Sermon for Pentecost 11

A sermon preached at Trinity-Mount Rainier on the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (LSB Proper 16C), August 25, 2019.

Why A Narrow Door?
Luke 13:22-30
(Other Readings Appointed: Isaiah 66:18-23; Hebrews 12:4-24)

Those who remember their days in high school or college literature classes may also remember that at some point you may have had to read through Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, with its refrain of “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”. Given the current political climate and conversation, there is much that can be said about why walls aren’t loved or even thought of as being good things, let alone as a character in Frost’s poem declares, “Good fences make good neighbors.” But, all that aside, Frost’s poem does pose a good question, Is there a good reason for walls?

Although there are no walls mentioned in today’s Gospel, there is a door, and a narrow one at that. Both doors and walls really accomplish the same thing—they have the ability to keep people out. And why this seems strange to us is that Jesus’ words in this Gospel are all about God’s kingdom and who will be in it. What is Jesus trying to say and what do we need to learn about what gives access to God’s kingdom?

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Sermon for Pentecost 10

A sermon preached at Trinity-Mount Rainier on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (LSB Proper 15C), August 18, 2019.

A Strange Peace
Luke 12:49-53
(Other Readings Appointed: Jeremiah 23:16-29; Hebrews 11:17-31; 12:1-3)

Once again, Jesus’ words in the Gospel make us wonder, “Where’s the Gospel here? Because I’m not hearing much that can be called ‘good news’.” And we are right to wonder. Here the One we know and love and follow called “the Prince of Peace” is speaking things which sound anything but peaceful: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! … Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” It just doesn’t sound like something that we think Jesus would say. And yet, here it is, right in the Gospel, coming from the lips of Jesus as recorded by Luke’s pen.

Although these words sound strange to us, we now have to wrestle with them so that we understand what our Lord Jesus wishes us to learn from them. To be sure, they are not comforting or comfortable words. They are quite challenging, jarring to our way of thinking, and quite shaking of the way that we think things ought to be. To say the least, these words spoken by our Prince of Peace present to us a rather strange kind of peace, chiefly because we are hard pressed to find any real sense of peace in them.

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Sermon for Pentecost 9

A sermon preached at Trinity-Mount Rainier on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (LSB Proper 14C), August 11, 2019.

You Can Have It All!
Luke 12:22-34
(Other Readings Appointed: Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-16)

It is sometimes a difficult thing for a Pastor to return to the pulpit after vacation—not because he doesn’t want to be there or it’s hard to “get back into the groove” of preaching Sunday after Sunday—but because he has no idea what his congregation has heard while he was gone. And this is especially true when, as I prepared for preaching today, I noticed that today’s Gospel builds upon the words of Jesus that were heard in the two weeks when I was away. So, let’s summarize what we have perhaps already heard.

Two Sundays ago, in Jesus’ teaching of the Lord’s Prayer and His Parable of the Persistent Friend, we were reminded of God’s promise to provide us, His dearly loved children, with the gift of what we need through the daily bread which He gives to us to support our body and life. Last Sunday, Jesus’ teaching through the Parable of the Rich Fool warned us against being solely rich in things so that we might not lose being rich in God. And now today’s Gospel brings these two themes together, helping us to put them into practice in our life and living.

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