ followers who struggle to define their identity. Like my son, who had to try on several names before he found one that fit the way he saw himself and wanted others to see him, these early followers of Jesus didn’t know quite what to call themselves. Continue reading →

Resurrection Hope – Sermon on Luke 24:1-12 EasterC

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March 27 2016

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened. – Luke 24:1-12

You’ve heard this story before, right? It has either changed your life, or you have let it wash over you every year without having any measurable effect on you. It’s an all or nothing story. Either it makes no difference to you at all, or it makes all the difference in the world to you. Why is that? Why do some of us listen to this story year after year, but never see why it matters?

My guess is that some of us aren’t very different from those first disciples who heard the news from the women – this message doesn’t make any logical sense, and so we dismiss it as an “idle tale.” Or maybe we accept the story as fact, but it happened so long ago, we can’t imagine how it matters to us now, in our current situation. You might believe it, but it hasn’t changed the way you act or think. Your life has not yet been transformed by the story of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

I could give you a verse-by-verse explanation of the important details Luke puts into his version of the resurrection story, and we could compare and contrast Luke’s version to the other gospels. I might even be able to share some bit of knowledge from biblical scholars with you that you didn’t know before, and if you could remember it past coffee time, you could discuss it with others over Easter dinner. But it would not change your life. And Jesus died and rose again to change your life. Continue reading →

Hope Aflame: Even the Rocks – Sermon on Luke 19:39-48

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Palm Sunday, March 20, 2016

Watch a video of this sermon here.

At the beginning of the service, we heard Luke’s account of the Palm Sunday parade. Only Luke doesn’t mention palms, and he doesn’t tell us that the crowds were crying out ‘Hosanna!’ either. Instead, Luke tells us that the “whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

The crowds are shouting the same refrain the angels sang at Jesus’ birth: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors” (Luke 2:14). Just as the angels announced the birth of Jesus, now the disciples announce the coming of Messiah into his kingdom. But, even though they claim to know that Jesus is the Messiah, they still don’t quite understand what that really means.

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it,  saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written,

‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.”

 Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard. – Luke 19:39-48

 

Last January, I walked with our tour group down the pathway from the Mount of Olives, following Palm Way in a pilgrims’ procession. We had started out early in the morning, and even though most of the trip had been cold and rainy, this day was filled with sunshine. Continue reading →