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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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 “justify the ways of God to man?”
How do we explain the terrible things that happen in life, the tragedies, accidents, devastating floods, and illnesses? If God is good, why does evil exist? 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.”

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Luke 16:19-31

A sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Here we go again . . . more texts about money and possessions, or at least, so it seems at first glance.

First, there is Amos 6:4-7 about the rich: “Woe to those who stretch out on their couches . . . who sing idle songs . . . who anoint themselves with the finest oils.”

Then there’s the lesson from 1 Timothy with its famous line: “The love of money is the root of all evils” (I Timothy 6:10). Note: It doesn’t say: “The love of money is the root of many evils.” Rather, it says: “The love of money is the root of all evils.” That’s big.

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