A sermon for Reformation Sunday
The festival of the Reformation is often not celebrated today because it was long ago and things have changed. It took place in a university and involved complicated and abstract thinking. Now things are different. We are no longer fighting with the Catholics, and the important thing is to look to the future, work ahead, and not be focused on the past. But the “one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) has been lost.
A sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
John 8:36
Halloween is coming soon. If you go to Germany, there is no trick-or-treating. If you go to France, there’s no trick-or-treating. If you go to Italy, Russia, China, India, or Egypt, there’s no trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating is just something we Americans do. It has spread to Canada and is beginning to get a foothold in England and Hong Kong.
After Christmas, the Superbowl and Halloween are the most expensive holidays in our country. Why is Halloween so popular? It’s fun. The costumes, candy, decorations. Yet there are other things that are fun, too. Other sports, theater, music, festivals of all kinds.
What is it about Halloween that makes it such a big event? It has to do with the fun of being a little wicked, to dress and act as a scoundrel, to flirt with danger and to play with death. There are haunted houses, ghosts in graveyards, and witches on broomsticks.
A sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Gospel text today is about the widow who was pounding on the door of the judge. What happened? It says in the first verse that this is about prayer: “He told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Does it mean we have to pound harder to make God hear us? In Romans 8:26 it says we are like children and the Holy Spirit translates our prayers. What this parable is really about is what God is like and how God works.
Luke 17:11-18; Ruth 1:15-18
A sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
We heard the Gospel text about the ten lepers, and you may have thought it was Thanksgiving. This text is often assigned for Thanksgiving. Why the ten lepers now? We are marching through Luke. But the Lectionary Committee had no trouble leaving out the parable of the Prodigal Son because they put it elsewhere. Why the ten lepers now?
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
A sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
The great British poet John Milton begins Paradise Lost with the question: How do we explain the ways of God to man? How do we explain the terrible things, the tragedies, accidents, devastating floods, and illnesses? How can we justify the ways of God to man? That is the problem for anyone who seriously looks at life.
Habakkuk takes up this question. Habakkuk 1:4: “The law is slacked and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.” This problem is presented again and again in Scripture. Jeremiah 12:1-2: “Why do the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” Psalm 73:2-3: “I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs; their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as other men are.” In Isaiah 6:11 the prophet asks: “How long, O Lord?”