Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas, May 8, 2016

Sermon Text:  John 17:20-26

Sermon Theme:  “The Family of God:  The Model for Human Family Oneness”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Illustrations; Emphasis Online Examples; original ideas and examples; Anderson, Cycle C, Preaching Workbook)

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

Of all the special observances, Mother’s Day, no doubt, is the most sentimental and emotional of them all!  Even grown kids, who gave their Moms a rough time when they were young, and now neglect her most of the year, get teary-eyed and mushy on Mother’s Day.

Although my own mother was not a sweet, sugary type, she was a great Mom who lived by horse sense and hard work.

When my twin brother and I were young adults, with jobs and living away from home, but not yet married, we always came home for Mother’s Day.  Our mother would prepare a huge feast of all our favorite foods, after which, my father, my brother, and I would adjourn to the living room to watch television (by then they had TV).

I remember one Mother’s Day after a sumptuous dinner of our favorite dishes, my brother said to her, “Mom, you shouldn’t have to do the dishes on your special day.”

Thinking the men were going to do the dishes, she put down her dish cloth.

“Just come in the living room with us,” my brother continued, “you can always do the dishes tomorrow.”

A couple years after that, my brother got married, and he tried it with his wife.  It was the first and last time!  From that time forth, he became a committed dishwasher.

It’s amazing how our sermon text from John’s gospel works for Mother’s Day, even though such was probably not the intent of the lectionary makers.  Although my brother and I were never as considerate of our mother as we should have been, our family was very unified.  This family oneness included the extended family of my grandparents, aunts, and uncles, all of whom lived near us and worshipped at the same church we did.  As a child it made me feel very secure.

Sadly, there are far too many families that lack this oneness, and where there should be oneness there is division, frustration and unhappiness.  On this Mother’s Day, we are reminded that the model for individual human family oneness is the Family of God.  Let’s look at the model by looking at our sermon text. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Easter

May 1, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Acts 16:9-15

Sermon Theme:  “Are We as Startling as the Early Church?”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Illustrations; Emphasis online Commentary; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; original ideas; Westminster Bible Dictionary; Online Business Jokes; Believer’s Commentary; “Introduction to Acts,” Concordia Self-Study Bible; Online; Online, “The Power of Women;” Personal Background in History of Costume Design)

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

Written by Luke, the Book of Acts is a sequel to the third gospel by Luke.  It begins soon after the crucifixion, and covers the spreading of God’s Gospel that Jesus died for the salvation of mankind, from Jerusalem through the eastern Mediterranean lands to the Capital of the Roman Empire, and from a small Christian-Jewish community to an extended church of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.  Today’s sermon text is taken from the 16^th Chapter of Acts.

What is this new group of believers and followers of Jesus, originally known as “The Way,” going to become?  There is much in this short sermon text that lies beneath the surface and needs to be explored carefully, and the answer to the question lies partly there. When Jesus was still living on earth, the inner circle of twelve was made up of all men; it was an “organization” to the extent that Judas was its treasurer and Peter its leader and spokesman.

In Acts, Paul joins Peter as a leader and spokesman, and Luke, the well-educated doctor, records it all in two books.  Are they going to become a group of ascetic monks, hiding themselves away from active life like the Essenes, whom we believe were all men?

The inner circle of a big business tends to group itself together as a little organization, or team, within an organization, and supposedly work together like cogs on a wheel.

There was one such team of business men and women wherein one of them was going to have to have a brain transplant.  So they all went together to the hospital and met with the brain surgeon.

One of the colleagues asked, “What will the cost of a new brain be?”

The doctor replied, “A female brain costs $20,000 and a male brain cost $40,000.”  The men in the group looked at each other and smirked.

But one of the females asked, “Why is that, doctor?”

“Well,” the doctor replied, “the female brain costs less because it has been used.”

We live in an era in which it is quite common for women not only to work along side men in the business world but also serve as CEO’s.  We even have a woman running for President of the United States and another for Vice-President.  Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 17, 2016, East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas

Sermon Text:  John 10:22-30

Sermon Theme:  “The Good Shepherd Gives Us Our Spiritual Security”

(Sources:  Anderson, Cycle C. Preaching Workbook; Online skywriting.net/humor, good shepherd; online good shepherd.skipheitzig.com; original ideas and personal examples; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 26, Part 2, Series C; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Believer’s Commentary)

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

The story is told about a recent seminary graduate who was very proud of his new status as pastor of a big church.  He was giving a kids’ sermonette one day, during which he explained that “pastor” meant “shepherd.”

He also told the children about sheep, pointing out that sheep were not very smart and needed lots of guidance.  He explained that the shepherd’s job was to stay close to the sheep, protect them from wild animals, such as wolves, and keep them from wandering off and doing dumb things that would get them hurt or killed.

So he pointed to the grownups in the church, saying they were the sheep, and then he pointed to the children, saying they were the little lambs and needed lots of supervision and direction.

Then he held out his arms in a gesture of helping someone and asked the children, “If you are the lambs, then who is the shepherd,” obviously indicating himself as the answer.

After a few seconds of silence, a bright little boy spoke out, “Jesus, — Jesus is the shepherd.”

The young pastor, obviously caught by surprise, said to the boy, “Well, then, who am I?”

The little boy frowned thoughtfully and then said with a shrug, “I guess you must be the sheep dog!”

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, and pastors are the under-shepherds.  Jesus saw the people as the sheep in need of a shepherd. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter

April 10, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  John 21:1-14

Sermon Theme:  “So What Does This Fishing Story Mean?”

(Sources:  Anderson’s, Cycle C, Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; Online Christian Jokes; Online, “What does IXOYE mean?” by Matt Slick)

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

On a beautiful spring morning, I am sure many of you have been tempted to skip church and go fishing, whether succumbing to the temptation or not.

One such beautiful spring morning, ten year old Jody arrived at Sunday School late.  Miss Walker, his teacher, knew that Jody was usually very punctual, so she asked him if anything was wrong.

“No,” he replied, “I was planning to go fishing this morning, but my dad told me that I needed to go to church.”

Miss Walker was very impressed, and asked the boy if his dad had explained to him why it was more important to go to church than go fishing.

“Yes,” Jody replied, “he did.  Dad said that he didn’t have enough bait for both of us.”

In the case of the disciples in our sermon text from John’s gospel, seven of them, — Simon, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John, and two others – weren’t skipping church to fish, and fishing wasn’t their recreation, it was their career prior to following Jesus.  It seems to me that the equivalent of missing church, for them, was going back to their old fishing business rather than continue preaching, teaching, and healing as they had when Jesus was with them.  No doubt, it was both a way of giving up (we can’t carry on without the Master) and a way of releasing some of their fear, tension, and bewilderment, and a human way to normalize their lives.  What comfort they were to each other! Continue reading →

Sermon for Second Sunday of Easter

April 3, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Acts 5:12-20

Sermon Theme:  “The Sunday Following Easter: Feeling Upbeat or the Blues?”

 (Sources: Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; “What Do You Do the Day after Easter,” beliefnet.com, “Christian Persecution,” huffingtonpost.com; “Persecution Worldwide,” prisoneralert.com; “Christian Persecution Quick Facts,” erlc.com; “Holy Humor Sunday, joyfulnewsletter.com; original ideas; Online Christian Jokes)

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

           It has been said many times by many pastors that on the Sunday following Easter, churches experience the lowest attendance of the Church Year.  Because of what they call “C & E Christians,” that is, Christmas-and-Easter Christians, churches are overflowing on Christmas and Easter, but almost empty on the Sunday after.

Yet, if Easter is real, and the Resurrection is a true fact, church activity should increase rather than decrease, shouldn’t it?

One pastor was very concerned that since there were so many C&E’s in his church, the work of the Lord was not getting done.  So one Easter Sunday, he made a special effort to pull aside each C&E as they shook hands with him, and talk to them about it.

He grabbed the first C&E, a well-educated young man, aside and said to him, “Cal, you need to join the Army of the Lord!”

Cal replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.”

‘How come then,” the pastor asked, “I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?”

Cal whispered back, “I’m in the Secret Service.”

The pastor knew Cal would not show up the Sunday after Easter, nor the Sundays after that.  So to cure this C&E syndrome, HOW should a church celebrate the Sunday following Easter?  With a good laugh!, — or, better yet, with a party, a fun party, some pastors believe.  Far from being a strange, new idea, this is actually a long-standing tradition rooted in good Christian theology. Continue reading →

Sermon for Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 24:1-12

Sermon Theme:  “A Truth Great Enough to Split Your Head Open”

(Sources:  Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentary; original ideas; Christian Easter Jokes; Online about “John Chrysostom”; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 22, Part 2, Series B)

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

One Easter, a priest and a taxi driver both died and went to heaven.  St. Peter was at the Pearly gates waiting for them.

“Come with me,” said St. Peter to the taxi driver.

The taxi driver did as he was told and followed St. Peter to a palatial mansion.  It had everything you could imagine, from a bowling alley to an Olympic size swimming pool.

“Oh, my word, thank you,” said the taxi driver.

Next, St. Peter led the priest to a rough old shack with a bunk bed and a little old television set.  “Wait, I think you are a little mixed up,” said the priest.  “Shouldn’t I be the one who gets the mansion?  After all, I was a priest, went to church every day, and preached God’s word.”

“Yes, that’s true,” St. Peter replied, “but during your Easter sermons people fell  asleep.  When the taxi driver drove, everybody prayed.”

I think all of us who are pastors fear that our Easter sermon will put the congregation to sleep.  When my daughter Rae Ann was a little girl, she loved to watch Mr. Rogers on TV.  One day Mr. Rogers taught the kids the meaning of the word “soporific,” which means “causing sleep.”  When he asked his TV audience to make a sentence with soporific, Rae Ann said out loud, “My pastor (this was before I became a pastor) — my pastor is soporific.”

It’s amazing how many pastors actually dread the task of writing an Easter sermon, and not just because we fear it might put the congregation to sleep.  For all of us, it’s probably the most difficult sermon of the year to write.  Why?  Because Easter is the most important day, the most important festival of the entire church year; Easter is everything!  Easter is what Christianity is all about, and human words cannot fully convey a reality that exhausts the power of human vocabulary, nor can the mind adequately grasp the divine mysteries of the Resurrection! Continue reading →

Sermon for Palm Sunday, March 20, 2016

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Texts:  John 12:12-19 and Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon Theme:  “Going Down to Go Up”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; original ideas; Online Short Christian Jokes and Funny Stories; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 26, Part 2, Series C; Online “Straight from the Donkey’s Mouth”; Halley’s Bible Handbook)

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

Palm Sunday is like celebrating the victory before it happens, and Easter Sunday is celebrating it after it happens.  In between the two, there lies the crucifixion, which lodges inside us today like tears ready to be poured out on Good Friday.

No doubt that’s why the Lectionary makers designate this Sunday as both “Palm Sunday” and “Passion Sunday,” and why some pastors read the Triumphal Entry Gospel text, others read the Gospel from the Passion History, and some read both.

It’s the same reason we began our service today by waving palm branches and singing loud Hosannas, and will close by singing “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.”  We realize there is no Resurrection without the Crucifixion.  Palm Sunday is a taste of victory before THE victory!

During his sermon on Palm Sunday, one pastor left the pulpit and walked down the aisle, waving two or three palm branches, trying to get the people excited about the triumphal entry.

To further stir up some zestful Palm Sunday enthusiasm, he asked folks in the pews to shout out things like, “Praise the Lord!,” “Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord,” Hallelujah, the Lord comes,” “Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.”

“Just shout it out loud!” he told the congregation.

Immediately, a small preschool child stood up and shouted, “I want to go home!”

That’s just the opposite of another kid on Palm Sunday.  Five year old Craig had to stay home from church on Palm Sunday because of a stomach virus.  His father stayed with him, but the rest of his family went to church.  When his mom and his brother and sister got home carrying palm fronds, he wanted to know what they were for.

“People held them over Jesus’ head as He walked by,” his mother explained.

“Wouldn’t you know it!!  The one Sunday I miss church, Jesus shows up!” Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

March 13, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Philippians 3:8-14

Sermon Theme:  “Nobody Is Perfect, So Leave Me Alone!”

 (Sources:  Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; original ideas; Online Funny Christian Jokes; www.goodreads.com)

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

           All theologians agree that no one is perfect except God.  However, there was one nine year old Sunday School student who did not agree with her teacher’s assurance to the class that God can do everything.

When the child shook her head, the teacher asked her, “OK, so tell me what can’t God do?”

“He can’t please everyone,” came the reply.

While it is true that no one is perfect, except God, and that we are saved by grace through faith alone, not by our own works, spiritual perfection must still be our goal.  It would be foolish to think, “Well, I’m saved by grace through faith alone, Jesus gives me His righteousness, so I can just do whatever I please, — sin big,  because forgiveness is easy!”  I hope no one thinks like that!

It is true, however, that many members of many congregations hold their pastor to a higher level of perfection than they hold themselves to.  Recently, a computerized survey taken among numerous congregations turned up some incredible expectations member have of their pastor.  When they put together all the things expected of the perfect pastor, these are the results they came up with:

The perfect pastor preaches exactly 12 minutes.  He frequently condemns sin, but never upsets anyone.  He works from 8 a.m. until midnight and is also janitor for the church.  He makes $60 a week, wears nice clothes, buys good books, drives a very nice car, and tithes half his income to the church.  He is 28 years old, but he has been preaching for 30 years.  He is wonderfully gentle, never stressed out, and always eager to take your advice.

He gives himself completely but never gets too close to anyone to avoid criticism.  He speaks boldly on social issues, but never becomes politically involved.  He is active in ministry to the teenagers, and spends all his time with senior citizens.  He makes 15 daily calls to parish families, visits shut-ins and the hospitalized regularly, spends all his time in evangelism to the unchurched, and is always in his office when needed.

Those were the results of an actual survey.  Like God, the pastor must be perfect.  Yeah, right! Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 6, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Sermon Theme:  “You Can Go Home Again”

(Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; “Money Jokes,” Reader’s Digest; “A Far Country,” thattheworldmayknow.com; Online map of Judah, Galilee, and the Decapolis)

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

Attitudes about spending money encompass all extremes.  There was a local charity in a fairly small community that was supported by just about everyone.  Everyone, that is, except the local Bank’s President.  So the Director of the Charity decided to give the Bank President a call one day.

“Our records show you make $500,000 a year, yet you haven’t given one penny to charity,” the charity director began.  “Wouldn’t you like to help the community?”

The banker replied, “Did your research show that my mother is ill, with extremely expensive medical bills?”

“Um, no,” mumbled the director.

“Or that my brother is blind and unemployed?  Or that my sister’s husband died, leaving her broke with four kids?”

“I . . . I . . . I had no idea,” stammered the director.

“So,” said the banker, “if I don’t give them any money, why would I give any to you?”

“It’s all about money, isn’t it,” a parishioner said to me one day.  I took it that she meant the church was all about money.

“No, it’s not,” I replied, “people are about money!”

I grew up in a Lutheran congregation of frugal, old-time German-Americans, many of whom were born in the Old Country.  Their non-German neighbors considered them the most frugal people they knew, — a pretty strong opinion considering that everyone had just come out of the Great Depression, a time when frugality was a necessity.

While the story of the Prodigal Son is a much-loved parable by most Christians, my childhood congregation did not like it for two reasons: one, because they thought the boy’s father was foolish and irresponsible to give away inheritance money before his death, and two, squandering money as the Prodigal son did was the worst of all sins.  It was right up there with murder.  You could forgive your son for a lot of things, but wasting money was not one of them.

Having said that, I would add, we have to approach the Parable of the Prodigal Son with caution and insight.

In searching through Bible Commentaries, it’s amazing how many different approaches to this text students of the Bible have taken:

It’s about forgiveness; it’s about unconditional love; it’s about greed; it’s about being able to go home again; it’s really about the older brother who was Pharisaic; it’s about sowing one’s wild oats; it’s about an over-indulgent father.

Before we join the numerous message-finders, we need to begin with the bottom line:  this is a really a parable about God and sinful man.  The Prodigal son’s father represents God, and the Prodigal Son is a symbol of us.  We have to approach the story with that truth in mind. Continue reading →

Sermon for Third Sunday in Lent

February 28, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 13:1-9

Sermon Theme:  “The Mystery of Suffering and the Tragedy of Inertia”

 (Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; original ideas; The Parables of Peanuts by Robert L. Short; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 26, Part 2, Series C)

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

           Our short sermon text from Luke this morning consists of two paragraphs, each with an interrelated message.  The “mystery of suffering” is the import of the first paragraph, and the “tragedy of merely taking up space” is the intendment of the second.

Together they cover a lot of ground in terms of trying to understand the dilemmas of human living and the enigmas of God’s ways.  Just like the cartoons of Charles M. Shultz, the God and human life issues are at the same time both simple and complex.

I love the way Charlie Brown responds to Lucy van Pelt in one of the Peanuts’ strips.  Charlie and Lucy are walking together when Lucy asks, “You know what your trouble is, Charlie Brown?”

Charlie keeps walking without saying anything, so Lucy continues, “The whole trouble with you is you don’t understand the meaning of life!”

Charlie stops, turns around, looks at Lucy and asks, “Do you understand the meaning of life?”

Lucy replies in a loud voice, “We’re not talking about me, Charlie Brown, we’re talking about you!”

In another Peanuts strip, Snoopy suffers one of those calamities that sometimes happen in life.  His doghouse burns down.  As Charlie, Lucy, and Snoopy stare at the charred ruins of Snoopy’s doggy home, Lucy exclaims, “So your house burned down!  So what?  A little tragedy now and then will make you a better person!  Man was born to suffer!”

Charlie turns away in disgust and says to Lucy, “He’s not a man. . . . he’s a dog.”

“The theology is the same,” Lucy shouts back at Charlie, throwing up her hands as Snoopy lies down on the burned out remains of his doghouse.  He looks up at the sky and says, “I don’t believe it.  Dogs were born to bite people on the leg and to sleep in the sun!”

Even for a dog, Snoopy’s doghouse burning to the ground wasn’t comparable to the disasters mentioned in our sermon text, — the tower of Siloam falling down and killing 18 people or Pilate’s massacre of folks in acts of worship.  Nor to the even more recent tragedies like Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the 1976 earthquake in China, or the Twin Towers collapse after the 9/11 terrorist attack. Continue reading →