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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
I want to invite us today to the work of debunking myths and getting to the truth of the matter – or the truth that matters. With courage and open hearts and minds strengthening themselves through active practice we can, with the help of God and as people of faith, scrutinize – look closely at those things we hold most dear – and debunk the myths - or at least add in facts and details that give a fuller picture and add appropriate nuance and complexity.
Here we are on Reformation Sunday, a day when, even if he doesn’t get mentioned much of the rest of the year, most Lutheran churches will trot out some details about Martin Luther, the reformer after whom this branch of the Christian tree is named. They – and we – might talk about how Luther posted his 95 Thesis on the door of the church in Wittenberg to start a discussion about God and faith and how Luther believed that the Church had in some significant ways strayed from her true purpose and course of sharing the gospel. We might talk about how Luther was a great reformer, the first translator of the Bible from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into the language of the “common people” (German at the time). Luther was a brewer of beer, a monk who discovered a different kind of calling in becoming a father and a husband (though not in that order!) and building a life he truly loved with a woman, Katharina Von Bora (herself formerly a nun) with whom genuine love seems to have been shared.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
I read a story about a family, where the parents were regularly cooking dinner and sitting down with their three children to eat. Over the years, however, their children became pickier and pickier eaters, until the parents, when the kids were ages eleven, thirteen, and sixteen, were fed up with all of the complaints and pickiness. They told their kids they would be buying them cold cuts and cereal and that they could fend for themselves, while the parents would begin to cook a variety of meals that they enjoyed eating, just the two of them. This went on for some 6-8 weeks until one night their youngest child walked by as they were sitting down to dinner and said, “Mmmm…that looks pretty good. May I have some?” The parents replied that they had only made enough for themselves, but told their child what they would be cooking the next night and asked if they would like to join them. The answer was “yes,” and so that child began to eat dinner with them again. So, too, did their other two children follow, not too long afterwards. And there were never any more complaints about the meals prepared to be shared in that family.
Oh, if only such an approach could work for every parent who has ever had a child complain about the dinners prepared for them!
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
In France’s northern Burgundy region, Guédelon castle is being built entirely by utilizing methods that would have been employed in in the Middle Ages. (NPR, October 1st, 2023) With stones chiseled into shape by stonemasons and metal nails and implements forged onsite by blacksmiths, a garden filled entirely with plants indigenous to the region in medieval times, and a bell calling everyone to lunch, just as it would have hundreds and hundreds of years ago, this castle – an ongoing construction and education site that sees 300,000 visitors a year – might be seen as a window into the past. Yet if you ask twenty-four-year-old Simon Malier, who makes furniture for the castle, or other young people who are part of the 100+ person staff onsite, the work they are undertaking is life-transforming in the present tense. As they labor with their hands, they learn about themselves and their connection to the elements with which they work, and this undertaking could not be accomplished without the collaboration of a community, and they are sharing what they are doing with others in ways that transform those lives as well. Simon Mailer, the twenty-four-year-old furniture artisan I mentioned, first visited the castle when he was four-years-old with his grandparents, and knew then that he wanted to someday work with his hands.
We, too, dear Church, are called to participate in the new ancient work of sharing the gospel of Christ’s love and mercy with the world. We, too, are called to discover the the ways in which this age-old message lives and breathes for all of us – young and old – today.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
I hope that I won’t soon forget the smiles and laughter of our youth and adults as we bowled last Sunday afternoon in Kingston. I hope I’ll remember the encouragement and cheering everyone was giving to each other, and the little side conversations where people were sharing about their lives and what they are up to. It was a beautiful space of kindness shared (might I even dare say Christian love).
I don’t know about all of you, but I get overwhelmed sometimes. Overwhelmed by what’s going on for me personally, with my family, with my work here at Redeemer, with what’s going on in the world, with trying to authentically live life as a person of faith in a polarized world that just seems to move faster and faster and faster. Hmmm…I think we need to harvest in the kind of memories I was just describing to see us through the winter moments of life.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
I met my friend Kelli and discovered how much trouble two people could create all at the same time. We were sixteen and exchange students in Austria. As exchange students, we all had host families and attended local schools in different towns and cities, but once a month we would gather together with volunteer counselors (Austrians who were former exchange students themselves), stay at a guesthouse somewhere, and have a chance to check in on how things were going. The idea being that we’d become a good support system for one another.
The trouble began on one of these weekends when Kelli and I found ourselves a bit bored with the regular activities planned, and starting hatching some plans of our own. Wouldn’t it be fun to sneak out at night and go explore the neighborhood a bit? They locked the guesthouse each night, so we’d have to climb out a window one and half floors above the ground – but we ran to one of our rooms and tried it out a few times on one of our breaks and found that it was doable. We’d have to carry out this plan in secret so the counselors wouldn’t find out, but we could leave after lights out and carry our shoes so as to make less noise. There were so many yellow and even red flags flying in our faces as we made these plans, but Kelli and I happily ignored them all as we plotted and hatched.