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

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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, ...
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Sermon - Proper 11, Year C, 2025 - Luke 10:38-42

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Christ with Martha and Mary , Joos Goemare, circa 1600 Receiving God’s Service God serves His people first Our service must respond to, but not distract from, God’s service Listening to Jesus is the one thing needful What’s the point of going to church? Why should people come here? Obviously I don’t need to convince you into coming to church, since you’re already here. But when you’re having a conversation with someone, and you tell them they should come to church, and they ask you why, you need to have an answer, and you need to have the right answer. The simple answer is: we go to church to be served by God. We go to church to be like Mary, “ who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His teaching. ” This question of why you should go to church has been a major disagreement among Christians on this continent for the past few hundred years. In the 18th and 19th centuries Christian Revivalism and the First and Second Great Awakenings were huge movements in Christianity, attempting to r...
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Sermon - Proper 10, Year C, 2024 - Luke 10:25-37

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The Good Samaritan,  Rembrandt, late 17th century Love your neighbor To love is to devote yourself to another My neighbor is whomever God has placed near to me The Lord Jesus selflessly devotes Himself to us and our salvation We must devote ourselves to our neighbors How do you receive eternal life? That’s not a difficult question posed to Jesus, and in fact it’s a question any average Israelite would’ve been able to answer. The lawyer simply recites the Shema from Deuteronomy: “ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ” The reason any Israelite could’ve recited this is because the Shema continues: “ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your ...
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Sermon - St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles 2025 - Matthew 16:13-19

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Saints Paul and Peter , Santa Maria Maggiore Altarpiece, 1427 The Rock of Bold Confession Sts. Peter and Paul made bold confessions and were executed for it Their bold confession is the gospel of free forgiveness for the sake of Christ Jesus Let us confess boldly, and not even the gates of hell shall prevail against it A blessed Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, dear brothers and sisters in Christ! On this day, June 29th, the church remembers our brothers in Christ and fathers in the faith, Peter and Paul, who were on this day 1,957 years ago, in the year of our Lord 68, martyred for their faith by Emperor Nero in Rome.  Peter, perhaps the most prominent of the twelve apostles, had preached the faith to Jew and Gentile alike. We remember Peter especially during Holy Week, when Jesus told him that he would be sifted like wheat and deny Jesus three times before the rooster crows. Sadly, the Lord’s words were accurate, and Peter denied Christ. Yet, at the end of John’s Gospel, we see Pete...
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Sermon - Proper 7, Year C, 2025 - Luke 8:26-39

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The Swine Driven into the Sea, James Tissot, 1886 Jesus Casts Out Demons Jesus casted out the demons from the demoniac and cleansed the man Our nation is plagued by demonic oppression The Word of Jesus casts out demons and cleanses us Demons are real. Jesus casts out demons. When Jesus first entered the Decapolis, particularly the region of the Gerasenes, it was gentile territory. This means that these people did not worship the true God but were pagans and heathens. The soul is like a vacuum, so where the Holy Spirit does not dwell, unclean spirits dwell. Thus, it’s entirely unsurprising that “ When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. ” It should come as no surprise that when people are without the Lord there will be demons there. When demons inhabit or oppress a person they make that person look inhuman and freakish. For instance, the Goliath whom ...
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