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This Month Archive
St. Mark's Lutheran Church

 

 2015

 Sermons



Dez 27 - The Cost of Christmas

Dez 27 - Living in God's Peace

Dez 24 - Not "Hide and Seek"

Dez 20 - Barren

Dez 13 - What Are We to Do?

Dez 8 - What is next?

Dez 6 - Imagination

Nov 29 - Perseverance

Nov 22 - What is truth?

Nov 15 - Live today for tomorrow

Nov 8 - Remembering, Focusing, Anticipating

Nov 1 - In the end, God

Okt 25 - Automatic Blessings?

Okt 18 - Worth-ship

Okt 11 - Donkey Tracks and Skid Marks

Okt 4 - As Beggars

Sep 27 - Living in Unity with other Christians - don't hurt them!

Sep 20 - On the Way to Capernaum

Sep 13 - Strange Places, Persons, and Actions

Sep 6 - Life in Focus

Aug 30 - Work-Shoe Faith

Aug 23 - Our Captain in the well-fought fight

Aug 20 - Time for hospitality

Aug 16 - It Is About Jesus

Aug 14 - Remember

Aug 9 - Bread of Life

Aug 2 - A Hard Teaching

Jul 26 - Peter, and Us

Jul 19 - Need for a Shepherd

Jul 12 - How Can I Keep From Singing?

Jul 5 - Making a Sale?

Jun 28 - The Healer and the Healing Community

Jun 21 - Two Kinds of Fear

Jun 14 - Unlikely

Jun 7 - Where the Fingers Point

Mai 31 - Just Do It

Mai 24 - To declare the wonderful deeds of God....

Mai 17 - Everyone named "Justus"

Mai 16 - In God's Good Time

Mai 12 - Take Hold of Life

Mai 10 - Holy People, Holy Time, Holy Fruit

Mai 3 - The Master Gardener

Apr 26 - The Good Shepherd

Apr 19 - Mission Possible

Apr 12 - With Scars

Apr 5 - Afraid

Apr 4 - This Program presented by....God

Apr 3 - How much does he care?

Apr 3 - God's answer to cruelty

Apr 2 - Actions of the Covenant

Mrz 29 - Extravagance!

Mrz 22 - Sir, We Wish to See Jesus

Mrz 18 - The Church's song in peace and joy

Mrz 15 - Doxology

Mrz 11 - This Is the Feast

Mrz 8 - Why keep them?

Mrz 1 - Hope Does Not Disappoint

Feb 25 - The Church's Song of Hope and Confidence

Feb 22 - Jesus vs. the Wild Things

Feb 18 - Psalm 51: The Church's Song in praise of God's Forgiveness

Feb 15 - In Wonder

Feb 8 - Sent, Under Orders

Feb 2 - In praise of routine

Feb 1 - Tied up in Impossible Knots

Jan 25 - What kind of God?

Jan 18 - What Kind of Stone?

Jan 13 - In the Fullness of Time

Jan 11 - A pile of dirt?

Jan 4 - By another way…


2016 Sermons           

2014 Sermons

Living in Unity with other Christians - don't hurt them!

Read: Mark 9:38-50

 
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 27, 2015

Kathy Kolb, Authorized Lay Worship Leader Candidate

 

Good morning! So good to see you here and share some time looking into the treasure of God’s Word the Bible together.

 

Today’s Gospel reading is interesting in that Again, Jesus is sort of Correcting the disciples’ understanding of how ministry works.

 

The disciples see or hear of a man, not one of them, who is doing working using the name of Jesus. This upsets the disciples, he’s an outsider! He’s not one of us!

 

Do you think Jesus didn’t know about this person using his name? We fully expect Jesus to hear us when we pray in his name today. He knew when the woman with the issue of blood touched him in a crowd. I think he probably knew all about this “outsider” already. But the disciples felt they needed to “Drop a dime” on him and report him to Jesus.  Maybe they even thought Jesus would be happy or reward them for this!

 

But Jesus sets them straight and then warns them:

 

And whosoever shall be a snare to one of the little ones who believe [in me], it were better for him if a millstone were hung about his neck, and he cast into the sea.

 

Whoa! That sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it?

 

We tend to think of Jesus as Mr. Nice Guy, loving and forgiving and saying things like:

·        Take no thought about what you eat or wear

·        Don’t worry about tomorrow

·        Today you will be with me in paradise

Nice sayings. Nice comforting words.

 

But today’s words sound very serious.

And whosoever shall be a snare to one of the little ones who believe [in me], it were better for him if a millstone were hung about his neck, and he cast into the sea.

 

Yikes! This verse sort of frightened me as a child. What a vivid visual image it provoked. That of someone being pulled down to the depths of the ocean by a large weight around their neck.  Obviously, this is serious talk. We can tell that Our Lord Jesus takes this very seriously.

 

Jesus wants us to be tender with the young ones in Christ. The beginners in the Faith. The ones that are most impressionable to questionable doctrine. The ones with such promise, if they are not squelched by the traditions of man.  

 

I used to think, “But I’m not a Missionary. I don’t really come in contact with anyone in this category of being young in the Faith”.

 

But I do. We all do. When teaching Sunday School I think of this verse.  When visiting inmates in prison I think of this verse.

 

But also in our homes. Any families with children? This verse applies. Certainly to the kids, but sometimes also to our spouse who may be rather new in Christ. Or our in laws, cousins, etc. They may see our actions and words more often than they do the inside of a bible.  When you look at it that way, it is indeed serious stuff.

 

The disciples wanted to mark the outsider as “wrong” or “different”. We understand that.  

 

Jesus makes the case that all the believers are His. We are to care for each other gently. We are to accept others working in His name. We are to take care of the new growth in the church. It’s important to Him.

 

We understand this is opposite of what the world does. The world worries about clothes and fashion, food and diet, money in the bank and insurance. That’s about all it cares about.

 

We are to take the other road. We accept the person regardless of how they dress. We welcome the skinny and the fat (thankfully). We don’t count money as a way to measure a person’s value.

 

Oh - by the way - the disciples in this story are later changed to be really nice people. We know the end of the story. After the disciples fight

about which of them will be the top guy, and after they try to hold the children back from seeing Jesus, and after they start crying from fear in the boat during the storm, and after they run way when Jesus is arrested, tortured  and crucified.

 

After they witness His resurrection and ascension into heaven. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, they change for the better. Legend says they all died as martyrs for the cause of Jesus, except for the possible exclusion of John, who may have died a natural death of old age.  

 

The disciples were changed when they saw the risen Jesus. The old power struggles weren’t important anymore. The old fears of death were gone. Outsiders could be seen as brothers.

 

This still happens today, when we see the Risen Jesus in our lives. Let us remember Jesus as we partake in Communion, minutes from now.

 

For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. (Romans 11:36)


May we all work together, as families and as a church, for his glory. Amen. 

 

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.