Luke 19:1-10

A Sermon for the end of the Pentecost Season

Last weekend the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. Two great teams, extra innings. It was quite a game.

Leading up to Game 7, there was some talk about good luck charms and rituals that various players on both teams had.

For example, the Dodger’s Japanese pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, has an interpreter with an unusual good luck charm. Keep in mind, we’re talking about the pitcher’s interpreter, not the pitcher himself. On the days when Yamamoto pitches for the Dodgers, his interpreter always wears special boxers featuring a rabbit shooting lasers from his eyes.

A lot of sports figures have good luck charms.

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A Sermon for All Saints Sunday

Today is another festival Sunday – All Saints Day.

In the 2006 hymnal from Augsburg Publishing, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, at the front of the book, there is a list of saints and others to be remembered. For example, they have a special day (July 27) for Mary Magdalene and call her “an apostle.” The word “apostle” really means missionary. Does that title really apply to Mary Magdalene? If one is going to do that one should go to the 16th chapter of the Book of Romans where there is a woman named Junias. She was an apostle, a missionary in the normal sense of the term.

In that list of saints and others to be remembered, they don’t use the word, “saint.” The real reason for leaving out the term “saint” is like the trend of not giving grades so everyone is equal.

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John 8:31-36

A Sermon for Reformation Sunday

Is Reformation Sunday passé? Some Lutherans have said the Reformation is over, and we shouldn’t bother with celebrating it anymore. What we should do is admit it was a mistake, and those who were involved in it were mistaken.

That’s not true of course, but that’s the way some Lutherans are trying to spin it. For example, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) tries to say this (in their 1999 agreement with Rome, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. It’s all over. There’s no problem anymore.

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Luke 18:1-8

A Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

In the Gospel text for today there is this widow, and she’s pounding on the door of the unjust judge. The first thing you realize about this parable is that it’s funny. It’s classic Jewish humor. She pounds and pounds on the door. The judge thinks: “How can I get rid of her? She keeps pestering me. I’m just going to give in.”

We remember that a parable has one point, and we need to be careful not to make a parable into an allegory, that is, a story about ourselves and what we should do.

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Luke 17:11-19

A sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

We heard the Gospel text about the ten lepers, and you may have thought: The ten lepers today? Isn’t this usually a Thanksgiving text? What’s going on?

To be sure, we are marching through Luke, more or less. But the Lectionary Committee, however, had no trouble leaving out the parable of the Prodigal Son because they wanted to put it elsewhere. Why the ten lepers now?

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