Everyday Lutherans

Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb, where they laid their friend and loved one, Jesus.  She was going there to care for him, ensure that he would cleaned, and prepared to be laid to rest.  When she arrives, she expects to find a stone against the tomb, Jesus lying still wrapped in bands of cloth from the last time her and the disciples were gathered at his death. But instead, she finds something else. Entering here today, what did you expect to find? Did you expect a person who had recently died and you came and pay your respects?  While the disciples and many others would expect to find death, sorrow and sadness, today, we celebrate because now things have changed.  Something different has happened.  There is still death, but there is a gift of life! Death is something that has been part of human existence since Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden of Eden. They were the first to sin against God and ever since, sin and death have been part of the human existen...

Tonight we gather together. The true and the faithful, those who take time out of our busy schedules to come to the Lord’s Table.  We gather here because our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ is the one who invited us.  We gather as those who are able to hear the promise of Jesus Christ for the first time.  We gather as those who are in need of a reminder.  We gather for those who celebrate this promise always.  We also come as those who would betray Jesus because he does not live up to our expectations because we want Jesus to do so much more. We gather at the Lord's Table to receive the feast and the many blessings that God has given to us and to be reminded of the times within our lives that God has interceded for us in places and events that seemed too large for us to take on by ourselves.  We receive the gift that we have longed for, but could not earn for ourselves.   Many of us gather here, as the disciples gathered that night with Jesus.  They...

This Sunday, we gather together for Palm Sunday.  We celebrate the fact that the Messiah, the Christ, the Chosen One of God, is living among us.  On this day,  the people were shouting, celebrating, and so hopeful wondering what was to come.  They were thinking that at long last, the Messiah had come.  With as much fanfare as when we celebrate Christmas, these people now celebrate the arrival of God’s Chosen One among them.    Have you ever stopped to think about how Jesus will return for the second coming?  Remember, Jesus was a poor man who wandered through the wilderness with a group of people who by past and modern times were the working poor.  They were not successful.  They would have put in long hours to barely make it.  They were not the sharpest tools in the shed, nor were they really able to understand what it meant that the Messiah had come.  Jesus did not live in a great house, nor was he even popular.  Ye...

We have gone through quite a long journey.  One that has taken us from the beginning of our faith, whether that was near our birth or another time in our life. From that moment that God entered into our lives, we were changed, we had heard a great truth in this world that we live in.  Through that moment, we began to understand this Creator and Sustainer within our own life. Then looking at how we have entered into that relationship with God in prayer.  Having conversations with him and trusting him within our life.  Then we began in studying Scripture and Worship.  How we engage in deeper understanding and relating to God within our life.  Then we talked about serving one another and a time to be served within the world.   Tonight, we look at how we work for justice and peace within the world.  But also look at how we can help those who are not among us yet but also encouraging those who are here.   But first, I want to share with you a stor...

The death of a loved is a difficult time for anyone. It is an emotional time and one that we remember for years to come. i can still remember standing at the graveside of my own family.  Perhaps you can as well, the graveside of grand mother, or grand father, or father or mother, perhaps a brother or sister or even your own son or daughter.  At the time of their death, we are struck by the amazement of all.  We remember the joys and celebrations.  We remember the things we wish we would have done.  As we gather together, the loved ones who gathered there, crying and weeping.  The only thing that matters is that their loved one is now gone.  They are laying to rest their loved one, placing them in the ground so they may return to the ground and they may find a piece of closure.  We place them in a casket or urn to hold them as they return to the earth.  However, it is also at this time that the family, friends, and loved ones begin to wonder i...

When I was growing up, I always wanted to find ways of helping.  I wanted to be a part of things and I wanted to to be involved.  So when I was young, my parents were part of a new member supper committee.  When a new member would become part of the congregation, this committee would call people to bring various dishes for the new members and their church host family  to enjoy together.  This meal would be on the day that they would be welcomed into the congregation.  However, my job was to help set up tables, making sure each spot had plate, glass of water, fork, spoon and knife.  I still remember doing that.  How I was part of the welcoming of people into our church.   When I was in high school, I remember going to our local camp.  There we would help set up various sites to prepare them for the summer.  Setting up the tents for the campers to sleep in,  cleaning up many of the buildings that had gotten dusty or just needed t...

Today, we hear of two people who bear witness to the power and glory of God within the world among us.  However, these are two unexpected people who we would qualify as weak by the world’s standards. They will be instruments of God so that all the world may see.  David, a young shepherd boy, was anointed at a very young age to be king of the entire nation of Israel.  The man who was blind was given sight so that others may know that God was with them once again. The first person is David.  David is the youngest brother in a family.  In this time, he would have been the one who was easily overlooked.  He could have been working for his brothers and living out his days.  He was the youngest brother, the one who still had so much more to learn. Even in this story, we hear that his responsibility is to care for the sheep.  A rather simple task, but one that is important in learning what it means to care for others.  It is this young boy,  th...

When Jesus called the disciples to follow him.  They were looking for someone to be the Messiah to lead them, but they were not ready for what happened to them.  They were not even considering the possibility that God would be calling them or using them in the world. Jesus calls them away from their family and the way of life that their ancestors had lived for probably a long time. Jesus is calling them to do something new, something radical.  They were going to study and learn from a teacher.  However, there was no mention of the debates or struggles in understanding that they would face, if they should go.  Still, the disciples were willing to leave all that they knew to follow this teacher.   They were called by name to begin this journey.  As they began this journey with Jesus who seemed to be an ordinary man.  They followed him around and asked him to teach them.  When he taught in the synagogues, or when large crowds gathered he would b...

The story of Jesus with the Samaritan Woman is one that is very popular.  I am sure that many of you have heard this story once, twice, or even twenty times before.  It is a very important story within the Christian faith.  It has as much meaning as it did then when it happened as it does to us today.  For Jesus comes and speaks to a Samaritan woman in the noon day heat.  In order to truly understand this story, a person should truly understand why Jews and Samaritans did not spend time together.   The story goes back hundreds of years.  When the people were taken out of the Promised Land of their Ancestors.  Here, there were the twelve tribes of Israel, the Chosen People of God. It was this nation, who would bear witness to the whole world.   It was this nation, who God was with and blessing.  However, the people of Israel were taken out of the land and placed into foreign lands.  This was known as the great Exile.  Other...

For the first few centuries of gathering, people who we would call Christians did not call themselves that.  Instead, they would call themselves: People of the Way.  They would often gather together in people’s home or at the local synagogue, to sing, share stories that were important to their faith and be reminded of their faith in God, particularly in Jesus Christ.  They followed the same model of worship, the same ritual of living and understanding derived from the Jewish faith in which many of the people came from.  These people who followed The Way, were often rejected and the subject of blame within the community.  They were new, radical and seen as a means of destroying the traditional way of doing things.  This way of worship and living was done for several hundred years.   Then around the year 300, the Ceasar called all Christians to send their leaders to gather together along with all of their written resources and ways of worship.  As t...

As we continue our Lenten journey, we stop and remember some of the things in the past. How they have shaped us into the people that we are today.  We stop and remember the people who have helped form us.  We stop and give thanks that we have come to be part of God’s People within our journey.  As we do this, we begin to also think of the ideas, concepts, and guiding principles that still lead us and guide us within our life today.   Today, we hear about a man named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a leader within the Jewish Temple, he was a man who knew the Scriptures and knew that God was still having a relationship with the people in the world.  As a leader in the Temple, he was a person who others would come to ask questions.  Nicodemus was a person who people expected to have answers to their difficult questions.  Nicodemus hears about the works that Jesus is performing for the people.  How he is able to share lessons of wise counsel to people,...