Quinquagesima 2019

Have you measured everything by what pleases you? Too easily you are provoked. Has your mind been filled with anger, revenge, and thoughts of how you’ve been wronged? Is it love that fills your thoughts and fantasies – or is it lust? Have you rejoiced in iniquity, taken pleasure and delight in things you know are displeasing to God? Then you have not love.

Love bears all things, endures all things, but you have said, “Enough! I will bear no more! Love has a limit.” We want our sins forgiven, but keep a record of how we’ve been sinned against.

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Second Sunday after the Epiphany 2019

It is no mistake that our Lord chooses to perform His first miracle at a wedding. But it is not simply a miracle, a magic show, a spectacular event to wow the crowd or to help His mother save face. St. John calls it a sign, the beginning of signs. A sign does not exist for itself. A sign signifies, points to something greater.

This sign of transforming water into wine is done in the context of Jesus talking about His hour. Throughout John’s Gospel Jesus says repeatedly, “My hour is not yet come.” Then finally, just before Jesus washes the feet of His disciples, the night before His crucifixion, St. John tells us that that great event, the Passion of Jesus, is His hour: “Now before the Feast of the Passover,” John says in ch. 13, “when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

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March for Life sermon 2019

Everything that lives has life from God. St. Paul told the pagan philosophers on Mars Hill, “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

That doctrine undergirds our confession at the nation’s high court today. All human beings are created equal – because all human beings are created. The limbs that God has joined together, let no abortion tear asunder. That baby is living, no matter how small. To be pro-life is also then to embrace that life. Thus we also confess, “That baby, no matter his color, no matter what drugs or alcohol have done to his brain, that baby is loved by God and so by the people of God. He is welcome in our churches, and in our homes. And the teenager who is pregnant, and scared: she is welcome in our churches, and in our homes.”

We are not here to protest. We are here to confess. And we leave here ready to live in, with, and under that confession.

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The Name of JESUS

The Son of Mary bears the Name JESUS, but the Name is given to you. The Name is God’s gift to you. You can use the Name. 

We hurry through this world gathering money and stuff, but what we accumulate cannot save us. We call upon our parents for help, but in death they forsake us. Politicians promise but they cannot deliver.

But this Name, JESUS, is given to you, so that you can say, YHWH, save me! JESUS, help!

This name JESUS drives away demons. The name JESUS is light in our darkness. The name JESUS delivers us from death.

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Advent II, 2018

That is what we are doing in Advent: waiting for Him, waiting for Christ to return and set the world to rights. The worse things get for us, the more it is a sign that Jesus’ rescue is near. All the world will be fearful, Jesus says, but when you see the world in chaos and tribulation, “Look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”

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The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity 2018

“Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble.” These words from the holy prophet Job are about himself. But they are also about us: “Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble.” Our days are numbered, yet in our folly we do not count them correctly. Your days are determined; the number of your months is with God; He has appointed limits for you that you cannot pass. And so the fear of death that every man experiences is not a fear of pain in dying, but pain in life escaping, slipping away. Like a flower, man blooms, then withers and decays. Like the leaves of an autumn tree, so beautiful in vibrant color, only to fall to the earth, destined to be carried away, burned or buried.

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The Marriage of Yonas Mekonen and Stephanie Lange

Your home, Stephanie and Yonas, is to be the Mekane Yesus - the dwelling place of Jesus. Yonas Mekonen, you are the angel of this home, the guardian and protector. Stephanie is the crown, the glory, the queen and treasure. Fill your home, Stephanie, not just with singing but with the song of faith. The Mekonen home is the Mekane Yesus - the dwelling place of Jesus.

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