A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. [Jesus said]: “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:13-14). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! On first reading, this text appears to be an assortment of different, unconnected moments in the ministry of Jesus. We have a healing (vv. 1-6), a parable (vv. 7-11), and then a teaching about concern for the poor (vv. 12-14). When you look at the text more closely, however, you see that this all happens on one occasion. The text begins with a reference to a meal on the Sabbath at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees in verse 1, and it is not until verse 25 that we leave this occasion. Recognizing this unity encourages us to look for the connection among these seemingly unrelated events. Like a friend telling us what happened last night at dinner, Luke re...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Look at him! Not so high and mighty now, is he? The shepherd has been struck, and all his sheep have scattered. As his breath leaves and his blood drips to the ground, he doesn’t look much like one whom the Lord God favors. His father was unable to protect him, as even now his body bears the marks of the instrument used to bring him death. What good did his sacrifice do for him now? Why, I believe that the Lord God had even declared him to be perfect. Him… perfect! In all truth, he was the one who was the renegade. He went out into the countryside chasing after his stupid sheep! I, on the other hand, followed in my father’s footsteps, working in the fields. It’s backbreaking work, and the yield is limited due to insects, weeds, poor soil conditions, and a lack of water. But the ground isn’t my only adversary; so is the harsh, demanding Creator of heaven and earth. The shephe...

Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is our Gospel lesson, Luke 12:49-53. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I know for many of you, “parliamentary procedure” is a dirty word. But I must confess I am a fan of Robert’s Rules of Order . Well-done parliamentary procedure does make for shorter, more orderly meetings, ensuring that while the majority opinion prevails, the rights of the minority are also protected.   One of the more interesting parliamentary procedures originated in the Roman Senate. Ordinarily, the Romans used voice vote. But if there was a vote that was disputed or considered too close to call, one of the members might rise and call for a division of the house. Those who were voting divided themselves—the “ayes” on one side of the house and the “nays” on the other side. The call for a “division of the house” is still useful for verifying the results of a voice vote. It can also be a method of applying pressu...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “By faith [Abraham] went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:15-16). Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! I enjoy camping, but I prefer staying in a cabin or lodge. Two or three days in a tent… that’s about enough “roughing it” for me before my sense of adventure is satisfied. The threshold for my wife is much lower. But Abraham lived in a tent for 100 years, from the age of 75 when God called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to the day he died at the age of 175 in the land of Canaan. Though God promised Abraham and his descendants an inheritance that would stretch from the Nile River to the Euphrates, Abraham lived as a pilgrim and stranger in Canaan. He died with the only plot of ground in his name being the cave of ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.  And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. . .” (Ecclesiastes 1:12-14). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Have you ever stepped back from your work, your possessions, your life—and asked, “What’s the point?” If you have, you are not alone. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, asked that question in Ecclesiastes. He had it all—power, riches, knowledge, pleasure—and still declared, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” That’s life “under the sun”—life apart from God. But thanks be to God, there is another way: life under the Son —Jesus Christ, the Redeemer who brings purpose, peace, and promise even in a world t...