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This Month Archive
St. Mark's Lutheran Church

 

 2016

 Sermons



Dez 25 - The Gift

Dez 24 - God's Love Changes Everything

Dez 18 - Lonely?

Dez 18 - Getting Ready

Dez 11 - The Desert Shall Bloom

Dez 4 - A Spirited Shoot

Nov 27 - Comin' Round the Mountain

Nov 20 - Power on parade

Nov 13 - Warnings and Love

Nov 6 - Saints Among Us

Okt 30 - Reformation in Catechesis

Okt 23 - The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Okt 16 - The Word of God at the Center of Life

Okt 9 - Continuing Thanks

Okt 8 - The Cord of Three

Okt 2 - Tools for God’s Work

Sep 25 - Rich?

Sep 23 - With a Word and a Song

Sep 18 - To Grace How Great a Debtor

Sep 11 - See the Gifts and Use Them Well

Sep 4 - Hear a Hard Word from Jesus

Aug 28 - Who is worthy?

Aug 21 - Just a Cripple?

Aug 14 - Not an Easy life with Christ

Aug 6 - By Faith

Jul 31 - You can't take it with you

Jul 25 - Companions

Jul 24 - Our Father

Jul 18 - Hospitality

Jul 17 - Priorities

Jul 11 - Giving

Jul 10 - Giving and receiving mercy

Jul 3 - Go!

Jun 26 - With urgency!

Jun 19 - Adopted

Jun 12 - A Tale of Two Sinners

Jun 5 - The Laughter of Surprise

Mai 29 - By Whose Authority?

Mai 22 - Why are we here?

Mai 15 - The Spirit Helps Us

Mai 8 - Free or Bound?

Mai 1 - Let All the People Praise You

Apr 24 - A New Thing

Apr 17 - A Great Multitude

Apr 10 - Transformed

Apr 3 - Here and There

Mrz 27 - The Hour

Mrz 26 - Dark yet?

Mrz 25 - The Long Defeat?

Mrz 25 - Appearances

Mrz 24 - Is it I?

Mrz 20 - Bridging the Distance

Mrz 16 - Singing the Catechism: Holy Communion

Mrz 13 - What is important

Mrz 9 - Singing the Catechism: Holy Baptism

Mrz 6 - What did he say?

Mrz 2 - Singing the Catechism: The Lord's Prayer

Feb 28 - Pantocrator

Feb 24 - Singing the Catechism: the Creeds

Feb 21 - What kind of church, promise, and God?

Feb 17 - The Catechism in Song: Ten Commandments

Feb 14 - Available to All

Feb 12 - Home

Feb 10 - The Catechism in Song: Confession and Forgiveness

Feb 7 - Befuddled, and that is OK

Jan 31 - That We May Speak

Jan 24 - The Power of the Word

Jan 17 - Surprised by the Spirit

Jan 10 - Exiles

Jan 3 - The Big Picture: our Christmas—Easter faith



2015 Sermons

Home

 
Charlotte Hughes Funeral - February 12, 2016

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin 

 

It would be an understatement to say that Charlotte was firmly attached to Blueberry Lane.

To me she spoke affectionately of make her home there with Wilbur, and the adventures of raising the boys on that hillside and woods.

She was also roundly annoyed when she was dragged off to hospitals or elsewhere.

“Here I am and I don't like it one bit!” she firmly announced one day sometime back, when I entered her hospital room.

 

The questions about “Who am I?” and Where do I belong?” are the questions that entangle all of us as we move through life.

As Christians, we have some very specific answers to the questions.

“Home” for us is not just centered in places such as Blueberry Lane, or any other such building.

These places are important to us, but none of them contain all that the Bible means when it talks of “home.”

None of those places, as dear as they have been, are what we mean when we talk about “the Lord taking me home.”

Most importantly for us, “home” is not a place, but a relationship,

a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ,

a relationship that he gives to us as a gift and establishes with us in Holy Baptism.

Home happens.

It happens whenever and wherever the promise of Christ is living and active, in and among us.

 

We have a tough time with this.

It would be much easier if we could just point to places and say “that's home,” but not so.

Old King David fell into this problem.

He was a very proud fellow and wanted to show off by building a “Home for God” right next door to his own very fine and shiny new palace.

“Not so fast, David,” says God through the prophet Nathan.

“Your son Solomon and others will take care of that.

Much more important is what I am doing with you.

I will make you a house, a dynasty, and your family will continue in Israel.

I will be with you.”

 

And then David wises up and prays a great prayer of thanksgiving, connected with our first lesson today.

“You are in charge, O Lord, and not me,” he realizes.

 

Also, we come to understand that we cannot get too comfortable with things and events here, because we are sojourners here in this society;

that is, we are resident aliens, and our citizenship is elsewhere!

Neither Charlotte nor any Christian can be completely “at home” with things the way they are anywhere around us.

 

We have received the gift of citizenship in the kingdom of God, and that is the relationship to which we truly belong.

 

All of our other relationships are broken in various ways:

--our bodies have problems, pressing all of us with Charlotte toward death.

--all of the social bonds which have meant so much – Charlotte with Mike every day, Charlotte with sons, their wives, and grandchildren, Charlotte with medical personnel,  Charlotte with congregational members who have visited  – are now broken.

Nothing that is ours sticks together, nothing endures, except for the one relationship which says that our citizenship is in God's community.

That is home!

 

“So, we do not lose heart,” says Paul in 2 Corinthians, because God is the one who has established that relationship in the promise and gift of Holy Baptism,

and he is the one who maintains the relationship by the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, in spite of whatever ailment, problem, or infirmity we have.

 

All manner of things can go wrong, but this one thing is secure; the promise of “home” with the Lord Jesus.

And even now, we have come together today in anticipation of that great and final day when we are together in the fullness of the promise of God's kingdom.

This coming together today is an expression of a different perspective on how we relate to each other.

We don't have to frantically cling to place or possessions.

All of this has been entrusted to us by God for awhile;

we are to treat them gently, use them wisely for ourselves and others, and then pass them on, giving thanks to God for the opportunity.

 

Charlotte now has nothing more to get out of life; she only has things to pass on to us.

Her truest home is now elsewhere, held in person by the Lord Jesus.

 

Our idea of “home” as Blueberry Lane has been broken, and that brings a special kind of sadness and loneliness.

But we have a Gospel word from Jesus: I will not leave you orphaned, without a home, he says, I am coming to you...My Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you.”

 

That is a promise that each of us can trust and value.

Home happens when this promise of Jesus is living and active in us.

 

In this special sense, God's people may be “at home” with each other each time that we gather at the Lord's Table in Holy Communion.

And Charlotte is at that table too, at the extended part of the table that we cannot see right now, enjoying the complete sharing in the joys of being at home with Jesus.

 

Hear it as good news this day:

no matter where we live and work,

no matter whether we have many possessions or few,

we already have the invitation to be at home in the Lord Jesus, signed with the blood of his Cross and resurrection.

By that invitation, we know where our home is.

With that invitation in hand, we decide how to live each day.

And that invitation is the best thing that we have to share.

 

“Welcome home,” Jesus says to Charlotte, and to us all.  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.