Sermon for The Transfiguration of Our Lord

February 15, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Mark 9:2-19

Sermon Theme:  “Why Can’t Life Be All ‘Ups’?”

 (Sources:  Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B; original ideas; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 25, Part 1, Series B; Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations)

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

From the time I was a child until I graduated from high school, I wanted to be a cartoonist when I grew up.  Maybe that explains why I start so many of my sermons with one of my favorite Charlie Brown Cartoon strips.  So, here goes yet another one:

In this one, Charlie is listening to Lucy, who confesses, “Sometimes I get discouraged.”  Charlie responds, “Well, Lucy, life does have its ups and down.”

“But why should it?”  complains Lucy, “why can’t my life be all ‘ups’ – if I want ‘ups,’ why can’t I have them?  Why can’t I just move from one ‘up’ to another ‘up’ to an ‘upper-up’?  I don’t want any ‘downs,’ I just want ‘ups’ and ‘ups’ and ‘ups.’”

Charlie Brown walks away shaking his head, saying, “I just can’t stand it!” Continue reading →

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 8, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Isaiah 40:21-31

Sermon Theme:  “With Wings Like Eagles”

(Sources:  Online Wikipedia, “On Eagle Wings”; Online biblehub.com; Emphasis online Commentaries; Emphasis online Illustrations; original ideas; Believer’s Commentary)

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

           Last Sunday, we talked about Moses, the first of a long line of prophets who passed on God’s messages to the Israelites.  When he was about to die, the people begged Moses to beg God to send another prophet to do the same thing.

Over the years, the prophets did not mince words; they told it “like it is!”  And, as I said last Sunday, it was often admonition and warning, sometimes severe; but also there was guidance and comfort and boosting up.  John the Baptist yelled at the people to repent.  Samuel gave the Israelites a verbal beating for not consulting God, for turning their backs on God.  Ezekiel paraded the sins of Judah before the people, warning of captivity and destruction; and later he also condemned Judah’s pagan neighbors, blasting them for their idolatry and the way they treated God’s people.

Malachi condemned God’s people, the Jews, for marrying pagans, for dishonest financial practices, and for withholding tithes from God’s house. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 1, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Sermon Theme:  “What Is a Prophet Anyway?”

 (Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle B Preaching Workbook; footnotes to the Concordia Self Study Bible; Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 25, Part 1, Series B; Harper’s Bible Dictionary.)

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

           I have two teenage Sunday School students and one teenage granddaughter,  I believe teenagers are good and interesting human beings, and I enjoy being around them.  However, teenagers, like other young people, need mentoring, don’t they?  For example, consider this interaction between a father and his teenage son:

Father says, “Please cut the grass this afternoon.”

Danny says nothing.  He is silent.

Father:  “Did you hear me?”

Danny:  “Yes, father.”

The father comes home in the evening after work and the lawn hasn’t been touched.

Father:  “Didn’t you hear me tell you to cut the lawn?”

Danny:  “I did hear you, but I never said I’d do it.”

That’s not unlike the relationship between God the Father and the Israelites in the Five Books of Moses.  The responsibility of a prophet is to speak the Lord’s message.  The recipients, that is, those who are supposedly listening to the prophet’s message, are expected both to hear and heed the word of the Lord.

You see, the Israelites shunned the immediate presence of God; it was too frightening.  In today’s sermon text, they were quoted as saying, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.”  They demanded someone to stand between them and God.  So they were given the prophet Moses as a mediator.  He became a great mediator and prophet, and served the people for many years.

In today’s text, Moses, this mediator, this prophet, God has used for the last forty years to pass along His words to the people of Israel is about to leave, to die.  So the frightening question the people are faced with is, ‘To whom should we listen now?’ Continue reading →

Sermon for Third Sunday after the Epiphany

January 25, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Mark 1:14-20

Sermon Theme:  “What’s the Best Way to Fish?”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B: original ideas; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Wikipedia Online.)

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

There’s a Peanuts comic strip in which Linus is listening carefully as his sister, Lucy, boasts about her religious faith and her potential as an evangelist.  She says to Linus, “I could be a terrific evangelist.  Do you know that kid who sits behind me in school?  I convinced him that my faith is better than his faith.”

Linus asks, “How did you do that?”

Lucy replies, “I hit him with my lunch box.”

Not exactly what Jesus means by “fishing for men” in today’s sermon text.

In Jewish culture, whenever students attached themselves to a particular rabbi, that is, teacher, they would study the Law of God.  Now Jesus, the rabbi in our text, is a different sort of rabbi, in that He is the fulfillment of the Law, and, having been sent by the Father for a purpose, He needed to proclaim far and wide, that fulfillment.  Thus He actively went out seeking and choosing the men who would help Him in this task.

Jesus proclaims in the text, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”  The Greek language has two concepts of “time”:  one is “chronos,” that is, time as duration; and the other is “kairos”

, time pregnant with meaning, that is time filled with meaning, purpose and opportunity.  The time Jesus is speaking of implies both concepts.

A survey was taken of Americans over 90 years of age.  They were asked, “If you had your life to live over again, what would you do differently?”  Their answers were, “I would reflect more, I would risk more, and I would invest in more things that would outlive me.”  Peter, Andrew, James, and John all invested in a cause that would outlive them on this earth, and found it was eternally worth it. Continue reading →

Sermon for Second Sunday after the Epiphany

January 18, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

Sermon Theme:  “Listen to What God Says When He Calls You”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 25, Part 1, Series B; Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Examples; original ideas; Online blog: A Pop Culture Addict’s Guide to Life; Zionministry.com; Israel-a-history-of.com; Online Wikipedia.)

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

Amelia Bedelia is a popular culture character, appearing in at least 36 books by Peggy Parish since 1963.  She is a maid who wears a blue bonnet, who means well, but, because she is so naïve, she takes things too literally; and this gets her in trouble.

Here are a few Amelia Bedelia-isms:  To make a “date cake,” she cuts up a calendar into the dough.   “Dusting the furniture” to her means pouring buckets of dust on everything.  In her mind, “drawing the drapes” means taking out a notepad and sketching pictures of them.

Her antics remind both young and old alike how much trouble miscommunications cause.  In our sermon text for today, young Samuel is no Amelia Bedelia, but he also misinterprets a message.  From this Old Testament story, we learn that it is important to understand God correctly when He speaks to us, and that we realize God may call when we least expect it. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord, January 11, 2014

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Texts:  Genesis 1:1-5 and Mark 1:4-11

Sermon Theme:  “Hovering Over the Water”

(Sources: Lutheran Worship: History and Practice; Lutheran Book of Worship: Manual on the Liturgy; Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; Sancta Missa Online Roman Catholic Views on Baptism; Water, Water, Everywhere! Online Lutheran Baptismal Liturgy.)

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

We can be glad that our awesome God is not like us, Can’t we?  What if He were?

In the beginning, it was nine o’clock, so God had to go to work.  He filled out a requisition to separate light from darkness.  He considered making stars to beautify the night and planets to fill the skies, but thought it sounded like too much work; and besides, God thought, “That’s not my job.”  So He decided to knock off early and call it a day.  And He looked at what he’d done and He said, “It’ll have to do!”

On the second day God separated the waters from the dry land.  And He made all the dry land flat, plain, and functional, so that – behold – the whole earth looked like Idaho.  He thought about making mountains and valleys and glaciers and jungles and forests, but He decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort.  And God looked at what He had done that day and said, “It’ll have to do.”

And God made a pigeon to fly in the air and a carp to swim in the waters and a cat to creep upon dry ground. And God thought about making millions of other species of all sizes and shapes and colors, but He couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for any other animals.  In fact, He wasn’t too crazy about the cat.  Besides it was almost time for The Late Show.  So God looked at all He had done and God said, ”It’ll have to do.”

And at the end of the week, God was seriously burned out.  So He breathed a big sigh of relief and said, “Thank me, it’s Friday!” Continue reading →

Sermon for Second Sunday after Christmas

January 4, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 2:40-52

Sermon Theme:  “Where Is That Boy?!”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 25, Part 1, Series B; Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B; Online Sermons Illustrations: “Growing Up Jesus”; original ideas and examples; Believer’s Commentary)

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

Since my mother was the church organist, when we were eleven or twelve, my twin brother and I still spent a great deal of time with her at the church, going with her to all the Sunday services, as well as Mid-week services, choir rehearsals, wedding rehearsals, weddings, funerals, etc.

Believe it or not, I was the quiet, timid one, and my mother always knew where I was while she was rehearsing or meeting with the pastor, — I was in the car reading as I waited for her.  My ADHD brother, however, was another matter.  While she was about her business as organist, he was off at the cemetery a half mile behind the church shooting off firecrackers, or in the meadow next to the cemetery chasing jack rabbits.  He never missed an opportunity for adventure and excitement.

When my mother would come out of the church, the first thing she would ask was, “Where is that boy?!”

My response was, “I don’t know; I was reading.” Continue reading →

Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas

December 28, 2014, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Galatians 4:4-7

Sermon Theme:  “’Abba!  Father’!  The Best Daddy of All”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B; Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas)

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

Art Linkletter tells about his all-time favorite religious encounter with a child.  Two nuns brought some four-year-olds for a visit to the studio where he filmed his shows.  One of the tiny girls explained to Linkletter before the audience that the thing she liked most about the Catholic school she attended was when one of the nuns told Bible stories.  Linkletter asked the youngster which story was her favorite.

“The story of Edam and Ave,” she announced.

“What happened to them?”  he asked.

“God was mad at them and He was going to punish them.  But they hided under a bench.  But they couldn’t fool God and He found them.”

“Go on,” Linkletter pleaded.

“So God decided to punish them twice,” she continued.

“Twice?”  Art asked.

“Yes.  First, He sent them both straight down to hell,” she said, pausing for the audience to realize the significance of that punishment before adding the final horror.  “And then He changed them into Protestants!” Continue reading →

Sermon for Fourth Sunday in Advent

December 21, 2014, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 1:26-38

Sermon Theme:  “For Nothing Will be Impossible with God”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Hail Mary, Wikipedia Online; Hail Mary Prayer Online; My Dec. 16 From the Pastor and other original ideas; Harper’s Bible Dictionary).

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

In today’s sermon text, Gabriel calls Mary by name.  It’s a good thing, otherwise, she might have thought the angel was coming to the wrong person for this job.

One hot summer day in Georgia, a man named Simpson took a job on a work crew, building a road.  The crew was behind and working extra long and hard, but most of the men had gotten used to the work and the heat.  Finally, after several hours of back-breaking labor in the Georgia sun without stopping, the new guy went over to talk to the foreman.

“Excuse me, Boss,” he said, “do you have a fellow on your work-sheet named ‘Simpson’?”

“Yes, “said the foreman, “why do you ask?’

“Oh, nothing, Boss, I just thought that maybe when I signed up, you wrote my name down as ‘Samson.’ Continue reading →

Sermon for Third Sunday in Advent

December 14, 2014, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Sermon Theme:  “Throwing out the Trash”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; Believer’s Commentary; Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B)

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

Five-year-old Jonathan was busy with his paints and brushes at his small table.  “What are you painting?”  his mother asked him.

“This is the house where Baby Jesus lived,” said the small boy, as he added a yellow star to the sky above the brown house.

When she looked at the painting again, the mother saw her son adding a man carrying two bundles under his arms.  She asked, “Is that one of the kings taking his gifts to Jesus?”

“No,” replied the boy.  “That’s Joseph taking out the trash.” Continue reading →