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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

Go!

Read: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

 
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - July 3, 2016

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

A young man came to a pastor and said that he wanted to be a Christian.

The Pastor instructed him to read the book of Acts as preparation for this important decision.

Weeks passed, the pastor saw the young man at worship, but he never stopped to talk.

After nearly a year, when the pastor was thinking that perhaps he had made a mistake in his suggestion, the young man reappeared one day.

The surprised pastor asked him what had been going on.

The young man replied, “You told me to read the book of Acts.

Every time I started to read it, it told me to do something.

So, I stopped reading and went and did it.

I've been too busy to get back to you.”

Isn't that wonderful?

A new reader, an attentive reader, one who knows that what he reads in the Bible has authority over his life,....and he acts upon it.

 

Jesus chose 70 and sent them out in pairs, with instructions:

Go on your way

Say  “Peace be to this house” wherever you lodge.

Cure the sick

Announce  “The kingdom of God has come near.”

Rejoice that God has encountered you.

 

Imagine the sputtering and complaining:

“You want what? When?  Me?

But I don't...I can't....”

“Go,” says Jesus.

Apparently there will be lots of on-the-job training.

As we go along, resources will be revealed to us.

And somehow, they will be enough.

How can this be so?

We will find out in the doing.

We want to have it all explained and fully understood before we start, but that is not going to happen.

We'll learn as we go along.

Our big plans will no doubt be sharply modified.

We can rarely guess what God might have in mind for us next.

How many times in our own households have we said, “Well, I would never do thus and so,...and that turns out to be the very direction in which God sends us.

“Go on your way,” Jesus says.

 

We're always worried about long-range  objectives and short-term goals.

Jesus is taking care of all of that.

Our part is in the doing, the process.

Paul says: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God is in charge of results.”

Our Stephen Ministers say, “We are the care-givers, and God is the cure-giver.”

 

I know that I have to keep re-learning that all the time.

I could spend lots of time in conversation with a particular couple or person, and think that we are making progress and that good things will happen....and then....nothing happens, and I get frustrated.

But I shouldn't – since my part is planting seed, and tending it as best I can.

God is in charge of the results...somehow, sometime...God knows when.

And we will be just as surprised as the 70 as to how it all turns out.

 

We may have an occasional burst of enthusiasm, get up a special offering for this or that, until our worry about results sets in.

--We soon realize that our donations to the Food Pantry or to St Anthony Center will not end poverty and hunger around the world.

--four families at a time that we aid through Family Promise will not end homelessness even here in this county, let alone the rest of the world.

--that Curran and Phoebe Hospitals in Liberia that we aid cannot resolve all that nation's ills.

And so we get depressed and wonder what good came out of our efforts.

 

Jesus sends us out and flings us up against the great injustices and problems of a fallen and troubled world, and we break like waves dashing upon the rocks.

Hold on a minute!

We see one wave crashing, but God sees a whole reshaped seashore.

What good were our efforts?

Jesus says, “I saw Satan falling from heaven like a flash of lightning.”

In other words, those little things which we can do, which seem so small and often ineffectual, are signs of the ultimate change of all creation.

They point just a little bit toward God's plan for the outcome of all life; a small part, but a part nonetheless, of a very big picture.

Go on your way.

The kingdom is not about eternal nothingness as other religions might suggest, but about joyous activity; caring and being cared for, in the context of the praise of God.

Say “Peace be to this house.”

The house which has never known peace will finally be made whole.

And we can apply this to an individual family, to a congregation, to a nation, to a genetic grouping, to the whole human race.

Cure the sick, since illness and death will in the end be overcome by God.

Announce “The kingdom of God is come near.” in whatever we say and do in Jesus' name.

Rejoice that God has grabbed hold of us, and will not abandon us, will give us what we need, and forge us into the community we will finally be.

 

Well, there is the whole plan, as Jesus lays it out, or at least as much of it as we will know this side of heaven.

So let's look at some of our activities in its light:

1.July 4 event   What results are there?

--We have a number of volunteers doing small portions of the entire event.

--There is much conversation, getting reacquainted with members and the multitude that passes by.

--The total number of people who get something to eat, or talk, or pick up devotional materials or extra Sunday School books, or sample the program here in the nave, increases each year, and some are looking especially to come back because of a good experience in the past.

--And yes, it is all given away, much to the amazement of many.

“What's the catch?” they ask. No catch!

It is a sign that heaven is a free gift of God which cannot be bought or sold – only shared.

2.Several families in the parish are struggling with a pile of problems.

Our Outreach Committee members are quietly figuring out ways to be of assistance.

3.On a much bigger scale, our participation in Family Promise continues.

Somewhere around 1,000 volunteers around the community are each doing a little bit in this effort to surround a handful of families with the support, encouragement, and resources they need to be successful.

These are collectively pointers to the nature of the heavenly community, where there is enough and each has some way both to give and also to receive the loving care that is needed.

The task is to announce in words and actions that the kingdom of God is come near.

Even the smallest  efforts can be part of God's plan.

We have and can do much more than we think possible.

The verbs are in front of us, ready for our action:

Rejoice...Announce...Cure...Say..Go!   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.