Sermons | St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, Iowa

This is Pastor Daniel Flucke's final weekend as pastor at St. Peter, and today's sermon covers the (hopefully) familiar topics of God's love and faithfulness to us, and our response to God's love, which is loving our neighbors. The text of this sermon is available at https://danielflucke.com/st-peter-finale/. 

Today at St. Peter (in addition to the Cheesesteak Dinner & Silent Auction youth fundraiser at church), we're celebrating Confirmation Sunday, with 7 of our students affirming their baptisms. Today's Scripture reading is from John 21:1-19, where the risen Jesus has a picnic on the beach with his disciples and calls Peter and us to feed his sheep.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! ...Are you sure?  Today's Easter sermon from Pastor Daniel Flucke looks at the story of Jesus' resurrection and its implications for us today. Happy Easter! The text of this sermon is available at https://www.danielflucke.com/easter-2022/

Tonight's Maundy Thursday message from Pastor Daniel Flucke is in three parts: Remembering God's Salvation (Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14), Responding to God's Salvation (John 13:1-17, 31b-35), and Reunited in God's Salvation (1 Corinthians 11:17-26). 

Our Scripture reading today from Isaiah 43:16-21 declares God is doing a new thing, and calls us to trust that as God has been faithful in the past, God will continue to be faithful and present with us in the future. The text of this sermon is available at https://danielflucke.com/a-new-thing/. 

For this week's sermon, Pastor Daniel shares a powerful reflection by Chad Bird of 1517.org on Jesus' parable of the prodigal son. Our Heavenly Father is always calling us to come home, to return to the One who loves us unconditionally. Repent, and return to the Lord your God. The text of this sermon is available at https://danielflucke.com/prodigal-son-returns/. 

Today is the third Sunday in Lent, and today's sermon looks at the themes and purpose of this season. In Lent, we are called to repent and return to the Lord our God, to recognize and turn away from our sin, and to turn instead towards God's mercy and forgiveness. The text of this sermon is available at https://danielflucke.com/lenten-repentance/. 

On this second Sunday in Lent, we're exploring what it means to have faith through the lens of Abram's story in Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18. Abraham is one of the greatest examples of faith in the Bible, but in this story, even he wrestles with doubt and questions—what an encouragement for us! Text at https://danielflucke.com/abram-faith-questions.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent, and we're looking at Luke's account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, the paradoxes of faith, and the good news that Jesus chooses to deny the temptations of earthly glory and empty himself for our sake. The text of this sermon is available at https://danielflucke.com/temptation-paradox/. 

The story of Joseph is a story of God's faithfulness despite challenging circumstances. In everything Joseph went through, God was with him. And when Joseph could have chosen vengeance, he chose to offer forgiveness. 

Today, we read from 1 Corinthians 13 (the “love chapter”) and hear Paul calling the Body of Christ (us!) to our primary mission of reflecting God's love for the world. All of our spiritual gifts are useless without love. This is the conclusion of a three-week sermon mini-series looking at Paul's image of the body of Christ. 

Today, we continue in 1 Corinthians 12 as Paul expands his image of the Church as the Body of Christ. In Christ's body, we are joined together. Every part of the body is important, and together, we are called to join in Jesus' mission of liberation, healing, and proclamation in the world.

For the next three weeks, we're going to be reading from 1 Corinthians and considering how Paul's instructions for the first-century church in Corinth apply to us today. This week, we look at 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and how the Holy Spirit gives each of us spiritual gifts to be used for the common good. God gives each of us gifts, blessing the community with everything needed to fulfill the mission we are given.

Welcome to the season of Epiphany! Today, we're looking at Jesus' baptism and how by being baptized, Jesus comes to stand with humanity in all of our need and struggles. Today's Scripture readings are Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 and Isaiah 43:1-7. The text of this sermon is available at https://danielflucke.com/epiphany-baptism/. 

In tonight's Christmas Eve sermon, Pastor Daniel looks at the good news the angels bring and why we need this promise of hope that God has come to us. Merry Christmas!

It's the fourth week of Advent, and today, we're looking at God's unexpected choices in the Christmas story. Our Scripture readings are Micah 5:2-5a and Luke 1:46b-55.

It's the third week of Advent, and today's theme is joy. Our Scripture readings are Philippians 4:4-7, Isaiah 12:2-6, Zephaniah 3:14-20, and Luke 3:7-18, all of which celebrate the promise of God's salvation entering into the world. Because God is our salvation, we can rejoice no matter what our circumstances.

It's the second week of Advent, and today's sermon is all about road construction. God promises to make a way through the desert, flattening mountains and filling in valleys. God is coming to bring salvation!

In the season of Advent, we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ at Christmas, even as we anticipate Christ's final return in the future. As we wait, we are called to pay attention, to trust, and to have hope, knowing God has secured our future.

The God who cares for the birds and flowers also cares for you! The antidote to worrying is remembering what God has done in the past and trusting God to be faithful in the future. 

In this week's Gospel lesson, Jesus offers apocalyptic predictions of disaster, but he also makes a promise: Apocalyptic disasters are penultimate, not final. Suffering and disaster are not the end. Something better is coming: God's kingdom. We are given the promise of new life, life with Jesus that begins now and continues for all eternity. And in the disasters and catastrophes and suffering of this world, Jesus is with us. This is a word of hope!

This weekend, we mark All Saints' Day, celebrating the promise that saints are made by God's grace, not by the good works we do or how much we give. 

It's Confirmation Sunday here at St. Peter! In this Reformation Day sermon, Pastor Daniel Flucke looks at the theme of God's love and grace in the verses selected by the eight ninth-grade students affirming their baptisms in worship today. 

In today's sermon, we're exploring the blind beggar Bartimaeus as an example of faith for us today. This is the sermon for St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, Iowa, for October 24, 2021.   Thank you for support our congregation's ministry! Give online at http://www.stpetergreene.com/giving.

Today, we're looking at a story of Jesus healing 10 lepers, but only one of them returning to give thanks. We too are invited to pause and notice what God is doing around us, because noticing leads to gratitude, which leads to faith and action.   Support our congregation's ministry by giving online at http://www.stpetergreene.com/giving.

This week, we hear an uncomfortable story from Mark 10 where Jesus tells a rich man to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow him. Shocked, the man goes away grieving, "for he had many possessions." In this sermon, Pastor Daniel Flucke wrestles with how we understand and follow this tough command from Jesus. A sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost on Mark 10:17-31. Cover image: “Rich Young Man Went Away Sorrowful” by James Tissot, 1836-1902. 

What are we, that God should be mindful of us? What a great paradox of faith that we are cosmically insignificant, yet we have been claimed as children of God. A sermon from Pastor Daniel Flucke for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost on Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12, Psalm 8, and Mark 10:2-16.

Jesus' criteria for greatness is dramatically different than that of the world. Greatness is found in being a servant to all. Here's the sermon for September 19, 2021, on Mark 9:30-37 (and why “The Activist” is a terrible idea for a tv show).

On this 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it's easy to ask “Where is God?” as we remember and grieve stories of suffering and death on that day and in the decades since 2001. To find God, we look to the cross, to Jesus giving himself for us and for the world.

Loving Jesus requires loving our neighbors. That's a challenging message, but James doesn't let us off the hook. Faith, he insists, needs to be active. If you're a follower of Jesus, you can't help loving neighbors. A sermon on James 2:1-17, from Pastor Daniel Flucke for September 5, 2021.

As we present Bibles to our third-graders this weekend, we're looking at the uniqueness of the Bible and the importance of putting our faith into action. Like a Bible just sitting on a shelf, our faith does little good if it's not used during the rest of the week! Support our congregation's ministry by giving online at http://www.stpetergreene.com/giving.

Today's sermon is in two parts. First, listen to this brief message from Pastor Daniel Flucke on Jesus as the bread of life and our call to put on the full armor of God. Then, go watch the video from our youth mission trip to Kansas City this summer. Here's the link for that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK5y20tjkF4

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise,” instructs Paul in Ephesians 5. So then, how shall we live? What does God's wisdom look like? Here's the sermon for August 15, 2021, at St. Peter Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation located in Greene, Iowa. 

From the small offering of a little boy, Jesus feeds a massive crowd. God turns scarcity into abundance. Imagine what God can do with what we have to offer!

In today's Christmas in July sermon, Pastor Daniel Flucke looks at the miracle of God's self-revelation to us in the person of Jesus Christ. God enters the world in humble circumstances, demonstrating God's character. If you want to know who God is, look to Jesus.

In today's Gospel reading from Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jesus calls his followers to rest, in the midst of their serving. What would it look like for you to follow Jesus' example and take time to rest?

In Mark 6:14-29, Mark interrupts his Gospel story about Jesus with the story of John the Baptist's beheading by King Herod. This glimpse into Herod's power-hungry world gives us an alternative vision to God's kingdom of grace.

In Mark 6:1-13, Jesus sends his disciples out in pairs. He tells them to take nothing with them, and they learn to trust that God will provide. May we grow in faith and trust as well. Visit us online at http://www.stpetergreene.com.

Today, we're looking the characters in Mark 5:21-43, the story of Jesus healing a woman suffering from chronic bleeding and restoring a young girl to life. These miracles are glimpses of God's kingdom breaking in, and yet we continue to wrestle today with the reality that miracles and healing do not always occur as we desire. 

In today's sermon, Pastor Daniel Flucke looks at three stories in Mark where the disciples wrestle with faith in the midst of fear, all of which take place on boats. This is the sermon for June 20, 2021, for the fourth Sunday after Pentecost at St. Peter Lutheran Church, a congregation of the ELCA in Greene, Iowa. 

Jesus says those who do God's will are his family. You are welcomed into God's family, joined together by baptism into the church, the body of Christ.

It’s Trinity Sunday, and in today’s sermon, we’re looking at Isaiah’s dramatic call story in Isaiah 6:1-8 and how understanding God as Trinity helps us understand the God who is calling us. St. Peter Lutheran Church, a congregation of the ELCA in Greene, Iowa. Thank you for supporting our ministry by donating online at http://www.stpetergreene.com/giving. 

It’s Pentecost Sunday! Today as we honor and send off the graduating seniors from our congregation, we hear Jesus promise his followers that although he will no longer be physically present alongside them, God will still be with them, present through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the “paraclete” - the advocate, comforter, the one who accompanies us in every stage of life’s journey.

This week, we’re looking at a story in Acts 1 where the apostles had an important decision to make for the early church. Through that story’s lens, Pastor Daniel Flucke explores some criteria for our own faithful decision-making as followers of Jesus.

The greatest love, says Jesus, is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And in the life and death of Jesus, we see God’s incomprehensible love for us and for the world. Here’s Pastor Daniel Flucke’s sermon for the sixth Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2021. 

Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. But when we are connected to Jesus, the Holy Spirit works through us to build God’s kingdom.  Visit us online at www.stpetergreene.com.

We are claimed as children of God—children with lots of room to grow! It’s easy to see the gap between who we are and who God calls us to be, but the Holy Spirit is at work transforming us as we live into the identity God bestows upon us. Here’s the sermon for the third Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2021. 

On the evening of the first Easter Sunday, the risen Jesus surprises his disciples by appearing among them and blessing them. But one member of the band is gone that night and refuses to believe until he can personally see and touch the scars of the risen Jesus. But…why does the resurrected Jesus have scars at all?

Happy Easter! In Mark’s gospel, the Easter story ends with fear and uncertainty, but the cliffhanger ending invites us into the story. God is doing something new in our world, even today. Christ is risen!

Jesus and his disciples gathered in an upper room to share the Passover meal together, but during the meal, Jesus changed the meaning of what was happening. He promised that in this meal, in the ordinary stuff of bread and wine, his body and blood are given and shed for us. What a magnificent gift!

Over and over again, humanity has fallen short, failing to live up to our covenants with God. So, God has made a new covenant in Jesus Christ, one that depends on God’s forgiveness, not our efforts. We depend on God for life - and that’s good news! Sermon on Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 51:1-12, and John 12:20-33.