Sunday, November 7, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
All Saints Sunday
watch this service online (readings start around 20:51; sermon starts around 27:06)

When I was in seminary in Chicago, I had the opportunity to take classes with other students from several different denominational backgrounds, because there are so many different seminaries in the city.  This week, I’ve been remembering a seminarian I got to know in one of my classes who was studying at the Catholic Theological Union.  He was preparing to be a parish priest, but once he was ordained he would also be living as a monk with the brothers at the monastery who had helped him go to seminary.  Even before seminary, he had gotten to know these brothers and the monastery well – and he shared stories with us in class about what it’s like to live there, and what the monastery itself is like.  It sounded like a beautiful, if challenging, way to live. 

But the one thing that stuck with me most from his stories was his description of the main sanctuary at the monastery.  Their chancel had a raised platform with the table on it, much like ours here.  But they also had a long communion rail; it was made of polished wood and it ran all the way around the chancel in a big semi-circle.  All the brothers could fit around it together as they gathered to receive communion.  But that circle didn’t stop at the wall.  Outside the sanctuary, on the other side of the wall, the railing continued on around in stone, forming one big ring around the table.  On the stone side of the circle was the monastery’s cemetery.  Every single time they gathered for communion, that one big circle reminded the monastery’s living brothers that they were still connected to the brothers who had gone before them.  They were reminded that God’s love and mercy and provision aren’t only for the living – that we belong to God forever, in our life and in our death.  

I’ve mentioned this monastery communion rail before in my sermons – it’s such a powerful image.  But it’s been on my mind again this week – because today, we actually have something kind of similar set up here in our sanctuary.  This table where we have photos and memories of our loved ones who have died, today will also be the table where we take communion together.  Like the monastery communion rail, continuing around into the cemetery, today this table is a reminder that we are still connected to those who have gone before us.  Together with them, we are all still part of the one communion of saints.  

Sunday, October 31, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Reformation Day
First reading • Psalm • Second reading • Gospel reading
watch this service online (readings start around 19:40; sermon starts around 26:04)

I talked a little bit about the Re:Formation conference (AKA TheoCon) in my sermon last week: how Bishop Rinehart spoke about this time as liminal space, a time of transition, time for rest and listening and discerning whatever it is that comes next.  One other really fun thing I got to do at the Re:Formation conference was to go to a workshop led by the one and only Lisa Kramme, the Synod Director for Faith Formation.  (Council members might actually remember meeting Lisa at our retreat back in July – she is a delightful human being!)

Lisa’s workshop was a story lab – a hands on kind of lab with lots of different activities to help us work on our storytelling skills.  The very first activity we did was to write an autobiography of sorts.  We  didn’t have to write a comprehensive life story, but we did have to share something meaningful about who we are – and we had to do so using exactly twelve words. No more, no fewer.  

I had been joking around a lot with Lisa all morning (we used to work together, so she and I know each other pretty well) – so for my twelve word autobiography, I ended up writing: “I’m from a family of people who like kind-spirited, irreverent jokes.”  I felt like I had done a pretty good job capturing an important slice of who I am, what makes me me.  But then the assignment changed.  Keeping our words in the same order, we were then asked to cut them down to just six words… then three… then finally just one.  My autobiography shrank from “I’m from a family of people who like kind-spirited, irreverent jokes.” to “I’m from people who like jokes” and then to “people who joke(s)” and finally just “jokes.”  

Sunday, October 24, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 17:01; sermon starts around 22:15)

I have almost never missed a Christmas at home with my family.  And, considering all the different places I have lived, that has often taken some doing.  

When I lived in the Dominican Republic, it took me almost 24 hours to get home.  The DR isn’t that far away from the US, but it took me two bus rides and a taxi just to get to the airport.  From there to Omaha, it usually took at least three flights, and then over a two hour drive to actually get home.  So, as you can imagine, I got to spend lots of long layovers getting to know airports in Miami and Atlanta and Dallas and Chicago and so on.  But I always found fun things to do.  I’d walk up and down the concourses and eat snacks; I’d chat up friendly-looking people to find out why they were going where they were going; I’d look through the gift shops and thumb through the books.  To this day, I still have a collection of scarves I bought in airport gift shops because after four years of living in the tropics, I got cold very easily – even in Miami!  

But I never missed a single Christmas in the four years I lived in the Dominican Republic, even though it took me a whole day to get home. 

The one year I didn’t make it home for Christmas was actually the year I was on internship in New Mexico.  I had to work on Christmas Eve and it was just too far away to make it home afterward.  Instead, I flew home about a week after Christmas, on December 31st, New Year’s Eve.  I preached that morning at a church in El Paso and went straight from the church to the airport.  I made it as far as Dallas – and then a massive ice storm hit.  My two hour layover stretched from two hours into four, then six hours, then eight hours.

Sunday, October 17, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 15:24; sermon starts around 22:45)

When I was a small child, I was very excited for the day that I would finally get to start going to school.  School was where my mom worked – and I loved hanging out with her, reading and making craft projects and playing silly games and having fun.  But as excited as I was to start school, I was also equally as terrified about the prospect.  My dad has even told me in recent years about how anxious I was about the fact that I didn’t know how to read yet – and no amount of reasoning could persuade me that school is, in fact, the place you’re supposed to go to learn how to read.  And beyond that, I just had no real idea what school would be like – for me, it was a venture into the unknown.

On the first day of kindergarten roundup, Mom took me to school, all dressed in my new school clothes, with my new little backpack on my back.  At first I was excited, but with every step closer to the classroom, it felt like my excitement was slowly replaced by terror.  Finally we stood in the very doorway of the classroom and I was so filled with fear that I would not let go of her.  She turned to leave and go to her own classroom, and I literally wrapped my arms around her leg and clung on like a second skin.  Eventually she pointed out that another little girl I was friends with was there, and she got me to let go just long enough to wave hello – and when I turned around, poof!  Mom was gone.

Looking back now, it’s a pretty cute, funny little story.  And, obviously, I survived a whole lot more schooling after that.  But at the time, I was really scared.  I didn’t know what was going to happen or what it would be like.  And so I did what humans tend to do when we’re afraid – I grabbed for something familiar and I held onto it for dear life, with both hands.  

Our instinctive fear reaction comes from one of the oldest parts of our brain – the amgydala, located near the brain stem.  As we learn and grow older, we develop more and more of our higher brain function, like reasoning and logic and language – we literally learn to “use our words”!  We grow into being able to view and interpret the world around us in more rational and abstract and imaginative ways.  

Sunday, October 10, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Twentienth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 21:05; sermon starts around 28:05)

Several weeks into my Peace Corps service, I was still waking up every morning and having to actively remind myself that I wasn’t in Nebraska anymore.  By this point, I was living in our community-based training site on the eastern side of the island – we weren’t even done with training yet! – and I was already feeling ready to come home.  

Don’t get me wrong – the Dominican Republic is a beautiful country, and at first I was really excited to be there.  I remember riding in on the bus from the airport for the first time; I stared out the windows with my mouth hanging open, taking in the palm trees and the ocean and the brightly painted buildings and the merengue and bachata blasting from the radio.  I was excited to try Dominican food, and to try out my Spanish skills talking with Dominican people, and just generally to immerse myself as much as I could in Dominican culture.

But a month or so in, the newness of everything I was experiencing had started to wear off – and I was tired.  I was tired of speaking in Spanish all the time – it was exhausting!  I was tired of eating beans and rice every day.  I was tired of people always staring at me or standing too close to me.  I was tired of it always being too hot or too wet or too loud.  I was tired of constantly feeling out of step with the people around me.  Sometimes I would even imagine to myself that this whole thing would turn out to be one huge prank: like a game show host would step out from behind a curtain and be like, “Surprise!  You’re on Candid Camera!” and everyone would suddenly start speaking English and acting like “normal” people.

Sunday, October 3, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 14:37; sermon starts around 21:55)

For the last several weeks, we have been steadily making our way through the Gospel of Mark, following Jesus and the disciples as they draw closer and closer to Jerusalem.  And it seems like the closer Jesus gets to Jerusalem – and to the cross – the more difficult his teachings are becoming.  Just in the last few weeks, we have heard Jesus say that anyone who wants to get ahead must be last of all and servant of all; we heard him say that we must lose our lives in order to find them; and just last week you might remember his teachings that if your eyes or hands or feet cause you to stumble, you should cut them off!

Today’s reading from Mark manages to hit us even closer to the heart with this difficult passage about divorce. You can tell that even the disciples find this teaching harsh, because they bring it up again with Jesus later – like they think that maybe when the Pharisees asked him, Jesus was just a little hangry or something and needed to have a snack and relax.  But when they ask him about it in private, Jesus not only reaffirms this teaching, he doubles down on it and makes it sound even harsher.

It’s hard to read this text. It has been used in such harmful ways in the church: especially against the many people whose lives have been touched by divorce and against members of the LGBTQ community.  I’m sure there are people sitting here who know exactly how it feels to have this text used against them – people who have been made to feel shame by other people wielding this text like a weapon.  I’m not here to do that.

Sunday, September 26, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 16:41; sermon starts around 25:00)

I’ve talked a bit about my mom in my sermons and about how she was diagnosed with cancer around the time I was five or six. My whole childhood was significantly shaped by her illness and death; but yet, as an adult, I have been amazed to keep discovering just how little I understood about how hard and painful my mom’s battle with cancer really was. I knew that she had chemotherapy that made her hair fall out – I remember getting to play with some of the fun wigs that she had – but I had no idea how rough the chemo and the radiation treatments really were on her body. It was basically a race to try to kill the cancer before the cancer – or the treatment itself – killed her. 

And I knew that Mom had had a mastectomy.  As a kid, that part of it seemed pretty straightforward to me: that’s where the cancer is right there, so just – boom – chop it off and you should be good to go!  But now, as I’m getting close to the age my mom was when she was battling cancer, even that choice hits me kind of differently.  I’m still a relatively young person – and so was my mom – and I can’t imagine having to make that choice whether to literally cut off part of my own body.  That could not have been easy.

But in my mom’s case, that amputation was the most hopeful thing that they could do.  She was barely 40 and there was every reason to expect that she still had decades of life ahead of her.  She was a beloved elementary school teacher and had a huge community of support behind her, praying for her to get better.  And, of course, more than anything, she was a wife and a mother with three young kids at home all under the age of ten.  We needed her.  We loved her.  And so the doctors fought like hell to save her life.  They tried everything that they could to help her, exhausted all possible options, even experimental treatments.  And some of those treatments were extremely invasive and aggressive and painful, but the doctors decided it was worth it – because her life was worth saving, and it was their best chance of doing so.

Sunday, September 19, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 17:34; sermon starts around 23:13)

For the last several weeks, we’ve been reading a lot of passages from the book of James (Luther’s least favorite epistle, lol).  The letter of James belongs to a category of biblical writings known as “wisdom literature” – this also includes books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.  While wisdom literature can sound like something that would be really abstract and esoteric, one of the things that actually characterizes biblical wisdom literature is that it is often very practical and down to earth.  This is the tone that James sets in the very first verse of our second reading today.  He writes, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”  For James, wisdom is more than just words – wisdom is about our actions.  The true test of wisdom is in how it is reflected – or not reflected – in our day-to-day lives.  

To help draw this out and make it clearer, James asks his readers to consider three questions:

1. Who is wise and understanding among you?
2. Where do all the conflicts and disputes among you come from?
3. What does God want?

These are important questions in the life of faith.  The first time I can remember really wrestling with these questions was way back when I was in sixth grade.  I’ve talked a little bit before about how unpopular I was growing up, how I was bullied a lot.  I grew up as a member of a small class in a K-12 school in a tiny town.  There weren’t exactly a lot of rungs on our social ladder back then, but you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever the lowest rung was, that’s where you’d find me.  

Sunday, September 12, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 20:02; sermon starts around 27:23)
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One morning, when I was in high school, I was hanging out in the school’s computer lab. I was about sixteen years old; it was my junior year, and I was by far the fastest typer in my class – because unlike many of the other students, I actually bothered to practice. I was deep in the middle of one of the typing lessons when one of my younger brother’s friends – Mason Kalin – came into the lab. He saw me sitting back in a corner of the lab and came over to talk to me. I was kind of annoyed by this – I was trying to concentrate on what I was doing! So I only kind of half-listened as Mason started going on and on about whatever it was he was talking about. It sounded like maybe he was talking about one of the video games he and my brother had been playing recently – all kinds of explosions and chaos and who knows what else – I was pretty sure I had already heard my brother going on and on about it at home, so I didn’t feel like I really needed to hear it again. 

Eventually Mason wandered off and I went back to my typing.  After a while, the bell rang, and I closed out of the computer and gathered my stuff and prepared to go to my next class.  But when I stepped out into the hallway, it was like a ghost town.  Nobody was at their lockers, nobody else was walking to their next class – it was weird.  So I walked down the hall a little ways to try to find out what was going on.   And I discovered that everyone – students, staff, faculty – the entire school was all crammed into the library; and they all had their eyes glued to the TV.  I walked in to see what was going on – and I got there just in time to watch the second tower fall.  

Sunday, September 5, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 15:10; sermon starts around 22:50)

On Tuesday afternoons, almost every week, I drive to Fremont to meet up with other clergy folks from around the area for text study (as I’ve mentioned many times before).  And for me, it’s become a bit of a habit after text study to hit up one of the many drive-thrus in Fremont and bring home something for supper.  It’s just nice to get home and have supper ready and not have to cook.  

My go-to is usually Raising Cane’s, but this last Tuesday I was in more of a taco kind of mood, so I decided to head to Taco Bell instead.  I pulled into the parking lot of Taco Bell and was about to get into the drive-thru lane when I noticed something odd.  A couple of other cars had pulled into the lot ahead of me, driving toward the drive-thru, but at the last minute, they veered away and drove out the other side of the parking lot.  I got closer and realized that there was one lone Taco Bell employee out sweating in the sun, standing at the end of the drive thru lane and waving cars away.  

Sunday, August 22, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 12:43; sermon starts around 19:59)

Our readings for this morning actually begin with the end of a story.  The Israelites have been dreaming of the promised land since the days they were slaves in Egypt.  They followed Moses through the sea and into the desert.  They wandered for decades in the wilderness, where they buried an entire generation of their people.  They followed Joshua, son of Nun, into battle as they conquered the land of Canaan.  And now, at long last, God has “given rest to Israel from their enemies all around.”  They finally made it!  The promised land is theirs.

Now, in the last couple chapters of the book, Joshua gathers all the people together – he “[summons] all Israel, their elders and heads, their judges and officers, and [says] to them, ‘I am now old and well advanced in years; and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done… for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you.”  He reminds them: God “gave you a land on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.”  Now that all the tribes of Israel have settled into the land that they have been given, Joshua calls them together to remember that everything they have received is a free gift from God, and not something that they earned for themselves.

And so this story that we read today is a scene of thanksgiving and celebration, just as you might expect.  But there’s also more to it than that.  After Joshua finishes retelling all the wonderful things that God has done for the people of Israel, he says to them: “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve God in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.”  And together, Joshua and all the people of Israel pledge their allegiance to God, renewing the covenant that God first made with Abraham.

Sunday, August 15, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 14:37; sermon starts around 19:08)

I vividly remember the first time I ever tried to make guacamole.  I think I was maybe a sophomore in college – about 19 or 20 years old.  I’m pretty sure I had only just recently eaten guacamole for the first time.  It wasn’t something we ever really ate at home when I was growing up.  But for me it was definitely love at first bite.  So I wanted to try to figure out how to make my own guacamole at home.  It seemed pretty straightforward: mash up some avocados, add some lime juice, throw in some diced tomatoes and onions, a pinch of salt, and – of course – some garlic.  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, if you’ve ever shopped for avocados, you can probably guess my first mistake.  I had no idea how to choose a ripe avocado – and even if I had known, the avocados I found at the grocery store were all hard as rocks.  But I didn’t let that stop me!  I got back to my apartment with my produce purchases and decided to dive right in.  The avocados I bought were so hard I physically could not mash them.  I just ended up cutting them up into tiny pieces before tossing them with the other ingredients.  It was really more of an unripe avocado salad than it was guacamole, and it was a disaster.  But I thought to myself: No worries, I know how to fix this – garlic!  Garlic covers a multitude of sins.  So I added some extra garlic.  I added a LOT of extra garlic.

I added so much garlic that it completely overpowered all the other flavors in the guacamole.  Honestly, that didn’t bother me too much – I like garlic a lot, so I didn’t mind some extra garlic flavor.  But when I woke up the next morning, I could still taste that garlic.  I brushed my teeth, and I could still taste garlic coming off of my breath.  And it soon became pretty clear that I didn’t just taste garlic – I smelled like garlic too.  Every Friday morning in the music department at Wesleyan, we had recitals – all the students in the department would gather down in Emerson Recital Hall to watch each other perform.  That morning, where I sat, there was at least a three seat buffer on all sides of me, because absolutely no one wanted to sit next to me.  Even after showering, I absolutely reeked of garlic.  

Sunday, August 8, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 14:52; sermon starts around 20:48)

When I was growing up, like most kids, I really liked candy.  I had a really big sweet tooth.  Some of my favorite candies were only available during the Easter season, so I was always really excited when Easter came around.  I mean, yeah yeah, Jesus rose from the dead and all, and that was great – but also, they have Cadbury Crème Eggs at the grocery store, yeah!!  

As Paul writes, “when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child” – and in my childish reasoning, I thought: well, a little candy is really good, but a LOT of candy – that’s got to be even better!  And this candy’s only around once a year, so I’ve gotta make it count – so almost every Easter, I would go overboard, eating about as much candy as I could physically stand.  There was one year in particular that stands out – I don’t remember how old I was – I was so excited about the candy that I hardly even ate any real, substantial, nourishing food.  I just gorged myself on sweets all day – I couldn’t get enough.  By the time we got home from my grandma’s house that evening, I was not feeling very well – as you can probably imagine.  I vividly remember starting to walk up the steps to go to my room, when all of a sudden I was violently revisited by everything I had eaten that day – 🤮 – all over the stairs.  

The really stupid thing is that eating all of that candy didn’t even really feed my hunger.  As soon as I came down off the sugar high and got it all out of my system, I was hungry again!  But I definitely wasn’t hungry for more candy –I was literally sick of candy – instead I was hungry for something real and solid and nourishing.

Sunday, July 11, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 14:59; sermon starts around 23:28)

In our gospel reading from last Sunday, you might remember that Jesus sent out the twelve disciples on their first solo mission.  After a disappointing start in his home town of Nazareth, Jesus sends out the twelve, two by two, into all the surrounding area, to preach and teach and heal in his name.  And for once, the disciples totally nail it!  As Mark writes, “They went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”  Jesus and the disciples are doing awesome stuff all over Galilee: they’re healing the sick; they’re freeing people from their demons; and they’re preaching good news everywhere they go.

This is the report that reaches Herod at the beginning of our gospel reading for today.  Herod had heard of Jesus – but now he’s hearing about all these incredible things that Jesus and his disciples are doing, and the way that massive crowds of people have started following them around.  And all this freaks Herod out. Herod feels threatened because he recognizes that there is real power at work here, real power in the things that Jesus and his disciples are doing.  And Herod recognizes this power because it’s the same power – God’s power – that was at work in John the Baptist.  So, logically, Herod concludes, “Well, the only possible explanation is that this guy must somehow be John the Baptist… whom I killed… who now seems to have been raised from the dead…  Crap.”

Sunday, June 27, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 11:46; sermon starts around 20:18)
image source

Our readings for this morning are all full of such good news.  As a preacher, it almost makes my job harder, because what else can you really add to great texts like these?  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is God’s faithfulness.”  Mmm!  So good — end of sermon! (just kidding)  

The stories in our gospel reading are especially moving.  Jesus has just come back from the trip he made across the sea in our readings from last week, where he healed the man with the demons in the country of the Gerasenes.  And now, by the time Jesus gets back, word of his healing and teaching ministry has spread so widely that he barely steps foot off the boat before he’s mobbed by a massive crowd.  

One of the people who comes to Jesus is a leader of the synagogue named Jairus.  Jairus’s daughter is sick and at the point of death and he is desperate for any way he can find to save her.  He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and begs him to come and heal his daughter.  And without a word, Jesus follows him to his house.  By the time they get there, the little girl has already died and the people are already weeping.  But with just a few words, Jesus raises her to life again.

And Jesus heals another person without even trying!  As Jesus is following Jairus to his house, a woman comes up behind him in the crowd, just trying to touch his cloak.  Like Jairus, this woman is in desperate need of Jesus’ healing power.  She has been bleeding for twelve years, and nothing she has tried has helped her.  She’s spent all her money on medical care and has only gotten worse.  I can only imagine how exhausted and desperate she must be for help.  And, for that matter, how lonely and isolated she must be.  Her hemorrhages were more than just a medical issue – because of them, she would have also been considered “unclean,” forced to live in isolation from her community.  Yet here she is in the crowd, spurred on by the hope that Jesus will be able to help her.  And the instant she just touches him, she can feel in her body that she has, indeed, been healed.  

Sunday, June 20, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 13:01; sermon starts around 20:03)

Our readings for this morning are full of storms and calamity and terror.  I got to talk about these texts with a bunch of other clergy folks at our text study this last Tuesday.  We were trying to imagine what it would have been like for the disicples or for Job facing these dangerous situations.  None of us had ever been on a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee during a storm – and we’ve definitely never been scolded by God out of a whirlwind!  But we’d all had experiences of being completely overwhelmed or outright terrified.  

One of my colleagues talked about his first time being in a boat that was far enough out from the shore that he couldn’t see land anymore.  It was just this little boat floating on all this vast expanse of water.  It kind of reminded me of the story I’ve told before about the first time I swam in the ocean!

Another colleague told us about taking his first steps on the Camino de Santiago.  The Camino is a pilgrimmage walk – about 500 miles on foot over mountains and rough terrain – and he was awed and overwhelmed by the intense journey before him. 

I shared about the first (and currently only!) earthquake I ever experienced.  It was back in 2010, when that massive earthquake hit Haiti.  I was on the other side of the island, but it was still strong enough where I was to put a crack in one of the walls of my little house.  I remember the sound of the bars shaking in my windows and seeing the power lines outside swinging wildly back and forth along the streets.  And I remember feeling this sense of almost betrayal and just utter helplessness.  To me, having grown up in Nebraska, the earth was always steady and trustworthy, yet here it was literally shaking beneath my feet.  I felt like a flea hanging onto a dog’s back for dear life – just tiny and insignificant and powerless.

Sunday, June 13, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Third Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 13:33; sermon starts around 20:03)
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I made a couple of trips to Fremont this last week, and as I was driving by the fields, I was amazed at how tall the corn is already getting in some places.  This time of year especially, I’m always reminded of just how beautiful a place Nebraska really is – so lush and green.  And it will never not be amazing to me how things grow.  Planting and growing things is such an ordinary, mundane part of life in Nebraska, but it’s pretty incredible when you stop and think about it.  We take this tiny little pebble-looking thing and stick it in the dirt, and from it this whole plant grows.  It’s this everyday miracle of creation that we actually get to participate in.  How cool is that??

And agricultural science is amazing to me.  It’s amazing how much we can know about exactly what seeds need in order to grow – the amount of sunlight and moisture, the precise proportion of different nutrients, and how we can analyze the composition of the soil and amend it as needed to get the perfect balance.  Modern agriculture has produced incredible technological advances that make it more possible than ever to create the most optimal conditions for crops to grow.  

And yet, even though we have all these amazing advances, at the end of the day, we’re still a lot like the farmer in Jesus’ parable.  We prepare the field and we plant the seed, but we still don’t really know exactly how it grows.  Or to say it another way, we don’t know how to make a seed grow.  It’s not like you can just open up a seed and yank out a plant.  We can do lots of things to create the ideal conditions for a seed to take root and grow.  But none of us can make a seed grow.  Only God can do that.

Sunday, June 6, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Second Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 14:43; sermon starts around 21:21)

For the first few months that I lived in my site as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic, I was tasked with doing a diagnostic report in order to get to know the community.  One of the main things that this involved was a lot of going door to door to meet people, to interview them about their lives and about the town.  And to my surprise, at almost every single house I visited, I got asked the same strange question, which was:  Are you here to talk to me about Jesus?

Now, the Peace Corps is pretty explicitly a secular, government organization, so I was very confused as to why people kept asking me this.  But I found out why when, one day, someone else knocked on my door – and I learned that there was a large group of Jehovah’s Witnesses living in the community.  It was a fairly new congregation, so there were lots of missionaries there from the US and Canada and Europe who were trying to get it going – and so, naturally, many people in the community assumed that I was also one of these missionaries.

I had never met a Jehovah’s Witness before, and I quickly became friends with these missionaries.  It was just nice to be able to talk with people who spoke English and who came from a similar cultural background (speaking a second language all the time is exhausting!).  But even more than this, I was interested in talking about Jesus, even though it wasn’t the reason I was there.  I had been studying the bible on my own and I was hungry to grow in my faith, and so when they offered to study with me, I eagerly accepted.  

The two young women who came to visit me became really dear friends – and through them, I learned a lot about what the life of a Jehovah’s Witness missionary was like, what they had sacrificed to be there.  Almost none of them got paid for being missionaries (so, slightly less than a Peace Corps Volunteer, haha).  They would go home for a couple months out of the year, get a few jobs, and work their butts off as many hours as they possibly could so that they could save money to live on the rest of the year.  And they had all left behind their families back in the places they had come from, in order to do this mission work.