κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

Woody Allen once observed, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.” I don’t know if he knew it, but his words agree with our epistle. Come now you who say Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that city and we will produce there a year and trade and gain. Yet you don’t understand the things of tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and vanishes. (vv 13-14). Men’s plans always seem to revolve around proving to God, or at least the world, how good they are. But God’s plan always puts such vanity to shame in order to remind us we are not god, our ways are not His ways, and He is always gracious to forgive and deliver us from our mistaken ideas of what is good and give us what is truly good, that which truly lasts, and that which truly gives life. When Adam and Eve sinned, they brought a curse on all of creation. They expected punishment. They ran and hid. They did not expect God to promise a seed who would crush the serpent’s...

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Dear Constance, What an exciting day this is! I know you’ve really been looking forward to this for eight months. I certainly have been. Whether you realize it or not ... today is one of the most important days of your life. And as I’ve already told you, it’s a day I hope you’ll always remember. It’s one that should be right alongside 1) your baptism, and 2) your marriage to Zachary. As the rest of the congregation may recall, I started what I hope is a tradition here to help you remember this day: Because it’s Confirmation Day, instead of a sermon that you only hear, I’ve prepared a sermon that you can keep and read in the form of a letter written especially for you. Of course, we’ll let everybody else hear most of it, because today you’re becoming one with them, and none of us can ever hear the proclamation of the Gospel too often. But there are a few paragraphs in this letter written just for you perso...

Then, when they had their fill, he told the disciples, gather the abundance of broken pieces, in order that not even one would be destroyed (v. 12). There is a hunger deep within the heart and soul of man that can be satisfied only by the presence of the living God. Man tries feverishly to fill the void on his own. We convince ourselves that ... on our own ... we can find him in our heart, in our work, in our logic, in the world. We think we can grow closer to him in nature. But these are all just lies of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. Our search never pans out.  The marvel of God’s love and grace is that he satisfies the heart and soul completely. He is the one who comes to us. He is the one who finds us. He is the one who satisfies our hunger. He desires all to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tm 2:4), so that no one would perish (v. 12; 2 Pt 3:9). Jesus leads us to the mountain, where he teaches us, heals us, feeds us, nourishes us, saves us. He knows the lo...

Today, the Epistle of James confronts Christians of every age with the inconsistencies between faith and actions. The warning we hear this morning is very clear: “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” (vv 5b–6).  The charge James delivers should cut deep into the heart of everyone who hears. Your tongue is an agent of harm. It is on fire with the fire of hell. “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue” (vv 7–8a). No human, not one, is innocent ... not you, not me, no one. And to drive the point home James reminds us of what we are all too capable of doing: we can sit in the Divine Service, praising our God in heaven, and then turn around cursing his most precious creations, other p...

Therefore, become imitators of God (v 1). 5. It was Charles Caleb Colton who popularized the saying “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” The only problem is, by itself, that isn’t always true. Sometimes by imitating others we mock them. And there’s nothing sincere about mockery. Maybe that’s what led Oscar Wilde to improve upon the proverb some fifty years later, writing “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” I can get behind that, especially in the light of our epistle reading today from Ephesians 5 that urges us to become imitators of God.  You can’t mock God by imitating him. God is holy and good. How can you mock him by imitating righteousness and goodness? In him, there is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5). How can you mock him by walking in the light and allowing your light to shine (Mt 5:16)? God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. How can you mock him by forgiving each other?  When God calls on us to become imi...

You've probably never heard of the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he sure did hit the nail on the head with this quote about the Christian church today. In his book The Crown and the Fire , Wright wrote: “The Word became flesh, and the church has turned the flesh back into words: words of good advice, words of comfort, words of wisdom and encouragement.” If you ask me, that’s a sad indictment of the church. Too many Christians churches have turned the Word made flesh back into little more than words: good words from a good God on living a good life.  When Wright wrote this, he was taking his cue from the Gospel of John, but the message is very applicable for us today as we read the book of James. It’s a warning: A warning against approaching the Christian faith as a mere set of propositions and doctrines. It’s a warning that faith isn’t rooted simply in a word of comfort, a written idea, a faith is based on good advice.  Brothers ...

And hope will not put us to shame (v 5). 6. Some say we live in a hopeless society.  A recent poll shows that fifty-one percent of young Americans feel this way. They are overwhelmed by the world: War in Europe, climate change, financial insecurity, rampant inflation, pandemics, endemics, selfishness. While the mainstream media try to end their newscasts with a feel-good story of the day, too often it comes after you’ve been doused with news of hopeless situations. It’s all so hopeless, our young people say. If you think this affects only young people, we really should ask, where is our hope? Is it in our political party? Government? School system? Is it your plan, organizational skills, family, spouse, finances? Where is your hope? As we just sang ...  When in the hour of deepest need, we know not where to look for aid (LSB 615:1)   This is one question that arises from our epistle reading today. Paul answers it for us ... 5. God calls us to a sure and certain hope. ...