Everyday Lutherans

Sermon - 2018 - 02 - 21 - Wednesday Lent On Sunday’s sermon, I ended with the question, “What are we as a church here for?”  It is a question that truly no one person can answer. However, throughout the ages, the church has been known as a safe place to be in, a welcoming place, and a  place to experience God. It is something for many of us, we perhaps do not even realize unless you are drawn to it, someone points it out or it is something that we think about but then get focused on other things in our lives. Now the way a church is designed and laid out, says a lot without even a single word being mentioned.  When we think of a church, many of us may think of an old European church. The old Gothic style that was made of stone.  These buildings were huge in their construction and design so that as a person entered into the building. They would be able to feel the vastness of God and be reminded that they are entering the presence of something so much bigger than themselves.  The front ...

Sermon - 2018-02-18 - First Sunday in Lent After being Baptized, Jesus goes into the Wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  Why does the Holy Spirit send Jesus there? Why doesn’t Jesus simply powerfully save us all from evil in the world? Just like in our own life, after we are Baptized, we are also sent right back into this world.  The world around us is not transformed. We are the ones who are transformed. Now we have the promise, we know what it means but now we are called to face evil and do something about it. Last week, when we were together, we talked about the importance of a mountain top experience.  That in the wilderness we can bear witness to God’s Work. To be in awe and amazed at God’s Love for the world.  These moments are so very important but if we stay in those moments for too long then we find ourselves unaware of the reality, the dangers and the evil of this world.   For many of us, as we turned on the news, we are reminded of the wilderness and the evil that is still p...

Ash Wednesday Lent is my favorite season of the year.  No, it does not have the fanfare of Christmas, the costumes of Halloween, or the fireworks of the 4th of July.  But what it does have is something more meaningful and more applicable within our daily lives. In Lent, we have the true and whole understanding of our own salvation.  How it comes from Jesus Christ and is a full and complete gift given to us. In the season of Lent, we hear of the events in which Christ suffered for our sake.  We are reminded of our created self, our need for God, and our very mortality. How one day, a day in the future, a day when we will no longer walk this earth. Now is the time to think about what it is. we are truly doing with our lives. What are we teaching our children, grandchildren, and others around us in this community?  Who are we and what have we been given? Now, I am not telling you to do this through the whole season of Lent, but take some time to think about yourself, your life, and those ...

How many of you remember your Baptism?  For some of us, we are able to remember that day, we were old enough to see, hear and speak for our own sake.  We remember the people who were there. We remember having the water poured over us or being dipped in and pulled back out.  This day and date are something that we remember. For others of us, our Baptism was done when we are infants. Yet it was our parents who made the promise that we would be raised in the faith.  Thus it is our Baptism that we should be teaching and sharing with our children so that the importance of it can understood. Which draws us to a crucial question for any Christian, how does Baptism shape you? This often brings up the very debate among Christians of believer’s baptism or infant baptism.  Yet truly, instead of an “or” we should really be looking at an “and”. Our focus should be always on welcoming and caring for people of every age and every part of the journey of life and faith that they are on.  A believer’s B...

Today, we continue our journey in Advent.  The journey is one that involves us to realize that God is doing something within our life.  To wake up and get out of the darkness and the distractions of our life. Advent opens our eyes to the bitterness of this world but to the realization that God is renewing the Earth and we are able to to be a part of it.  Some of this is done through hearing what God is doing and calling us to be. Some of this is done by an examination of yourself. Still, some of this is done by how we are in a community of people. Last week as we talked about Hope, it is something that wakes us up to realize that God is indeed in our life.  The ways in which God is part of our life and do we become aware of that. Indeed, God does need to break into our lives in order for us to realize where to go and what to do.  Yet it is through this gift of Hope that we continue to return back to being God’s People. For it is only through God that we are able to bear witness and und...

Happy New Year, one and all.  Granted last night there was no ball drop, there was no concert of popular musicians to welcome us into the new year.  Not even Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest was there. Our new year ends not with the dropping of a ball but with the raising of the King to be seating at the right hand of the Father.  However, today we return. We long for Christ to return so that we can speak directly to him so that we may know exactly where he is leading us, teaching us, and helping us. During the season of Advent, we gather once again as a people who are waiting.  We are waiting for the coming of the Messiah. We place our hope, trust, and our very lives into the hands of God.  The one who created us sustains us and guides us. We wait but also we hope and search for meaning in the world. Along with that, each year, early in the fall, the voices begin clamoring to tell us what we want and need in order to be satisfied with our lives. We cannot go shopping, read the newspaper, l...

We don’t know the day or the hour.  Oh, how different we would live our lives if we did know the day and the hour of the end.  The rhetoric that we hear on the even news stirs within us a reminder that we are mortal. That even here in the United States of America, we are not free the power of death.  The tragedies of fatal shootings, stabbings, and other violence comes over the news and we are stricken with fear. For many of us, we begin to look back at the good old days.  It was not like this years ago. Remember the days when the children would play down at the park, that people would get together and really care about their neighbors and those days when everyone went to church.   Why is the nation so bad right now and what it we can do to take it back there? Then comes the finger pointing of where are we to point the blame. Who or what is the problem in our nation. Yet, none of this truly solves the problem.  None of this truly brings about a change for the better in our community, n...