Sunday, March 27, 2022
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fourth Sunday in Lent
watch this service online (readings start around 18:40; sermon starts around 25:11)

The story that Jesus tells in our gospel reading for this morning is one I imagine you’ve probably heard before: the story of the “prodigal son.”  Even if it is really familiar, I’m curious to know what your reaction is to this story.  To ask the pastor-y question: How does it make you feel?

I’m curious because, in my experience, this is a story that tends to make people angry.  Or, at the very least, it’s a story that leaves people feeling frustrated because it feels unfinished – we’re left wanting to know what happens next in the life of this family, with these two brothers.  I think most of us see ourselves in this story; it reminds us of situations or relationships in our own lives, in a way that often leads us to kind of root for a particular character.  I mean, what could be more relatable than a story about family conflict?  There’s a reason the bible is absolutely full of them.

Most often, I find that people relate to the older brother in this story.  He seems like someone who is responsible, hard-working, and reliable – he probably files his taxes on time and has an excellent credit score.  He stays home on the farm and works diligently with his father to make a living.  By contrast, his younger brother goes to their father and demands that he be given half the family inheritance, right now.  He takes the money and splits, leaving behind the farm and his family to go blow his fortune on wild living in some far off place.  Eventually he comes crawling back home, after who knows how many years.  But instead of being angry with him or even demanding an explanation, their father throws this degenerate son a party!  Meanwhile, here’s this hard-working older son who’s been there for his father the whole time, but the minute this irresponsible younger son shows his face, dad kills the fatted calf and throws a feast!  It just doesn’t seem fair.  And sure, the younger brother says he’s sorry, but we never actually see if he really changes his ways because the story ends before we get the chance.

Sunday, March 20, 2022
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Third Sunday in Lent
watch this service online (readings start around 17:58; sermon starts around 24:36)

Whew!  Our readings for this morning are kind of all over the place – they run the gamut from an abundant feast of rich foods in Isaiah 🥘 to smearing manure on a tree 💩 in our gospel reading.  This is not an easy week to be a preacher!  But I’ll do my best. 😉

I wanted to at least take a stab at unpacking the text I find most challenging, which is our second reading, from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  Taken totally out of context like this, it’s hard to know what to do with a text like this one.  Paul’s words here about the Israelites who followed Moses almost sound like he’s threatening the Corinthians that they better shape up and get their act together, or else!  Not exactly the words of grace we’d expect.  But the most troubling part of this reading, for me, is the end of verse 13, where Paul writes: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”  

This is a verse that has often been taken out of context.  It’s been turned into a bit of popular theology you’re probably familiar with: the idea that “God will never give you more than you can handle.”  Have you heard that one?  On the surface, it sounds nice: God will never give you more than you can handle.  And I think it’s often meant as a compliment, as kind of a roundabout way of saying that someone is strong and resilient and capable of handling the struggles they’re facing.  

But the longer you think about it, the more troubling it gets.  Saying that God never gives us more than we can handle doesn’t sound quite as nice when you stop and consider some of the terrible things that people have had to “handle”: people born with painful and debillitating diseases, for example; children suffering abuse and neglect, families uprooted and torn apart by warfare and violence – like what we’re seeing right now in Ukraine – parents having to bury their children before their time.  The idea that any of these things are from God is disturbing, to say the least.  It makes you wonder what kind of sick god would create all these strong, gifted people only to put them through the wringer because “they can handle it.”

Sunday, March 13, 2022
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Second Sunday in Lent
watch this service online (readings start around 17:22; sermon starts around 25:12)
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Most of us probably don’t think about it very often, but English is really kind of an odd language.  We have some strange ways of saying things that sound perfectly normal to us – until you stop to think about it for too long.  For example, when the weather’s bad and it’s absolutely pouring buckets outside, we often say it’s “raining cats and dogs.”  Why??  That’s so weird!  Or if we’re feeling sick, we might say we’re feeling “under the weather.”  Under the weather??  Like, when are you not under the weather?  (Hopefully the weather you’re under isn’t cats and dogs!)  Or when we meet someone special and we start developing romantic feelings for that person, we might say we have a “crush” on them.  A crush?!  I mean, what a violent way to say that you like someone!  With sayings like these, it’s no wonder that English is such a hard language to learn.

Another kind of odd idiom that we hear from time to time without really thinking about it is the phrase “cutting a deal.”  Have you ever wondered about that phrase?  I mean, it makes sense that you can make a deal, or arrange a deal, or even negotiate a deal.  But what does it mean for someone to cut a deal?

It turns out this phrase actually has some pretty ancient roots – and they’re reflected in our first reading for this morning.  In this passage, we find Abram talking with God in a vision.  God had already told him a while back that he would be the ancestor of a mighty nation – but Abram is (understandably) anxious and kind of doubtful about whether this will really happen; after all, it’s pretty hard to imagine being the father of a nation when you don’t have a single kid of your own – and especially when you and your wife are already well past your childbearing years.  So God makes him a binding promise, a covenant.

Sunday, March 6, 2022
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
First Sunday in Lent
watch this service online (readings start around 14:21; sermon starts around 21:17)

In our gospel reading for this morning, the Spirit takes Jesus – fresh from his baptism – and leads him on a forty day journey out into the wilderness.  And today, that is exactly what all of our readings are doing with us.  Our texts are full of these themes of wilderness and desert and wandering preparing us to begin our own forty day journey through the wilderness of Lent.  

In our first reading, from Deuteronomy, the Israelites are finally coming to the end of forty long years of wandering in the desert.  They are preparing to enter the promised land of Canaan at long last.  This reading is part of a long sermon that Moses preaches to his people, reminding them of all that has happened up until this point and exhorting them to stay faithful to God in their new lives in Canaan.  Moses wants to make sure that the people remember their history – that they remember where they came from – and especially that they remember how God has been unfailingly faithful to them throughout all of it. 

The first thing he instructs them to do in their new home is to make a thank-offering of the firstfruits of the land, in recognition that their whole harvest is a gift from God – especially since they didn’t plant any of it!  And the first thing Moses instructs the people to say as they make their offering is: “Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us.”  In other words: Today I declare that God has kept God’s promise.  

Wednesday, March 2, 2022
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Ash Wednesday
watch this service online (readings start around 9:20; sermon starts around 17:51)
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My dad is a very faithful guy.  He’s a lifelong Lutheran who made sure my brother and sister and I all grew up in the church, and he’s very much a model of faith for me, someone who was instrumental in my own faith formation.  But whenever bad things happen – someone gets bad news at the doctor, or there’s some kind of terrible accident, or some other kind of overwhelming trouble – it absolutely drives my dad nuts that people say, “There’s nothing left to do now but pray.”  “Nothing left to do but pray?!” he’ll say; “Prayer shouldn’t be a last resort – prayer should be where you start!”  

Reading our first reading, from the prophet Joel, I think the people of ancient Judah probably would have agreed with my dad: prayer is where you start.  The Book of Joel begins with some very overwhelming trouble: massive swarms of locusts have devastated the land of Judah, destroying practically everything in their path.  It is catastrophic for their agrarian way of life (not hard for us to imagine here!), and there is a lot of lamenting in the first few verses of the book.  Joel writes: 

…a nation has invaded my land,
powerful and innumerable;
its teeth are lions’ teeth,
and it has the fangs of a lioness.
It has laid waste my vines,
and splintered my fig trees;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
their branches have turned white…
The fields are devastated,
the ground mourns;
for the grain is destroyed,
the wine dries up,
the oil fails.

Joel 1:6-7, 10

But before getting into any logistical details of how to go about recovering from this loss – or even worrying about what everyone is going to eat in the meanwhile – the very first thing the prophet Joel does is to say to the people: