Faith – Page 32 – Pocket Sized Pastor*

Freedom of a Christian Part 4: What Preaching Should Be

The holiest time of the church year is in three weeks. We will start that week by waving palm fronds in the air, remembering the crowds who welcomed Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. And then, on Good Friday, we will see Jesus on the cross. Holy Week is an emotional week. We discover who we are. We see how we respond to the love and grace Jesus brought. We see first hand how consumed we are by our desire for control, selfishness, and greed. Holy Week is a mirror to our need to be our own god. And it’s also a week that has, historically and even today, been a week full of antisemitism.

Luther, in this passage from On Christian Freedom, called out antisemitic preaching. In his era, crowds during Holy Week attacked Jewish homes and synagogues. Passion plays (reenactments of Jesus’ crucifixion) would be so theatrical and emotional that church-goers responded with violence. Much of this violence relied on people’s pre-existing hatreds, support of local governments, and (what I would call) heretical understandings of Jesus’ story. Luther, who wrote many antisemitic statements and documents during his lifetime, wasn’t forceful enough in his denouncement of this kind of Holy Week preaching. Yet he was knew what preaching wasn’t supposed to do: encourage any kind of violence against marginalized groups.

Preaching, for Luther, is not a lesson about Jesus. Preaching is an event. It’s seeing who we are and how Jesus comes to us anyways. Preaching isn’t a series of moral lessons to help us become our best self. Preaching is about Jesus being 100% for you right now. Jesus isn’t for you as you might become. He isn’t waiting for you to make yourself right before he shows up. He’s here now. and that grace changes everything.

The grace is something we can’t earn. It’s also something we struggle to trust. As people, we’re used to wanting to do something to make us “better.” But Luther is firm that the grace God gives you is free. And it’s through that grace and love that you are made into something new.

Luther is an example of how the grace Jesus gives us helps us see more clearly. Luther saw the antisemitism in the preaching he heard during Holy Week. But he still failed to see his own antisemitic ideas and beliefs. Our prayers should always ask for Jesus’ grace to refine our sight so we can know ourselves better. And as that grace shines a light into our own darkness, it also forms us to be the followers of Christ we are called to be.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings/other readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for Third Sunday in Lent, 3/11/2018.

Children’s Sermon: Miniature

Miniatures. Bring Lego Batmen, Action Figures, and More. Bring a bible too with John 3:16-17 marked. From https://dskidsermons.com/2018/02/27/march-11th-2018-4th-sunday-in-lent/

Hi everyone! I’m so glad you are here today.

So a happy daylight savings time to each of you. I’m…pretty tired. How about you? Accept answers. When I get tired, it’s hard for me to focus. So I tend relax and instead play. And I like to play with…action figures. I brought some of my favorite ones to play with and, if it’s okay, I’d like to share them with you.

Walk through the different figurines. Explain who they are. Ask the kids HOW we know who they are.

Now all these figures are miniature. They’re smaller versions of what they might look like in real life. Since these are smaller versions of the big versions, these little versions can’t have all everything that the big versions have. This one doesn’t have all everything of Batman – but it does have the details that are important – the helmet, the symbols, the color of the suit. We know what they represent because they have bits and pieces that are the essential – that tell us who this character is.

Today, in our story about Jesus, we’re going to hear some verses that we might have heard before. And these verses, according to Martin Luther, can be described as the “gospel” in miniature. They’re from the gospel according to John. One verse is John 3:16 – that talks about who Jesus is and why Jesus came. I would also add the next verse to that as well, 3:17 – to show a bit of what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. These verses are the essential bits of the faith we all have, describes a little bit of how and why God loves us, and invites us to discover more about what being with Jesus is all about.

Because even though these verses are the gospel in miniature, that doesn’t mean that all we need is to memorize or know these verses and that’s it. These verses are not just “the right answer” to life and if we can repeat them back to someone, we’re okay. Rather, these verses about Jesus, God, love, belief, and life invite us to do more – to spend time figuring out what God’s love is actually is; to discover what belief and trusting God looks like; to spend a life in church, in worship, and in prayer – because when we focus on what’s essential, we learn more about what God wants our life to be about. And that journey…well…never ends but there is joy, peace, and a sense of purpose when we engage with our faith in that way.

Thank you for being here and I hope you have a blessed week.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on Fourth Sunday in Lent, 3/11/2018.

Hourglass: Your Body is Where We Meet God

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

John 2:13-22

My sermon from Third Sunday in Lent (March 4, 2018) on John 2:13-22. Listen to the recording below or read my manuscript below.

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What’s the largest animal you’ve ever transported?

I don’t have an interesting answer to this question. The only “large” animals I’ve ever transported were cats. When I first moved to New York City, I lived with a 20 lb cat named Indiana Jones. He hated car rides and wasn’t thrilled leaving Ithaca, New York at 2 am in the morning for the 5 hour drive into Manhattan. He was mad during the entire journey. But I didn’t need to do anything special to transport him the 230 miles to his new home. I don’t know how to transport a large animal but I can imagine what it might be like. Today, when I think about moving a large animal, my mind dreams up horse trailers. As I drive behind them, it seems like the horses in that metal tin can are always a bit content. Their tails swish back and forth as they stand in their metal enclosure zooming down the highway at sixty five miles an hour. I imagine this kind of setup could be used to move all sorts of animals like cattle, cows, and sheep. If all of us were farmers and we raised our own animals, we would know exactly what it takes to move animals over a large distance. But if we were living 2000 years ago, without trucks, highways, and any modern equipment, we might have a different kind of experience trying to move cattle, cows, and lambs. It would take days or weeks to travel even 60 miles. We would need to carry all the food and water we, and the animals, would need on our journey. We would also need to make sure we followed a route that was safe, free of any bandits and robbers, or end up paying for armed guards to protect us as we traveled. And we would finally need to say a lot of prayers, hoping that no storms, floods, or broken legs caused by stepping in potholes would hurt, break, or damage our animals. Moving animals in the ancient world was probably a big pain. And if we only needed to bring a few with us, we would want a system where we didn’t need to bring any animals at all. Instead, we would want to just show up and have the animals right there. This kind of setup would be helpful for farmers who had to travel long distances and would also work for those of us who aren’t farmers at all. Instead of spending all that time, energy, and resources to bring a large animal with us, we could just buy one and save ourselves the trouble. And that also would be helpful, maybe even grace filled, if the animal we needed was there to help our relationship with God. Through the special use of certain animals in the place God declared as holy, the system of sacrifices used in the Temple in Jerusalem was, I think, focused on showing how God actually cares about us. The sacrifices were about more than just trying to cover up any of our sins; they were a sign of our committed to God who is committed to us. A room full of animals ready to offer to God, as described in the gospel according, could easily seen as a holy gift. So if someone walked in with a whip, and drove the cattle, sheep, and everyone out into the street, we might be annoyed, shocked, and angry at what that person just did.

Jesus is a bit of a punk in our scene from the gospel today. He’s angry, aggressive, and violent. He scared the people and animals; disrupted everything in the Temple, and sent the cattle and sheep to go rampage in the city streets. We tend to, I think, downplay the emotion displayed in this scene. We highlight the corruption, pointing to the money lenders who were converting Roman coins into the money the Temple used, and were over charging and skimming off the top. We take that corruption, combine it with our belief in Jesus’ meek-and-mild manner, and claim that this scene wasn’t that upsetting. Jesus is angry but not that angry. He doesn’t, we imagine, get as upset as people do. But I’d like to invite all of us to stay in this scene as John described it. It’s supposed to feel emotional. It’s supposed to make us cringe. We need to be shocked by the wildness of Jesus in this moment. Jesus isn’t, I think, flying off the handle. He knew exactly what he was doing. But he’s still disruptive. He’s still emotional. He’s still human. And he clears out the Temple being as angry as any of us can be.

Jesus, in this moment, is very human. And he showcased his humanity with his words. He poked those around him by saying he would raise up a temple, restore one of God’s gifts, in only 3 days. The people in that room didn’t see Jesus’ point of view. They focused on the gifts from God they knew. They knew the Temple, its system of sacrifices, and how God made the Temple the place where the divine world and the human world met. The Temple was more than just a fancy building; it was where God promised to be. You might not see or sense or experience God in your life. But everyone knew that when you entered the Temple, when you brought your gifts of an animal or food or even money, you knew God was right there. The Temple was a gift because it was the place where God’s realness could be experienced and seen. The Jewish people around Jesus knew what God’s gifts looked like. And those gifts for them are still, even today, very real. But Jesus was announcing that for the rest of us, a new gift was being offered. And that gift’s Temple, this new and holy place, was a very human body.

Which is odd because bodies are weird. They grow and change and never really stay the same. We can workout and train and get our bodies to do amazing things. But they can also wear out. Or break. Or get sick. It’s difficult, even today, to believe that a body, unique but similar to ours, could be a new and holy place. Jesus, who ate, and sweat, and got tired, and probably even smelled just like we do is the place where God decided to make the divine real. It’s through real hands and real feet that Jesus chose to make himself known. Scripture never tells us if Jesus’ body was perfect. And I believe that we make a mistake if we act as if Jesus never had an upset stomach, or acne, or a stubbed toe. God declared, in Jesus, that the human body, Jesus’ body, and your body – as it is – is a beautiful and divine thing. And it’s through this very human body, with very human needs, and very human emotions, that God chooses to use to adore, cherish, and love the world.

I’ve never transported a large animal. I’ve never had to figure out how to carry and move any kind of large body. But I do know that Jesus came to show that God cares about all of us – including our body. Because it’s through bodies that we experience God’s gifts. Our body is how we hear and see and notice the love that God gives us. It’s through our humanness that we notice and live in those places where God comes down to meet us. Our bodies are the place where we experience God’s blessings. And it’s through these bodies, as they are right now, that God uses to bless those around us. Our bodies are not perfect but they are, through our connection with Jesus, a holy place where we feel God and where those around us discover how much God loves them. Because the Jesus who showed the holiness of his body in the Temple, has made each of us, through our baptism, into our own kind of holy place where people can, and will, and must – meet him.

Amen.

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Freedom of a Christian Part 3: Faith of the Heart

It’s easy to get stuck in our heads. If a problem comes up, we spend a lot of time and energy dwelling on it. If we have an issue with another person, we might even role play entire conversations with them during long car rides. Sometimes these conversations are helpful. The words we say help us gather our thoughts and plot a plan of action. But if these pretend conversations are connected to a deep feeling of anxiety, we might end up lost in our own heads. We end up overthinking the situation. We are consumed by thoughts and end up lost in inaction. Your mind is powerful, complex, and unique. But even a healthy mind can be caught in a feedback loop that traps it.

I like how Martin Luther in our selection from The Freedom of a Christian talks about “faith of the heart.” We tend to talk and imagine that faith is mostly in our minds. We need to “believe” certain ideas and accept a certain vision of reality. Belief is about what you choose to accept or say yes to. This kind of faith feels very much like something we might learn in school. We need teachers and classes to grow in our faith and, hopefully, a few special graduation events a long the way. This kind of faith is a faith of the mind.

But Luther doesn’t experience faith in this way. For him, faith is the center of his reality. In scripture, the heart was always the place where faith lived and breathed. And in ancient times, the heart was the center of everything about us. The heart was where thoughts were created and where the soul lived. The heart was the center of what made a person who they were. For Luther, our faith isn’t about what we believe. Our faith is really about what is the center of who we are. Faith isn’t something only located in our head. Faith is part of everything that makes us who we are.

This kind of faith is a faith that can live through those moments when we lose ourselves in our head. It’s a faith that can handle those moments in our lives when doubt is all we have. A faith that is at the core of who we are is faith that we can rediscover when we haven’t felt Jesus in our life for awhile. This kind of faith is something we cannot earn or create on our own. It’s a deep faith that only God can give. And God grants us this faith through baptism, worship, communion, and daily interactions with the Holy Spirit. We might not sense God in our life. But God continues to grant us the faith we need to know that we are God’s. And this kind of faith, this faith of the heart, is the only faith that can help us live through every part of our lives.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings/other readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for Third Sunday in Lent, 2/25/2018.

Children’s Sermon: Your Heart

Heart. Bring papers, clipboards, and crayons to color a heart.

Hi everyone! I’m so glad you are here today.

So I want to talk about a word today that shows up all over the bible and it’s something that you and I all have. It’s in here point to chest. What’s inside each of us? Our heart! Right! Our heart.

Hearts are pretty amazing. We usually draw them like this draw a heart but the heart inside of us usually looks like this show the heart coloring picture. That’s sort of similar to this one but it’s a little different. And our heart is part of our body, and it pumps and beats over and over again, helping to send blood all over our body. Blood comes through one side, and then gets pushed out through the other. It takes about 1 minute for blood to start at the heart and go through our arms, lungs, stomach, legs, back, brain, head, neck, and back to the heart. And our heart does this work all the time.

In our first reading today, we’re going to here a guy named Martin Luther use the word “heart.” And he’s going to use that word – heart – to represent something about all of us. Like I said before, our heart is inside each of us. It’s deep inside. And in the bible and in Luther’s writing, the word “heart” is the word used to mean all of us. It’s a stand-in for everything that makes us who we are. Our heart is our identity; it’s who we are; it’s about what we like, what our lives are like, all the thoughts we’ve had, all the decisions we’ve had to make, and all the things that we lived through in our past and what we’re going to experience in the future. When we hear the word ‘heart’ in the bible, our writings are trying to tell us to pay attention to what makes us everything who we are. Because everything that makes us who we are is something that God cares about too.

God cares about everything you’ve experienced in the past and what’s going to happen in the future. God cares about the thoughts you’ve had and the thoughts you’re going to have. God cares about you when you are at church, school, sitting in your car seat, and when you are asleep at night. And God cares so much about who you are, that God helps all of us try and do the right, caring, and loving thing. And God does this by giving us a bible we can read, giving us a church where we hear God’s story, a church community where we all try to help and support each other, and the ability to pray to God – so that we can tell God what’s on our mind and we can listen to what God wants to tell us.

God cares about your heart. And God does everything God can do to help our heart be kind, loving, and caring to ourselves and everyone else too.

Thank you for being here and I hope you have a blessed week.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on Third Sunday in Lent, 3/04/2018.

Learning New Songs. From Pastor Marc – My Message for the Messenger, March 2018 Edition

Memorizing song lyrics is not one of my spiritual gifts. If you asked me to recite the lyrics to my favorite songs, I would be embarrassed by how many of the words I would get wrong. When I am at a show, standing on the floor and watching one of my favorite bands play, the lyrics to their songs flow through me. But once the show is over, it’s like I never heard those songs before. Lyrics do not stay at the forefront of my mind. Rather, the entire experience of singing – from the music to the lyrics to whom I’m singing with – is how I hold onto this event. I need the music to recall the lyrics and the lyrics to recall how the song made me feel and the emotions from the song to help me remember the music. Songs, to me, are events that are hard to separate.

You might have noticed in worship that new music is entering into our rotation. David Scance is doing a wonderful job finding new contemporary music to introduce to the 9:00 am service. At the 10:30 am worship, we’ve intentionally been repeating hymns every week. The one verse we sing when we bring the bread and wine to the altar is repeated for a month, helping us rehearse a new piece of music. After that, the song is repeated all year long. The hymns we have picked at 10:30 am are hymns written by Martin Luther. Some of these songs might be familiar to you; others might be brand new. These new songs are invitations to discover God’s grace in a new way. New words and new tunes can help us see God’s love for us anew.

The month of March this year is a month that is hard to separate. For 31 days, we are in Lent. The songs of Lent from “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross” to “Ah, Holy Jesus” will carry us into the Three Days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Lent is an opportunity to see ourselves and our God in a new way. Let’s see if the words we sing, even new ones, can help us discover and embody God’s grace in a new way.

See you in church!

Pastor Marc

Is That Love: The Environment Amplifies the Message. Jesus, Power, and Parkland.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 8:31-38

My sermon from Second Sunday in Lent (February 25, 2018) on Mark 8:31-38. Listen to the recording below or read my manuscript below.

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It’s kind of amazing how the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Florida hasn’t followed the typical script. We’ve had so many of these kinds of attacks over the last 20 years that we’ve developed, as a society, a normal rhythm for its aftermath. After a sudden and collective burst of shock and grief, after everyone sends the victims their thoughts and prayers, our collective attention starts to dissipate. Within a week, we’ve pretty much moved on to whatever the next thing might be. We’re pretty good at following the script but this time feels different. It’s been 11 days and the shooting is still showing up in our conversations. Some of us know the names of the survivors more than the name of the attacker which isn’t how it normally goes. And that’s because, I think, that this is the first time when the survivors of this kind of attack have had the resources to amplify their voice and speak for themselves. I don’t think these kids are saying anything that is new. In the aftermath of Columbine, all the kids around me were saying the same kinds of things. But this time, the overall environment is different. The kids from Parkland don’t know what a world without people amplifying their own voice actually looks like. They were in pre-k when Facebook first came out and in 2nd grade when Apple introduced the first iPhone. By the time they picked up their first Level 2 easy readers, they watched websites, blogs, and social media launch political movements like the Tea Party. In 4th grade, they saw political activist burst all over North Africa and the Middle east with the rise of the Arab Spring. And when parents gave them their first smartphones, being a Youtube star was an actual thing. In their world, amplifying your voice and inserting yourself into a wider conversation is normal. Social media activism, movements like Black Lives Matter and how a tweet is now an actual presidential address, is these kids’ everyday reality. This social media world is the environment the kids from Parkland live, breathe, and move fluently in. Now, none of the kids in Parkland created Facebook or Twitter or the like. All of these tools to amplify their voice were created by others and given to them. So when these kids felt a desire to affect change, they used their environment to amplify their message. They used what’s around them to make their point. And that’s exactly what Jesus is doing in our reading from the gospel of Mark today.

Now Jesus didn’t have a social media world. But his world was full of statues, temples, cities, and other things that told a specific story in the area he was. So to grasp Jesus’ environment, we need to take a little field trip to Caesarea Philippi where this passage from the gospel of Mark takes place.

And here it is….today. Well, some of it at least. As you can see, this part is mostly ruins. But the cave there is the reason why Caesarea Philippi existed in the first place. That cave marks the location of a deep freshwater spring that still works today. Water flows out of the bedrock in the cave, down the hill, and into what eventually becomes the Jordan River. This next picture gives us an idea of how lush and green the area actually was. It’s beautiful and sort of just pops out as an oasis in the middle of the wilderness. In fact, a temple to the god Pan, the god of “desolate places,” was built there. Now, over time, the area became more important and King Herod’s son, Philip II, decided to build a city there. He named the city Caesarea in honor of the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus. As the city grew, the local rulers tried to make the city as Roman as possible. They built theaters, markets, and even a temple dedicated to the Roman emperors. The hillside, as you can see, became a holy place filled with the images of Roman gods, Roman Emperors, and other symbols of the Roman Empire. The Roman values of power – power through conquest, control, and violence was honored and celebrated there. The city of Caesarea Philippi made a specific claim that Rome was all that mattered. And it’s in that place, in the shadow of the Roman temples and Roman statues that Jesus does a very strange thing: he rebukes the power that he sees. Rome didn’t believe in suffering; it believed in making other people suffer. That’s what power, to them, looked like. Yet Jesus makes a promise to his disciples, to us, and to the world that what will truly make a difference is a power that doesn’t, on its surface, look like power at all.

Now that’s a pretty gutsy thing to say in a city that loves Rome. And Jesus says this quite openly. He predicts the Cross and what the Cross will actually mean. Jesus isn’t just going to die; he’s going to be killed by the Romans in the most shamefilled way possible. He’s going to physically perish, socially perish, and be completely abandoned by all around him. Jesus, this guy who casted out demons and healed the sick, is going to be reduced to nothing. And that’s why his friends don’t believe him. Peter even tries to tell the Son of God that he’s definitely got it wrong. Peter’s world is a world where power is about what we have power over. When Peter looked at Jesus, he saw someone with power over illness and suffering. He assumed that Jesus would use this power to push out the Romans and build up a new political kingdom that would thrive without Rome. Power, to Peter, is about dominating and winning. But Jesus, when he mentions the cross, is talking about losing. So Peter tries to correct him. And Jesus doubles down, making sure all his friends and even random people in the crowd hear him. In the shadow of symbols glorifying power and violence, Jesus makes a promise that God is doing something new.

Like the kids in Parkland, Jesus’ environment amplified his message. He didn’t build the temples, the markets, or the symbols that celebrated Roman power and values. But he did know how to live, move, and speak in that world. And when he was confronted by an environment that said power over self and others is the ultimate virtue, Jesus’ own presence challenged that. As a member of the Trinity, as God, as the one through whom all things in the entire universe was made, Jesus really isn’t someone who needed to worry about who can have power over him. Nothing could muster that kind of power so he is never going lose. But he knows that people do. So he gave up the power of dominance and control that we all want and he chose the very human kind of life that we all have to live. That life, as imperfect as it is, is worth everything to God. It’s worth carrying, and holding, and walking with even during those times when we know there’s nothing we can do to “win” our way through. Jesus, as he stood staring at the temples and statues that said conquest and violence and winning were the only values worth having, embraced a different way. A way that wasn’t easy but that looked towards the neighbor first. A way that knew what’s normal for us isn’t necessarily normal for God. And a way that knew that other people’s lives were worth his heading to the cross. An environment that celebrates the power some have over others can only be overcome by a new reality where everyone is empowered in service, care, and love. And that new reality, that new world, that new possibility is available to us right now because Jesus, through the Cross, showed that God’s power, God’s kingdom, and God’s love will have the final say.

Amen.

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Freedom of a Christian: Part 2

There is a tendency in the world of spirituality to split a person into parts. You are not only a person; you also have a spirit, soul, heart, brain, emotions, passions, body, flesh, and more. Each part of our humanity is compartmentalize so that it lives on its own. Then, when we look at each other, we assume that we are all just separate pieces barely holding together. We assume that God looks at us the same way. Faith deals with the different parts of us (our soul, our spirit, our beliefs) in different ways. This splitting up of the human person is an old idea. It comes from Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, who put an ideal world (the place of the soul) in competition with the real world. The real world is broken, messy, and imperfect. The abstract/spirit world is perfect and the goal of life is to live (and get) to that perfect world. This thinking still exists in the church. When we talk about the afterlife, heaven is described as a nicer version of our world. Sometimes, when we feel tension in our lives, we quote Matthew 26:41 – “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” When we split ourselves into different parts, we act as if these different parts matter in different ways to God. We say that God cares more about our soul than our body. We claim that our broken body gets in the way of our faith. Faith is a mater only for the soul and it mostly ignores (or criticizes) our body. When we separate ourselves into parts, we believe that God cares only about part of us as well.

In Freedom of a Christian, Luther borrowed the language of soul and body. But unlike his peers, Luther refused to separate the two. Instead, he considered the whole human person. You are a body, mind, spirit, and heart. You are a totality. You experience life as a complete unit and people experience you as a complete unit too. In this passage from the Freedom of a Christian, Luther is talking about the spiritual connection faith brings us. But this faith does more than keep our soul close to God. This faith, like a heated iron that glows when it is placed in fire, causes our entire being to love God and serve our neighbor. Faith, for the Christian, is the fuel for everyday living. With faith, we can love. With faith, we can serve. And the faith that God gives us is a gracious gift, helping us to do the impossible: trust that, through everything, God is still here and that God still loves.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings/other readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for Second Sunday in Lent, 2/25/2018.

Children’s Sermon: Tools to Grow

We’re using https://dskidsermons.com/2018/02/14/february-25th-2018-2nd-sunday-in-lent/ today! So bring old, used up gardening gloves. Bring gardening tools.

Hi everyone! I’m so glad you are here today.

Did any of you have days off from school this week? Accept answers. I know some had only Monday, others Monday and Tuesday, and still more the entire week. And you know how warm it was just a few days ago? I hope you spent time outside and enjoyed it because it’s been wet and rainy for days. I miss that warm weather.

But do you know something that like the wet and rainy weather? Plants! And with the recent warm weather, I walked outside my house yesterday and saw the stems of flowers starting to sprout in my yard. I mean, it literally snowed like 8” of snow last Sunday but plants are ready to come up from the ground. And they’re starting to come up…and when they come up, there are things we can do to help them get ready.

Now here are tools that can help plants grow. Go through the tools. But…what else do these tools need? If they just sit here…can they help? Nope. They need someone to pick them up, to use them, so that can grow.

So when we pick up this, what can we use it to do? Water. Plant. Clear the leaves. Pick out the weeds. When we use these tools, put them on, and help the plants – we are serving them – and our service becomes an act of love. Love, then, isn’t something we have. Love is…a verb…an action…something that helps others – and something that we get to do.

When I garden, I like to use these Show the old gardening gloves. They’re…pretty old and used. They’re dirty. They sort of smell bad. They have holes in them. They really aren’t perfect at all. But that just means these gloves have been well used over a long period of time to help a bunch of different plants grow and blossom. They don’t have to be perfect – or wonderful – or amazing – to serve, help, and love others. Even an old pair of gardening gloves can help. Even a kid like you can love and make a difference.

And that’s part of our bible story about Jesus today. Love is something we get to do – love is something God helps us do – and love is always about helping others grow and thrive.

Thank you for being here and I hope you have a blessed week.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on Second Sunday in Lent, 2/25/2018.