Sermons from St. Petri (ELCA)

Seminarian Megan Gustafson asks "What does it mean to be faithful with what God has entrusted to us?"For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Jesus tells a confusing parable and asks his followers to be dishonest, perhaps, in how they deal with the world. Or maybe he isn't asking them any such thing.For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Pastor Scott tells the story of hiding in a tree as a child, and what it means to be lost, and what it means to be found.For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries near you, please visit http://www.elca.org

We're often asked to "love as Jesus loved" in order to be his disciples. But what does it mean when Jesus asks us to hate? For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

If only we could hear how Jesus told some of his stories! Pastor Scott thinks there's a note of sarcasm in today's reading that just doesn't translate well from Bible to hearing. At any rate, what does true humility entail, and is that what Jesus is asking of those who follow him?For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

The place where the church worships is called a sanctuary - but it isn't meant to be the only place where the church lives. We are God's official lambs: sealed by the Holy Spirit we are sent forth into the world to proclaim the same thing as Jesus' early disciples: the kingdom of God has come near.For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

It's not a terrible thing to know where you've come from, but Jesus asks those who follow to look primarily to where they're going: to following where he leads.For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries near you, please visit http://www.elca.org

A really bad joke, and then a look at what's happening in this odd story from the gospel of Luke. For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

The Church was born of the Spirit leading people to speak to one another in their own languages. How will the Spirit lead you to speak in your language today?Please take a minute to give us a rating or a review wherever you access this podcast! For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

What is it that Jesus is praying for in this gospel text? What is it that makes us one church? If you enjoy listening to this podcast, please share it, and give it a rating wherever you download it! That helps us spread the word about this podcast.For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

38 years an invalid, and the only protest is that Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath? Sometimes the church misses the point altogether, much to its own detriment.For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Seminarian Megan Gustafson gives us homework this week in her sermon on the love Christians are called to show for one another. For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries around the world and near you, please visit http://www.elca.org

Sheep are not the cute, fluffy things depicted in nursery rhymes & fairy tales. So how should we hear Jesus' claims that we are the sheep who will never be snatched out of his hand?For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Peter has seen Jesus twice after the crucifixion. He knows Jesus is alive. So why is he fishing?

The earliest stories of the resurrection do not present a unified group of converts who steadfastly believed with immediate passion and comprehension. So why do we expect the same of believers separated from those moments by 2,000 years? For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.orgFor more information about ELCA ministries near you, please visit http://www.elca.org

What is it that makes the story of Jesus believable? Is it the Bible itself, or something more?For more about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

What does it mean to serve? To love? Lay Pastor John Sheahan of Bergen Lutheran Church preaches a message on love and service at a joint worship service hosted by St. Petri Lutheran.For more information on our ministry in Story City, please visit http://www.stpetriutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

In the end, it wasn't Rome, or the Jews, or any other group we could conveniently scapegoat who put Jesus on the cross 5 days after Palm Sunday. It was us. It was a human failure.For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Seminary student Megan Gustafson preached this week on the Parable of the Prodigal...Son? Decide for yourself how this parable should be titled. For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

You almost have to feel sorry for the poor disciples who thought they'd be safe by pointing out how bad others had it. But that's not how faith works. Not then, not now, not ever.For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, or for more about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

God is not concerned with being protected. God is concerned with faith, and there is no faith without fear, without risk, without vulnerability.For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Jesus knows how temptation works. He's been there. It's not about wanting bad things - it's about wanting the good God has created in ways that aren't right. For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

The first Lenten discipline is the one which renders all other disciplines moot. The ashes which mark us as those who will die are also a sign which says all of our hope for our own ability, righteousness, & moral fortitude lead us to only one place: death.

What does the transfiguration of Jesus mean for us today?

This is not the Sermon on the Mount. It's more real - more honest. It's directed at everyone who listens. And all who hear it today as well. For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries near you, please visit http://www.elca.org

It's one thing to fish with a lure, bait, or a hook. Peter, Andrew, James, & John were doing a different sort of fishing, one that paints us in a much less flattering light as their eventual "catch." All the same, it's better in this case to be in the boat.For more information about our ministry in the Story City area, please find us on Facebook or visit our website: http://stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information about ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Only one who is bold enough to BE the fulfillment on scripture could claim it is fulfilled today.For more information on our ministry in the Story City area, please visit http://www.stpetrilutheran.weebly.comFor more information on ELCA ministries in your area, please visit http://www.elca.org

Like the wine at the wedding in Cana, the abundance of God tends to get excessive when Jesus is on the case. You might even find your name getting changed.

The prophet Jeremiah calls God's people to see that even their holiest things can become idols if they approach them in the wrong way. "The temple of the LORD!" is a distraction which can become a deception if one trusts in the words but doesn't live the way God has commanded.