Sundays at Saint Luke Lutheran

Divine Service from St. Luke Lutheran Church for July 12, 2020. The sermon focuses on the Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13, and explores the need to cultivate our hearts through a lifelong process of conversion.

Divine Service, celebrated at St. Luke Lutheran Church for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time/Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.

This is the first Sunday of St. Luke's phased re-entry to public worship, a celebration of the Divine Service, observing the Feast of the Body and Blood of our Lord, sometimes called Corpus Christi.

A service of the Word for Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Service of the Word from St. Luke Lutheran Church for Easter 6 2020 (May 17, 2020). The sermon focuses on Paul's sermon to the Athenians on the Unknown God, and how we to may come to love and worship this God.

A service of the Word, from St. Luke Lutheran Church, McDonough, GA. The sermon focuses on the 23rd Psalm, the Good Shepherd, and what it means to love God with both mind and heart.

A recording of a Service of the Word from St. Luke Lutheran Church for the Third Sunday of Easter, 2020. Includes hymns, readings, prayers, and sermon. The sermon focuses on St. Luke's account of the Road to Emmaus, found in St. Luke 24:13-35. Jesus is revealed to the two disciples during the course of a meal. Where is it that you find Jesus in the course of your day-to-day life?

A Service of the Word for the Second Sunday of Easter, recorded at St. Luke Lutheran Church for the community dispersed due to the COVID-19 crisis. The sermon for this Sunday focuses on St. Thomas and the theological virtue of hope.

A Service of the Word from St. Luke Lutheran Church in McDonough, GA. This was recorded for those who were dispersed and unable to attend Easter services due to the COVID-19 crisis. Video of the service is available at www.storyofgod.org/multimedia.

What starts off as an ordinary part of ritual and communal life for St. Mary and St. Joseph becomes a remarkable proclamation of the coming of the Messiah.

In his book, Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Have Become our New Religion, author David Zahl suggests that this should come as no surprise to us. “Politics is well on the way to becoming the most entrenched and impermeable social divide in America, surpassing religion, income bracket, and even race. Each passing year we retreat further into ideological echo chambers.” Zahl continues, “Politics has become today’s most popular replacement religion, certainly the one with the most forward momentum and cultural currency. For many, its substitution for religion has seamless, hardly noticeable.”If Zahl is correct, and I suspect he is, then how do we go about being church together? How do we eschew the divisions that St. Paul addresses in I Corinthians 1, and work for the greater cause of the Gospel?

So often, it almost seems like when I hear people talk about their faith journeys, they speak in terms of destinations. Adults who are baptized will talk about their spiritual struggles up until they discover the Gospel and receive the sacrament and they stop their stories there. Parents baptize their beautiful children and maybe even send them to Sunday School and confirmation but then that’s all there is to it. What we have to come to realize is that – like Jesus – baptism is just the beginning for us.

"In the beginning was the Word..."This morning we hear another version of the Christmas story. There is no manger, no distressed virgin mother, no Joseph frantically trying to find them shelter. There are no lowing cattle, no singing angels, and no curious shepherds. There’s no baby. The story that we hear in our Christmas Eve reading from Luke 2 is a local story, one that takes place in time and space, one that is earthy and fleshly. It is a wonderful story we have come to cherish, but this morning we get something altogether different, though no less important.

On November 10, 2019, the youth of St. Luke Lutheran took primary responsibility for planning and leading the Divine Service. The guest preacher for the day was Dr. Andrew Grunzke, Associate Professor of Education at Mercer University and pop culture historian. As someone who trains teachers to shape the lives of young people, Dr. Grunzke shared his insights into the story of Samuel's call from God in I Samuel 3, with special attention given to Eli's responses to Samuel. His sermon was a challenge to youth to hear God's voice and respond, but also a challenge to adults who to listen to and encourage young people.

When Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses, sparking the Lutheran Reformation, he started with a very basic premise in his first thesis: When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.This Reformation Day sermon uses the alternate RCL text for the day and focuses on the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who had gone to the Temple to pray. It uses the Tax Collector's prayer as a model of the Christian life.

Originally preached on October 20, 2019, and based on the story of Jacob's nocturnal encounter in Genesis 32:22-31, this sermon reflects on what it means to wrestle with God.

Why would praise be heaped on a person who was a known cheat and backroom dealer for his shrewdness? Perhaps the key to understanding this oft-misunderstood parable lies not in our modern understanding of what it means to be shrewd, but in the manager's ability to recognize that his gig is up, and it is time to do the right thing.

It seems the world is changing at a breakneck pace. How do people of faith respond? This sermon examines the words of Jesus in Luke 17:5-10 when he tells his followers that even a little faith and trust can accomplish great things.

All three of the lectionary reading for today tell stories of God's outrageous grace. From Moses interceding for his people in the desert, to Paul's conversion, to the parables of a God who pursues us when we get lost on our way, each point to a depth of love in a different way.

A reflection on St. Paul's letter to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus.

We typically think of Jesus as one who sought to bring peace and to end conflict. We even refer to him as the "Prince of Peace." So are what are we to do when the Bible records Jesus telling his followers that he did not come to bring peace, but division?

Based on the story of the possessed man in the Gerasenes in John 8, this sermon explores the command of Jesus to "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."

There are many voices in our society that exert influence over the things we buy, listen to, read, watch, and ultimately, the things we think and believe. Often times we do not even realize which voices are influencing our world. This sermon looks at some of those competing voices, and reflects upon the where and how we hear the voice of Jesus in our world.

Based on Luke's account of the Resurrection of Christ, this sermon was originally preached on Easter Sunday of 2019. On the face of it all, the story of Jesus being raised from the dead sounds pretty far-fetched. This sermon explains why the preacher believes, and encourages those who hear to look for signs of the Resurrection in their own lives.

Jesus' first miracle was unforgettable: turning water into wine. Yet, the story isn't really about wine or water, or even the institution of marriage. In part, it is about the instruction Mary gives to the wedding servants, and to us by extension, when she says, "Do whatever he tells you."

We can sense in God in many places: in church, in the natural world, in the elements, in our families, and in times of both joy and struggle. God has promised to never leave us alone, even in our times of struggle. This sermon looks at the promises made by God to humanity in both Isaiah 43 and in the story of Jesus' own baptism.

Reflections on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on her role in the life of faith.

Originally preached at the Christmas Eve service, this sermon asks the question: where can we can find God?

Who were the Magi? Why did they come? What did they find?

To rejoice is more than to simply feel the emotion of happiness. It is about recognizing God's presence and blessings even in the midst of things that we do not understand. This sermon examines the interplay of virtues like joy, peace, gratitude, and gentleness.

John the Baptist tells us to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. This is more than preparing to celebrate Christmas. It is a reminder that Christ is one who pursues us, and that Advent is a time set aside for intentional and meaningful reflection about our lives. In this sermon, hear about how we can reflect on commonly felt emotions as fear, doubt, and anger, and how confronting these things are ways in which we can be more open to the receiving of Christ, both at Christmas and every day.

This sermon, originally preached on November 11, 208 at St. Luke Lutheran Church in McDonough, GA, looks at what the story of widow and the two coins might have to teach us today. Hint: it is about more than money!

A reflection on the meaning of All Saints Sunday.

Blindness and sight are commonly used as metaphors in religious texts and literature. This sermon examines the story of Bartimaeus, a blind man, and how his transition from blindness to sight teaches us something about how we perceive God's grace.

Originally preached at St. Luke Lutheran Church on Sunday, October 21, 2018, this sermon examines the request of the disciples James and John as they sought to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus. Jesus explained to the brothers that they did not really understand what they were asking, and went on to tell them that the life of faith is a life of service.

Originally preached on October 7, 2018, during a special service at which the newly renovated Tiffani Busch-Pickens Youth Room was dedicated. This sermon marks a departure from the standard lectionary, focusing instead on the last night Jesus spent with his disciples. It attempts to frame Tiffani's life and tragic death within the greater story of God's work in our world.

Originally preached on Sunday, September 16, 2018 at St. Luke Lutheran Church. When Jesus told the disciples that he must undergo great suffering and die, and then be resurrected, Peter took exception. He went so far as to take Jesus aside and scold him for he what he said. If we are honest with ourselves, there are things that even we wish Jesus had not said. This sermon takes a look at some of those words, and encourages listeners to actively engage the scripture, especially those parts that cause us to struggle.

Churches often erect barriers that prevent - or at least make it difficult - for new people to find a place to fit in a congregation. This is not always conscious or intentional. Is this sermon, Pastor Harrell uses the story of Jesus and Syrophoenecian woman as a way to get us to examine our own attitudes and actions toward those we may perceive as outsiders. Whether the barriers we create to belonging are intentional or not, Jesus challenges us to find ways to tear them down.

In this sermon based on Jesus' encounter with the Pharisees in Mark 7, Pastor Robb reflects on how traditions and rituals can serve good purposes, but can become an idol when we lose perspective on the true nature of action.

Jesus shocked his followers when he told them, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them." We are no less shocked today when - as thoroughly modern people - we consider the Real Presence of Christ in the elements of Holy Communion. This sermon looks at how scripture, church history, and the Lutheran Confessions all affirm that Jesus Christ is truly present in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

Being an "imitator of God" sounds like an impossible ideal to attain. In fact, if we think we can imitate God through our own inherent goodness, we are wrong. However, St. Paul encourages us to be imitators of God in Ephesians 5:1. How do we do this? St. Paul gives some practical advice to the Ephesians and to his modern readers about how we deal with our anger, how we choose our words, and how we treat one another in community that are rooted in the love God has for us and the love we should have for one another.

On my first Sunday back after a three month long sabbatical, I was blessed to baptize two babies. This is less of a sermon and more of an open letter I wrote the two children, with hopes that when they were older they would be able to read it themselves. The letter lays out a basic theology of baptism as embraced by Lutherans.

"The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep." This is not only a statement of what Jesus has done for each of us, but is also a lesson about how we are to live our lives in service to those in need.

Easter 2018

Thomas takes a lot of heat, but is it the moniker "Doubting Thomas" really deserved? He did go on to make a profess Jesus as his Lord and his God. What do we do with our doubts? Does doubt make us less faithful?

While there are many spectacular occurrences in scripture, Jesus most often taught people in the context of ordinary situations. This sermon discusses the meal Jesus shared with his disciples after his resurrection, and asks how God speaks to us in day-to-day situations.

What are your worst tendencies? What parts of your personality do you try and hide from other people, only to have them emerge anyway? In this sermon, we look at how sin infects the human person, and how the only healing from that infection comes from fixing our gaze firmly on Christ, our Redeemer.

In the information age, we have access to a great deal of information about people. However, knowing about someone is not the same as actually knowing them on a personal level. In this sermon, we explore how Jesus was misunderstood by those around him during his life, and how he is often misunderstood today.

Just as Jesus faced temptation in the desert, so do we face temptation in daily life. Temptations come and go, and we are tempted in different ways at different times. What temptations do we Christians face in the wake of a national tragedy, such as the Parkland School shooting?

A brief homily that explores the relationship between virtue and vice, and how it relates to Lenten discipline. It is encourages the listener to find a middle way between extremes.

The Transfiguration of Jesus shows us that we need both an active outer life and a rich inner life.