Posts

Showing posts with the label St. Mark

Sermon - Trinity IX, 2026 - Luke 16:1-13

-
Image
The Parable of the Unjust Steward , Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1540 Christian Wisdom Seeks Eternal Dwellings Wisdom is forward thinking and focused on the goal Christian wisdom employs every treasure, heavenly and worldly, for the sake of reaching the goal If there is a hardest parable, it might be this one; throws people off every time. The parable presents a rich man with a steward who was found wasting the rich man’s possessions. The job of a steward is to be faithful with someone else’s possessions, and this guy wasn’t cutting it. So obviously, he got fired. What’s crazy is the rich man lets the steward hand in the books, and he doesn’t hunt them down and take them from him immediately. The steward does exactly what you don’t want the steward to do, which is why normally the books get taken from the steward: the steward cooks the books. He meets some of the rich man’s debtors, probably tenant farmers, and in order to ingratiate himself with the debtors he adjusts how much they owe, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sermon - St. Mark 2021 - Mark 16:14-20

-
Image
"Mark the Evangelist" by Il Pordenone (c. 1484-1539)   Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Today is the festival of the evangelist St. John Mark. Mark wasn’t one of the twelve apostles, although he was with Jesus from the beginning and he was a cousin to the apostle Barnabas. Though earlier in his life he was the young man who ran away naked at the arrest of Jesus, Mark is also the author who wrote the second of the four gospels which bears his name. Mark’s gospel is the shortest of the four, but it’s also the most action packed and moves from one scene to the next with great urgency; one thing happens, then “immediately” the next thing happens!  Mark is a complex person in the Bible, and he’s well worth considering today. During the earlier part of his ministry he became discouraged and fearful, quitting the ministry, but later on he once again took up the yoke laid upon him. He had been distraught for a time, yet Christ raised him up again to accomplish...
Post a Comment
Read more