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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
There is so much hyperbole – exaggerated metaphors – in the warnings Jesus gives as part of his dialogue today, that our modern ears risk getting tangled in the metaphors and missing the meaning.
The disciples come to Jesus, like tattle-tale kids to a school teacher, to tell him about how they saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and they tried to stop them, because they weren’t officially a Jesus follower.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
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Humility and Wisdom. These can seem to be in kind of short supply these days. And they seem to have been in short supply even in Jesus’ day. Even amidst the disciples.
You might have noticed in our gospel lesson that while Jesus was telling the disciples about how he would humble himself to the point of letting himself be put to death, they weren’t even listening because they were so busy arguing over who was going to be the greatest among them.
So much for humility among the disciples! So much for wisdom.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
Stories of healing and hope, a glimpse of eternity here and now, and the work of Jesus to secure eternity, well, forever:
A father, Jairus, longing for his daughter to be made well, comes to beg the help of Jesus. A woman, believing that she will be made whole, touches the hem of Jesus’ robe.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
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My dad’s grandparents met at the Finnish Lutheran Seaman’s Mission in New York City in 1896, where my great grandmother was one of the relief workers welcoming people like my great grandfather, fresh off the boat. The arms of God stretched wide through the Finnish Lutheran Seaman’s Mission, like the branches of the mustard shrub, to provide welcome and shelter and support to my immigrant great grandfather and so many, many more. The Finnish Lutheran Seaman’s Mission eventually became Seafarer’s International House, which continues this work of providing shelter and support to immigrants and refugees and even amidst the pandemic, asylum seekers, some of whose only visitors are the Seafarer’s folk.
This is the kind of work made possible by God’s persistent planting, the scattering of seed talked about by Jesus in today’s gospel lesson.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
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I want to talk with us today about the repairing of relationships with people and the world around us and the repairing work – the restoration and resurrection work made possible by Christ and a relational, trinitarian God. But, to get to the resurrection part, we need to acknowledge how things get broken in the first place.
When we are captured by sin we are separated from seeing and perceiving God, and therefore our relationship to God, ourselves, our fellow human beings, and the world around us breaks down. The degradation and destruction of God’s good green earth is an example of what happens when we stop seeing and perceiving God around us – how could we keep pouring pollutants into the air and water and earth if we saw God present in these precious natural resources? Racism and other “isms” are also an egregious example of this break down of relationship and sinfulness. Instead of looking around us and seeing the beauty of and fullness of God reflected in all of the variety of skin colors and other unique characteristics created by God in other people, we as a human race and as individuals have all too often “otherized” and demeaned people in order to gain a false sense of superiority.