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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



2017 Sermons      

      2015 Sermons

With urgency!

Read: Luke 9:57-62

 
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - June 26, 2016

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

One might easily say that this would be a good week to have a gentle and comfortable sermon.

We've had plenty of turmoil elsewhere this year.

But our Gospel lesson today is not gentle and fuzzy; Jesus' words are tough to hear and uncompromising in tone.

 

One person comes to Jesus offering himself: “I'll follow you anywhere” and Jesus replies that there will be no security in doing so.

No holes in which to hide, nowhere to lay his head.

Jesus recruits another person with his succinct “Follow me.”

The recruit responds with the need to conclude family obligations, to which Jesus' reply seems quite harsh: “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

A third potential disciple asks for a little time to get other affairs in order to which Jesus relies; “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is for for the kingdom of God.”

 

Those paintings of Jesus that are done in soft pastels do not seem to fit this scene, do they?

For Jesus calls us away from things that are “comfortable” to challenges where we have never been.

Only God knows what may be in store when Jesus says “Follow me.”

 

I have a happy job now and again to introduce visitors and friends to St. Mark's.

When the person is potentially a member of the congregation, though, I get an oddly uncomfortable feeling.

I can tell that person about the wonderful people of St. Mark's.

I can show them the beautiful buildings and facilities, and I can describe to them lively programs and activities.

I try to be winsomely inviting and persuasive, and there is much about which we can be justly proud.

I'm uncomfortable, though, because all of the

descriptions I have done, the encouragement I have given, and all the need-meeting options I have suggested to them, have not really gotten to the point.

For when Jesus says “Follow me,” he is not really asking what needs you want to be met by a church; you are not the center of things.

It is Jesus' goal for the whole of creation and not our short term wishes which are foremost here.

 

I should be even more direct with potential members.

I should tell them “This is a great place with wonderful people, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is after you, not me.

You will get what you need,  not necessarily what you want, and what is asked of you is a whole life, nothing less.

How that will work out, I don't know; let's find out, together.

 

Will this be persuasive?

We'll find out, but at least it will be more truthful.

We are constantly trying to make this faith—discipleship--church thing to be more appealing.

The growth experts have lists of things that a congregation should do to be attractive to folks.

You figure out what people want to hear, and speak it to them.

They say we should entertain the adults, do recreation with the kids, avoid anything that could be labeled “boring,” fit everything around the myriad sports schedules so that no one is inconvenienced.

It is not that those are “bad” things, they just don't seem to interest Jesus.

What Jesus says is so strange, different, and downright unreasonable.

Instead of making things easy, he makes them hard.

Instead of making his way fit in with our other commitments and loyalties, he puts his way against them.

Instead of merely reinforcing our resolve to do better, he asks the radical thing of having us choose him over any other obligation at all.

 

At this point, lots of folks get up and head for the door – this is not their idea of what they want to get out of church.

But we don't hear Jesus change his ways, do we?

Often, it seems that folks are like the young man who questioned Jesus and upon hearing what Jesus was asking, “went away sorrowful,” as scripture says.[Mark 10:22]

Of course, we want to be writing and encouraging, welcoming and educating, with a dash of entertaining and recreating thrown in, too...

But, we should never forget that our deepest need is to hear Jesus' call and to give ourselves wholly to it – so completely that nothing is left over – to the Lord Jesus when he says to us as he does in Holy Baptism, and regularly since then, “Follow me!”

 

It plays out in so many ways.

Let's touch briefly on three:

1.Prayer

One of the things that we can do is to remember one another and the whole world in prayer.

--A little time and thoughtfulness qualify anyone for being part of the Prayer Chain.

--Persons and causes can be proposed for inclusion in the Prayer of the Church.

--Join me for Morning Prayer almost every week-day at 9AM on your way to other places,

--or use the lessons and hymns that we list each week in the bulletin and pray Morning Prayer on your own at home.

 

2.Financial stewardship

Sometimes the challenges involve how we use the money that has been entrusted to us.

I read one time about an old pastor who was called into a congregation to help with a capital campaign.

Among the things that he brought from his years of experience was a sheet with the word “excuses” written across the top.

It then listed all of the plausible and reasonable things that folks usually say so as not to be involved financially in the church's work.

He gave responses for each of them, and then wrote at the bottom of the page “All excuses should be treated as a sign of insufficient commitment.”

That was not very gentle, but it is exactly the kind of truth-telling that Jesus does, the kind of expectation he makes without apology, the kind of commitment he asks:

a whole life and all of its components of time, prayer, money, thoughts, skills, laughter, joy, companionship, mutual up building, and all the rest.

 

3.Practical tasks

There are the un-glamorous things that simply need to be done on a consistent basis:

washing windows, watering plants, picking up trash, feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, welcoming the stranger, and on and on.

We know people who dive right in, and other who rigorously avoid any of them.

 

OK, enough! We get the idea.

In summary, Jesus' shocking challenge to those folks walking on the road to Jerusalem, and to us tagging along two millennia later is this:

Discipleship is not easy – conflicts are inevitable, and difficulty is to be expected.

But it is a loving Lord who is pursuing us, one who not only makes great demands but who has first given us great gifts,

which we can pretend are our own, or which we can use as he commissions us.

What will we do this week because Jesus says “Follow me!”?  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.