Sermon Audio, 2/24/2013

Second Sunday of Lent, Lectionary Year C

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

I'll finish this month's preaching the way I began it, by talking about how God is responsible for God's work. This story of God's covenant with Abram/Abraham is one of my favorite in all Scripture. God walks between the animals, in one of the most surprising and grace-filled stories around.

Sermon Audio, 2/17/2013

First Sunday of Lent, Lectionary Year C

Luke 4:1-13

In the wilderness, Jesus went through what we go through. What does our wilderness time look like?
A bit of the devil as Harry Potter's Lord Voldemort, plus this sermon contains a bonus rant against my current #1 pet peeve, the cliched "You come into this world alone, and you go out of this world alone." I can barely begin to tell you how much I think that phrase is a harmful lie. I must've been cranky that day.

Sermon Audio, 2/13/2013

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Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Ash Wednesday doesn't really make sense. We mark our foreheads with ashes, a public sign of repentance, and then we hear Jesus' words in Matthew telling us, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.” What are we doing?

Sermon Audio 2/10/2013

Luke 9:28-36

Transfiguration, Lectionary Year C

In Luke's Gospel, Jesus was praying when he was transfigured. Can prayer transfigure us as well?

Sermon Audio 2/3/2013

Jeremiah 1.4-10

4th Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary Year C

God is responsible for God's work. This sermon revolves around two stories I heard from my brilliant wonderful wife, and I believe she told the same two stories in her own sermon on this Sunday. I had also used one of these stories in my February Newsletter article. Lutheran Church of the Savior also held our Annual Congregational Meeting on this day, and I wanted to frame our work together in the larger context of God's work.

Lent and Holy Week 2013

Lent and Holy Week 2013

Our journey with Jesus to the cross and through the resurrection begins this year on Transfiguration Sunday, February 10^th. That morning we will “bury the alleluia.” Alleluia is the word the church uses to best express our celebration and joy we feel at the rising of our savior. That morning our Sunday School kids will create an alleluia banner, and during our children’s sermon we will “bury” it, keeping the alleluia in a box on display as a reminder of our buried hope until Easter morning, when we will open the box and again rejoice in shouting our alleluias to the heavens. This ritualized loss of an important word becomes part of our communal Lenten discipline. After worship we will also burn palms this morning to make ashes for Ash Wednesday, so bring in last year’s palms if you have them. Did you know that Pastor Andrew has used last year’s palms as office decoration ever since last Palm Sunday? 

Next comes Ash Wednesday, when we will supplement our usual 7pm Ash Wednesday worship at LCS by joining with our friends from Sunnyside UMC to offer Ash Wednesday worship all day long in various locations around Kalamazoo. Stay tuned for details of times and locations, but the idea is to bring worship to the people where you live and work and spend your day, and to be a public witness to the power of God’s love in our lives. 

February 2013 Newsletter Article

 Lutheran Church of the Savior Newsletter article for February 2013

Let water be the sacred sign

that we must die each day

to rise again by his design

as foll’wers of his way.

Renewing Spirit, hear our praise

for your baptismal pow’r

that washes us through all our days.

Come, cleanse again this hour.

-          Thomas E. Herbranson “This Is the Spirit’s Entry Now,” ELW 448

Recently, my wife had one of those God-is-working-here-right-now experiences that are the stuff of every pastor’s dreams. A faithful, long-time parishioner questioned her after a sermon, “Am I to understand, Pastor Sarah, that it is God, rather than the person baptized, who does the work in baptism?”