Sermon for Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

February 19, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Matthew 5:38-48

Sermon Theme:  “Does God Really Expect Us to Be Perfect?”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle A Lectionary Preaching Workbook; Brokhoff, Series A, Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; “You Might Be a Perfectionist, FlyLady.net; Cowboy Classified.com; footnotes, Concordia Self-Study Bible; footnotes, Life Application Study Bible)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

My father was a perfectionist.  The rest of us in the family were not.  My father could never understand us, nor his peers, who weren’t.  He was the only railroad section foreman in his Division of Sections who had a 45-year perfect record of accident-free maintenance:  No derailments.  No train wrecks. No bridge washouts.  No buckled tracks.  Obviously, he was the most sought-after section foreman in Texas.

Those of you ladies who are fans of the Fly Lady and read FlyLady.Net know that she often speaks about the pitfalls of perfectionism.  In one of her columns she did a Jeff Foxsworthy spoof on perfectionism.  Here’s what she wrote:

“You might be a perfectionist if you spend hours cleaning the grout between the tile with a toothbrush when there is a sink full of dishes.

“You might be a perfectionist if you put the children’s toys away while they are still playing with them because it looks too messy.

“You might be a perfectionist if you go to replace a light bulb and end up tearing the whole light fixture apart cleaning it.

“You might be a perfectionist if you don’t have eight hours to clean your house, so you do nothing.”

Whether a section foreman or a housewife, a perfectionist can be difficult to live with if you aren’t one.  Some people believe we must all continue to strive for perfection; others believe it is absolutely impossible to be perfect.  Last week, I saw this Quote of the Day on Facebook:  “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”  That’s not what Jesus said, is it?

So just about the time we settle into thinking it’s OK to be fallible, to be less than perfect, we are faced with the last statement made by Jesus in our sermon text:  “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  No kidding?  Does Jesus really mean that?

Well, look what our Lord says near the beginning of our text.  “Do not resist the one who is evil.  But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”  Wow!  He’s kidding?

But Jesus goes on.  He also says, “And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”  Another “Wow!”  Then He gives us that extra mile command:  “And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”  Then He says we’re to give to beggars and to lend to borrowers, and then He caps it off with, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  Continue reading →

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 12, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Sermon Theme:  “Choices in Life, — Baptism Is One of Them”

(Sources:  Brokhoff, Series A, Preaching Workbook; Anderson’s Cycle A Lectionary Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Luther’s Small Catechism and Explanation; original ideas; The Gospel According to Peanuts)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

           As a child, the story of “Alice in Wonderland” frightened me; as an adult the Peanuts’ Comic strip brightened me.  Each in its own way had some very profound ideas to offer up, so I want to begin today by using both of them.

The story of “Alice in Wonderland” illustrates the difficulty of choosing when a person doesn’t know where she wants to go.  One day, Alice was treading the path through the forest in Wonderland when it divided in two different directions.  As she stood there wondering what to do, the Cheshire Cat suddenly appeared in the crotch of a tree.  Alice asked him which path she should choose.

“Where do you want to go?”  asked the cat.

“I don’t know,” said Alice.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter does it?”

In a Peanuts comic strip, Linus, dragging his blanket behind him, is walking fast away from something, with Charlie Brown following on his heels.  Charlie says to Linus as the strip begins, “What if everyone was like you?”

Linus stops.  Charlie Brown continues, “What if we all ran away from our problems?  Huh?  What then?  What if everyone in the whole world suddenly decided to run away from his problems?”

Linus turns and looks at Charlie and replies, “Well, at least we’d all be running in the same direction.”

Alice doesn’t know which choice to make, and Linus is running away from choices or decisions.  There’s a third response to life, and that’s to make a bad choice.

The setting for today’s sermon text from Deuteronomy is the land of Moab.  Moses addresses the Israelites as they are about to cross over the Jordan and enter the land of promise.  He confronts them with a crucial choice which they must make that day.  The choice is life, which flows from obedience to the Lord, or death which follows disobedience.  They were about to enter the Promised Land, a land where the inhabitants served pagan gods and lived lives of sexual license,  deceit and immoral behavior. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

February 5, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon Theme:  “Salt, Light, and the Kingdom of Heaven”

 (Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle A Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; “Paradiso,” Wikipedia; Online “Defining the Parables of Jesus – Defining the Kingdom of Heaven”; Christian Doctrine by Edward W. A. Koehler; “The Kingdom of Heaven, Bible.org; original ideas; What Luther Says, an Anthology published by CPH)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

           Rev. Bill Mosley tells about the time he fell asleep after reading our sermon text for today and had a disturbing dream.

In the dream, Pastor Bill and some friends were getting into heaven together.  Saint Peter told them they were to wait at the gate for transportation.  Each of them would be getting around in Heaven in a style appropriate to the service they rendered on earth.

Soon a white airplane landed.  The back door opened and Bill could see a spacious interior with a flight staff and a well-equipped kitchen.  He was thinking it was for him, when Saint Peter called out, to his disappointment, “Kenneth.”

Just then a big silver RV arrived.  It was self-contained with air conditioning, kitchen with microwave oven, and bathroom with all the extras.  “I could really go places in this,” Pastor Bill thought; but Saint Peter called out, “John.”  Bill tried not to let his disappointment show.

Suddenly, a golden pickup truck pulled up.  Bill drooled over the front-wheel drive and he wondered where a person could go off-roading in Heaven.  Just as he was about to ask St. Peter if it had a CD player, the revered Saint called out, “Marvin.”  It was becoming obvious to Bill that the modes of transportation were getting smaller, so he was hoping for at least one of those 10-speed bicycles for himself, handmade custom frame with a cushioned seat and puncture-proof tires and balanced wheels.

Right then, Saint Peter handed him a pair of roller skates.  Then he looked in his book again, shook his head absentmindedly, and took one of the skates back.  Pastor Mosley was glad to wake up from his dream.

In our sermon text for today, Jesus begins by telling about those things He expects a true follower of His to be:  the salt of the earth, and the light of the world.  He then tells the disciples and us that He has not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.  He concludes by saying, “Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of thee commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called LEAST in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called GREAT in the kingdom of heaven. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

January 29, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon Theme:  “How Blessed Are Your Attitudes?”

(Sources: Anderson’s Cycle A Preaching Workbook; Brokhoff, Series A, Preaching Workbook; original ideas; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Emphasis Online Commentary; Online Jokes about Humility and Meekness; The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible; footnotes, The Life Application Study Bible)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Beatitudes are not prescriptions for how to live a Godly life.  They are descriptions of how a Godly life should look, and rather radical descriptions at that.  A Godly life is humble and meek, merciful, pure, peace-making.  The main characteristic defining the “blessed attitudes,” as they are sometimes called, is humility.  The opposite of humility is pride, which the Bible judges to be the root of all sin.

The wrong kind of pride and a lack of humility seem to be natural human weaknesses, and are even found in the church, even among Christians with credentials.  Sometimes it takes the innocence of a child to put us all in our place.

There’s a story about a pastor who was never seen without his clerical collar, something he wore with the good kind of pride, but also with maybe a little bit of the bad kind of pride.  No one had ever seen this pastor without his collar, so they jokingly wondered if he even slept with it on.

After church, a child who came from an un-churched family and had never seen a pastor’s garb before, asked the Reverend, “Do you have a bo-bo?”

At first the pastor was a little taken aback, and then he realized the boy was looking intently at his white and black Roman collar.  So he pulled out the white plastic insert and showed it to the child, telling him that it was also part of a clergyman’s outfit.

On the backside of every plastic insert are embossed the words, “Wash with warm, soapy water.”  The pastor showed this to the little boy, and, knowing the kid was too young to read, asked him, “Do you know what these words say?”

The boy startled the pastor by saying, “I sure do!”

“You do?  Then tell me what they say,” said the Right Reverend Clergyman.

“It says, ‘kills fleas and ticks for up to six months.’”  Everybody laughed.

The Beatitudes in our sermon text are addressed to people we think we don’t want to be.  We don’t want to be meek or poor in spirit.  And, if being merciful means forgiving our enemies, we certainly want to think twice about that one.  To be pure in heart means we would have to give up all of our impurities, and most of us cling to them.  It’s the same for being a peacemaker; more often than not, we want to carry the grudge.  We certainly don’t want to be persecuted or reviled.  Continue reading →

Sermon for Third Sunday after the Epiphany

January 22, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Sermon Theme:  “God’s House Divided Cannot Stand”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 27, Part 1, Jan. 22, 2017, Series A; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Brokhoff, Series A, Lectionary Preaching Workbook; original ideas; “Donald Trump Versus Hilary,” National Review; Online Trump/Clinton Polls; “Lincoln’s House Divided Speech,” Wikipedia)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s rather ironic that two days after the Inauguration of our new U. S. President, the Lectionary for today includes Paul’s admonition about divisions in the church.  Paul’s admonition for the Church reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s famous “House Divided Speech,” when Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.  I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.”

President Trump was elected after a very bitter election battle between two candidates who were both unpopular.  There were many polls leading up to the election showing how divided our nation was.  One poll showed that 56 percent of Americans did not think Donald Trump was qualified to be President, and another poll indicated that 56 percent did not believe Hilary Clinton would make a good President.  Well, polls are polls.

Some movie stars and other celebrities said they would move to Canada if Trump were elected.  Sixty-nine congressmen did not attend the Inauguration held Friday, though all former Presidents except the senior Bush, did attend, and he and Barbara didn’t because they were in the hospital.  Bikers from all over the country showed up to “protect” Trump.  Recognizing the division in our country, President Trump said in his inauguration speech, “When America is united, America will be unstoppable.”

God’s Word does not speak directly to a nation divided, but it does speak directly and explicitly to a church divided.

There are two stories told about very serious divisions in the church, both so extreme, it’s hard to believe the claims that the stories are true. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

January 15, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  John 1:29-42a

Sermon Theme:  “Evangelists for the Lamb of God”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle A Lectionary Preaching Workbook; Brokhoff, Series A, Preaching Workbook; original ideas; Online Evangelism Jokes; “Lamb of God,” Wikipedia; “Paschal Lamb,” Britannica; “Sacrifices and Offerings,” jewfaq.org; “The Five Offerings,” telus.net; Emphasis online Commentary; Emphasis online Illustrations; Harper’s Bible Dictionary)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Since we are all called to be evangelists, many church members and some pastors go overboard in an attempt to obey this call.  Some pastors take the local telephone directory, divide it up, and give each member of the church several dozen names to call to try to get them to come to church.  Other pastors send the whole congregation out knocking on neighborhood doors.  That is not the Biblical method of evangelism, and it can backfire.

There’s the story about two church members going door to door, hoping to talk someone into following Jesus.  They knocked on the door of an un-churched woman who could not stand evangelists trying to convert her, whether they were Jehovah Witnesses or Lutherans.

She told these two men that she did not want to hear their message and slammed the door in their faces.

To her surprise, however, the door did not close, and, in fact, bounced back open.  Convinced these pushy evangelists were sticking their foot in the door, she reared back to give it a slam that would teach them a lesson, when one of them said, “Ma’am, before you do that again, you need to move your cat.”

Some pastors prefer going door to door themselves rather than sending church members out to evangelize.  There was one such zealous pastor of a small village church in Kentucky.  He tried for years to convert one particularly vicious old mountaineer name Jim, who was notorious for his godlessness and his hatred of the church.  Jim was hard-headed and stubborn, and seemed to enjoy his evil attitude and resisted all efforts to be converted. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord

January 8, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Romans 6:1-11

Sermon Theme:  “So Why Is Baptism Such a Big Deal?”

(Sources: Luther’s Large Catechism; Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation; Emphasis Online Commentary; Footnotes, Life Application Study Bible; Footnotes, Concordia Self-Study Bible; Beverly Beyer, Online “Which Religions Practice Baptism, Which Do Not?”; Online Baptism Jokes; Online “What Does It Mean to Be in Christ?”; “Baptism into Jesus Christ and into His Death,” online logoapostolic. Org; Online “The Reformers Defense of Infant Baptism”)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Once, when an adult man asked to be baptized, the pastor wanted him to understand how important the Sacrament was, so he called the gentleman into his office and said solemnly, “Baptism is a serious step.  Are you prepared for it?”

“I think so,” the man replied, “my wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests.”

“I don’t mean that,” the pastor responded.  “I mean, are you prepared spiritually?”

“Oh, sure,” came the reply, “I’ve got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey.”

Although most Christians regard Baptism as a Sacred act, and take it very seriously, there is a tendency to be light-hearted about it, in the same way we joke about weddings, — perhaps because its preponderance overwhelms us.  In teaching Junior Confirmation, we pastors always begin the unit on Baptism by stressing how important it is to us.  And most of the time, the kids respond with a question like, “So why is Baptism such a big deal?”  And that’s a good question, because it’s what our sermon text is all about. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, New Year’s Day,

January 1, 2017, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 2:21

Sermon Theme:  “The Church Year Continues as the Secular Year Begins, and

We Have Jesus’ Name on Us”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 27, Part 1, Series A; Life Application Study Bible footnotes; Concordia Self-Study Bible footnotes; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; the Westminster Dictionary of the Bible; Online Peanuts Cartoon Strips; Jesuswalk.com/lukes gospel; original ideas; The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware); my Images Column for December 29; my sermon for December 18, 2016).

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you get old, a year seems to go by in an eye blink.  Last year seems like last week.  Today is the first day of the secular New Year, yet the old year still seems new to me.

During his lifetime, Charles M. Schulz, through his Peanuts comic strip, left a legacy of New Year’s commentaries.  Through the mouths of the characters in his strip, he left us with much to think about.

While Lucy van Pelt was always cynical, Charlie Brown and Linus had a little better outlook on the New Year.  One year, Lucy and Charlie meet on the sidewalk on New Year’s morning, and they gaze at the snow-covered landscape.  Lucy says, “See?  What did I tell you?”  Charlie, looking at her perplexed, says, “What?”  She answers with disgust, “This year is no better than the last one!”

In another strip, Charlie Brown says to the world, “Life is like an ice cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time.”  And in still another, Charlie says to the younger, impressionable Linus, “YEARS are like candy bars . . . we’re paying more, but they’re getting shorter.”  Without a spiritual life, I suppose people do tend to measure their days on earth in ice cream cones, or, as with the case of J. Alfred Prufrock, in coffee spoons.

In day to day living, most of us reckon time by the secular calendar, even though as Lutherans, we worship according to the ecclesiastical or church calendar.  The New Year, according to the Church calendar begins with Advent, — this year it began on November 27.  So, today, while it is the secular New Year, we celebrate the Circumcision and Name of Jesus according to the Church calendar.

Other religious communities also have a religious calendar as well as a secular calendar.  For the Jewish community, the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, begins in September or October.  The Muslim New Year, Muharram, begins in September.  The Chinese New Year, in the past, religious, now secular, begins on the new moon, between January 21 and February 20, this year falling on January 28.

The ecclesiastical calendar reminds us that life is more than just eating candy bars and drinking coffee.  This day matters, not because it starts the new,  secular year, but because God gives His blessings to us through, and only through, Jesus’ name.

On this day, one week after Christmas, or, by Hebrew counting, eight days after Jesus’ birth, the baby Jesus was circumcised, as all good Jewish boys were.  On that occasion, He was also given His name, also according to custom.

You know, I don’t like to be confused about anything, and when I was growing up, listening to the pastor preach every Sunday, I was confused about these things happening to Jesus in the Temple.  It was confusing enough because our pastor sometimes preached in German, but also because I didn’t know whether Baby Jesus was brought to the Temple once, and all these things were done at the same time, or whether His parents took Him multiple times.

In later years, I was able to straighten that up in my head.  Just in case you have experienced some of the same confusion as I did, let me lay this Temple stuff out for you.

Jewish Law required that a number of ceremonies in the Temple had to be observed not long after the birth of a baby.  When I discovered there were four ceremonies rather than all in one, as I had thought as a child, the confusion was cleared up.  Jewish families went to the Temple for these four rituals:  ONE, the Circumcision and Naming of a male child; TWO, the Redemption of the First Born; THREE, the Purification of the Mother; and FOUR, the Consecration  of the child to God. Continue reading →

Sermon for Christmas Day, December 25, 2016

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 2:1-20

Sermon Theme:  “The Gifts We Unwrap Today”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 24, Part 1, Series A; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 27, Part 1, Series A; Online jokes about Christmas gifts; original ideas and examples; Online sermon shelbyvillechurchofchrist, The Greatest Gift)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last year, because my wife and I have difficulty getting up and down a ladder, a friend of ours put up hooks for our Christmas stockings.  Because she loves our cat Gatsby so much, she included a hook for a burlap stocking she found in the tool shed that she thought was perfect for Gatsby.  So this year, our cat has a stocking hanging this morning for gifts from Santa.

I just read something written by television host and comedian, Jimmy Kimmel.  He said that every year Americans spend millions of dollars on Christmas gifts for their pets, which makes no sense to him.  Your pet doesn’t know it’s Christmas.  In fact, your pet doesn’t even know he is a pet, so giving your cat a sweater is about as useful as giving your microwave a hat.  I think he’s got a point there.  Gatsby hasn’t even noticed he has a stocking.

But the rest of us know that we have a stocking, and we know how many gifts we bought this Christmas, and we wonder whether the recipients will like them or not.  One of my greatest anxieties at Christmas is what if my wife or my daughters or my granddaughters don’t like the gifts I got them.  They might not say anything, but you can see on their faces and in their eyes that they didn’t like what you gave them and were disappointed.  But is that what Christmas is really all about?  If so, then it’s a miserable festival.

It is about gift-giving, however, but not the kinds of gifts that make people greedy and avaricious.

I want to talk about two gifts this morning.  One is MY gift to you.  And the other is GOD’S gift to all of us. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

December 18, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon Theme:  “What the Angel Told Joseph in His Dream”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 17, Part 1, 11-27-16-2-26-17, Series A; Anderson’s Cycle A Preaching Workbook; original ideas and examples; Online Jokes about Dreams; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Harper’s Bible Dictionary)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

A daughter tells the story about her parents who were asleep in bed one night, when her dad woke up everyone in the house with a loud, exuberant shout of “HELLO,” obviously to someone in his dream.  His booming “hello” scared his wife half to death so that she almost fell out of bed.

So, the next night, as the family was getting ready for bed, the Mama said to the Daddy, “Honey, if you see somebody you know tonight, just wave, — OK?”

Psychologists have written books about the meaning and significance of dreams.  Both the Old Testament and the New Testament make it clear that dreams are very important, — such as Pilate’s wife having a disturbing dream about the innocence of Jesus, the Wise Men being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and, in today’s sermon text, an angel speaking to Joseph in a dream about Mary’s pregnancy.

While some dreams are funny, this is the most serious dream in the history of humanity, because it’s about the miraculous birth of the Savior of the world.  Joseph is a good man, humble and lowly, not rich, and God chooses him to be the foster father of God’s only begotten Son.  Because we see little and hear nothing of Joseph in the New Testament, I chose to focus on him for this past Wednesday night’s Advent Service.

As I said Wednesday night, Joseph was a very devout Jew who observed Hebrew laws and traditions, he was kindly and chivalrous, he was a loving and faithful husband, a good father, and he was hard-working and dependable.  No doubt those are reasons God chose him for the role he played in God’s plan for Salvation.

In this miraculous dream, the Angel of the Lord says to Joseph, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”  Joseph has been going through some soul searching doubt when this message from the Angel comes in a dream.  The woman he is engaged to is found to be with child, and Joseph was thinking of divorcing her quietly.  Joseph stands at a major crossroad in his life. Continue reading →