Not Today’s Tom Sawyer

Biblical Text: Mark 4:35-41, Job 38:1-11

This is the “free will” or bondage of the will sermon. The texts of the day, at least to me, set it up perfectly. The effect of the law in our day I believe is felt most acutely when we are talking about knowledge or technique. We all have a sense that something is wrong, but natural man today believes everything could be solved simply with more knowledge or better technique. Enter the God of the whirlwind from Job. “Who is this who darkens my council with words without knowledge?” That doesn’t prevent us from holding onto that. Our situation is so ruined and dire – we have no free will in spiritual things – that even omniscience wouldn’t do us any good. We need a savior. We need someone to change the rules. And the that is what Jesus does. He fulfills the law. He has perfect knowledge and technique. And to our broken want-ers what he offers is grace. Have faith. God loves you and will see you through.

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Pastor’s Circuit Sermon

Winkel Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Texts: Psalm 34, Genesis 7:23-8:12, Mark 3:20-35

The pastors of LCMS circuits typically get together monthly. Part of that is time in worship. The host is the preacher. It was my turn to host this month. In one way this sermon is a continued meditation on the texts from last Sunday. But that is really just the starting point. The texts I chose are the Lutheran Service Book’s daily lectionary texts. I don’t often post occasional sermons (funerals, weddings, winkels) because the audience is so specific. But this one is different that most of my sermons. In most of my sermons I try for a very specific point or doctrinal teaching. If I’ve got 15 mins a week (month, quarter, year) to preach to people I’m going with the necessary core. But with the gathered pastors, I risked a bit of a contemplative devotional sermon. I really like this sermon, but I also feel like it just missed something much more worthy. And I can’t think what that is. It will haunt me for a while. (Sorry, no audio.)

Means and Extremes

Biblical Text: Luke 17:1-10
Full Sermon Draft

Actually hearing Jesus is tough. What I mean by that isn’t that listening is tough, but that what he is attempting to teach is just so foreign to both our natural ways of thinking and our learned ways. The text today in the context of the the Gospel according to Luke is actually a non-confrontational part. Things should be low key, but Jesus’ teaching might be at its most extreme. And that is part of the mystery of faith and its danger. Wisdom rightly would tell us to avoid the extremes, except when the extreme is what is true. That is the mystery of Jesus. He is extreme, but he is true.

This sermon develops that theme. It suggests that this mystery is grounded in the two natures of Christ. And it suggests that our experience of of being bound either to sin or to Christ is also an expression of this mystery. We so want to be in the middle, in the mean, but truth is at the edges. If you listen I hope it inspires some good contemplation, a hearing of Jesus. And at hearing an attempt not to settle for the mean, but to live the tension of Christian extreme.

I did not include any of the hymns today primarily because the recording quality wasn’t quite there. Hymns are so much better live. (Sermons too for that matter.) So please, take this as an invite to come next Sunday. Blessings.

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