In Sunday’s gospel (Luke 10:38-42), did Martha walk away disappointed because Jesus didn’t sanction her well-meaning but distracted busyness by rebuking Mary? Or, perhaps, initially stunned when Jesus’ gentle, loving rebuke came her way and ...
Wisconsin’s governor has our country’s most sweeping line item veto power. While its use has led to court challenges, Wisconsin governors have crossed out single words or altered a single digit in an appropriations bill, ...
The doctrine of the Trinity is not a set of abstract concepts revealed to delight our speculative brains. It is instead a revelation of the concrete realty of our awesome Creator’s saving love to comfort ...
It just doesn’t seem fair at all to my enemies. (Not that I really want to play fair with them anyway!) What chance do my enemies have, really, when the morning begins by being wrapped ...
It is a sad but very real ability of my sinful nature to turn any task - no matter how gracious a privilege it is - into a grievous burden. My life is littered with ...
(This is the chapel devotion for Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary on Monday, March 18, 2019) What will deter you in carrying out ministry? Will it be the frustration of that summer-camp that sees many kids eagerly ...
I’ve only preached on next Sunday’s gospel (Luke 6:17-26) twice in 33 years. (No doubt shorter Epiphany seasons and 20 years of professor-ing have played into that reality.) As I looked back, both times I ...
It’s a double-edged connection. The more I see the power for Jesus’ calling of his own baptism by John, the more I will see the power for my calling(s) of my own baptism. And the ...
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Luke 3:7). Wow, is that John the Baptizer’s suggested homiletical greeting for Gaudete? That historic name for next Sunday, taken from the ...
“Where never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all…Sunday.” Such is the current reality in many Christian pulpits. In misguided love preachers wash from their sermons any reference to God’s ...
