2020 Treatises

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia. Come Holy Spirit.  Come fill the hearts of your faithful people, and set them on fire with your love. Pentecost concludes the festival of the week of weeks, the final day of celebrating Easter. Pentecost isn't particularly the birth of the church - as far as I know, the church was born at Jesus' abandoned tomb.  Pentecost was the coming out of the church and the church's Holy Spirit. The Spirit is Here to manifest Jesus' Wordly presence, God declaring that "grace and truth came through our Lord Jesus Christ - the Wounded Guy Who breaks through every door, even the locked doors of fear, fear of others, fear of the events of the world, fear of actually being forgiven of our sins!  Such an event is just almost unimaginable for daily life as we seek power for our grievances. But the Holy Spirit's intervention is the way of Pentecost, revealing, strengthening, setting captive sinners free!...

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.   In our last adventure into proclamation we spoke of "Venn the Diagram?" The Vigil of Pentecost brings us "Now, Venn the Diagram" The apostles had the Holy Spirit set upon them, giving them "utterance" ( per NRSV) in the languages of their world.  According to the story of Jesus according to Dr Luke, they were waiting until the festival of Succoth, the Harvest festival in Jerusalem.  If they expected the festival to bring God's Spirit it was hard to say, but that's when the Spirit struck with His signature sign, "the howling of a fierce wind." Each apostle was filled with this holy wind, evidenced - I suppose - with flames of fire "alighting" on their heads and holy breath was given voice to announce the good news of Jesus to an audience of pilgrims from every region of the Roman empire. Ever since the lot fell on Matthias to complete the compliment of th...

Alleluia. Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia. One of my most well remembered moments in seminary was from a class for which I was not present, nor enrolled. Professor Bob Werberig taught a class for those who returned for their last year following internship.  It was a very popular course, helped by being required I suppose, which attempted to reconnect the seminary learning with the so called "real world" of internship.  There is a need for the academy and the congregation to have such a rapproachment .  Without the two having an understanding with one another - and this is not a zero sum question, by the way -  a budding pastor will find difficulty in serving the church.  Professor Bob was a kind of fidgety sort of guy, known to be a two pack a day smoker and no one knew how much he smoked the 22.5 hours of the day that he wasn't teaching class.  One of the things he taught those young men in the last year of seminary...

"He ascended into heaven and ssitteth and the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."  Creeds. Grant we beseech thee Almighty God, that like as we believe thy only begotten Son Our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell."  One of the things about the Ascension of Lord, a major feast on par with Easter and Christmas, something that runs by in our creeds, a feast "on the outs", even the Roman Catholic church in the US now celebrates on this Sunday, the Seventh of Easter.  People say these days that this event called the Ascension of our Lord does not offer us a focussed message.  We may be confusing that question with considering a comprehensive affirmation of Jesus resurrection life among us from our paschal celebration to the last day. There is an "ascension" because the Lord has gone away.  O...

On the Fourth Sunday of Easter, somehow unbeknownst to me the wrong preaching text was used from I Ptr 3, today's scheduled reading.  So, this week we'll look at this text from the first chapter, as we already considered I Ptr. 3 a couple of weeks ago. Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.    The First Letter of Peter begins with, to me, one of the most exuberant texts of the entire Bible, With an excitement that's almost palpable the author begins, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. . . "  (I Ptr 1. 3-4, NRSV) and cue the fade away. . . At first, it seems that this "living hope" has is without relationship to the reality of today.  Hopes by definition have to do wit...

 Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia . On Easter morning, Christ burst from the tomb. Since Christ has defeated death on the cross, His resurrection is the event that reveals God to us, and knowing Who God is, we discover who we are. In this morning's Gospel, we have heard Jesus' definitive assertion to Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." Jesus' rising from the dead is God the Father's expression of His solidarity with us through His Son.  As these so called "farewell discourses of the next few chapters explain, God the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, comes to empower our faith and unite us in the Church's witness  as it "daily and richly forgives all of our sins."  Our Lutheran insight is a Holy Spirit is not some optional part of God that shows up when we get excited, motivated, or particularly filled with pious thoughts. The Holy Spirit is the power that makes believing the Gospel possible at al...

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia. In one of my sources for interpreting texts in the lectionary, there was one that was crystal clear about the Second reading.  'DON'T PREACH ON THIS TEXT!'   (Emphasis added.) This is the historic 'Good Shepherd Sunday'. Preach about the good shepherd of Psalm 23,  Maybe the protective and feeding shepherd of the Gospel reading would be good to proclaim.  But slavery?  Especially in the United States, who still hasn't come to terms with the human cost of its establishment?   In a week when our (Iowa) governor lashed out to punish Tyson workers who would dare act to protect themselves from COVID-19?  In a city just a couple of counties away from here? (But, in preaching the unpreachable in this sermon, I 'll will save that discussion for 2 m /6 ft apart later on.) The actual question before us how our Christian community lives before God, with the assumpti...