Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

This is a special musical presentation of Sing to the Lord by the Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir.

Today, Tammy Heilman gets what she purchased at our Raise the Roof Silent Auction.  Today, she, and all of you, get a five-minute sermon!!  So, because I only have five minutes, I am going to get right to the point.  Today’s gospel was not written to predict the end of time! It is an apocalyptic reading and it was written to help people stay faithful and live with a sense of courage, hope, and comfort when they were facing times of great anguish. These gospel words were written in the late 80s for early Gentile Christian communities facing persecution and times of great suffering. In this reading, Jesus seems to be communicating a message that says suffering becomes an opportunity for testimony, and God will supply the words that need to be said. He says suffering provides an opportunity for those who have been changed to really tell of their hope in the depth of their struggle.  Such hope bears witness to the God who is deeply present in the depth of suffering and pain. So, today I share a story, just one ex

This is a special musical presentation of Find Us Faithful by the Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir. 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator, Jesus our Savior, and the Holy Spirit our guide. Amen. Happy Reformation! The day we celebrate the start of the Lutheran Church. The day we celebrate change. The day we look at what makes us Lutheran. As I was thinking about how Reformation can be considered the start of the Lutheran church, I was thinking that we celebrate a lot of “starts” in our church. We celebrate Advent - the start of the church year; we celebrate Christmas - the start or birthday of Jesus; we celebrate Easter - the start of a new way of thinking about salvation; and we celebrate Pentecost, the start of the Holy Spirit among us and what some would consider the start of the Christian church. So, if nothing, we are certainly flexible, or we just love to celebrate the church. When thinking about Martin Luther and the Reformation, I came up with 3 C’s that I will reflect on in today’s sermon. The first is “change” - reformation - re-forming - changing the church. Luther didn’t want to start a bra

This is a special musical performance of Offeratory sung by Bob Nelson at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

From time to time our grandchildren stay with us for a few days. A few years ago, when our granddaughter, Vivian, was five years old, she loved to run, as most children do. And, when she stayed with us, she would continually run through the house with Ken chasing her. She would start at the front door, run past the kitchen and dining room, run through the living room, run around the table in the three-season room, and then head back, running through the living room, past the kitchen and dining room and back to the front door, where she would start in all over again.  As she persistently ran this course, she kept saying, “Vivian never gives up, Vivian never gives up!” In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells the story of a persistent, stubborn widow who simply never gives up. I think, far too often, when interpreting this parable, an assumption is made that the unjust judge is God, and we are to relentlessly badger God with our prayers and requests as did this widow who was so persistent with the corrupt judge. 

This is a special musical presentation of I Will Awaken the Dawn by the chancel choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

We have heard a great deal about boundaries over the past few years.   And, while I believe some boundaries are necessary, very needed, and extremely healthy, I also believe that far too often we impose boundaries and build walls that not only keep others out of our lives, but also fence us in, isolating us from others and the world.  And, quite frankly, too often, as we have seen in our current political climate, we simply draw a line in the sand, create unreasonable boundaries, and then refuse to cross those lines to seek common ground.  When we meet up with Jesus today, he is continuing his journey to Jerusalem, his journey toward the cross.  As he and his disciples continue that cross-bound journey, they move into a border area, the boundary between Samaria and Galilee.  This boundary was a scary and uncomfortable place.  It was a boundary the Jewish people did not like to cross because it took you into that place where those hated and despised Samaritans lived.  And, look who Jesus meets at that border –

This is a special musical presentation of Precious Jesus by the chancel choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan with a solo from Richard Triemer. 

I invite you to again listen to the beginning verses of our first reading in Habakkuk, as we find them in The Message translation of the Bible: The problem as God gave Habakkuk to see it: God, how long do I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do I have to yell, “Help! Murder! Police!”          before you come to the rescue? Why do you force me to look at evil, stare trouble in the face day after day? Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place. Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head. When we read those verses at our Tuesday Noon Bible Study, everyone in the group felt as though the prophet Habakkuk was writing words for us in our present time and current cultural context. The truth is our present context is one in which we sometimes find ourselves feeling as though we are trying to cling to our faith. The people of Judah were trying to cling to their faith. The prophet articulates

This is a special musical presentation of Open the Eyes of My Heart by the chancel choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan with a solo from Tammy Heilman.

Last week we received one of Jesus’ most bizarre and perplexing stories.  Today, we receive one of his harshest stories.  It is interesting that we are given this reading just days after we have seen world leaders gather for the UN General Assembly and address the multitude of problems facing this world, the biggest of which is climate change. The UN Chief did not mince words as he prophetically sounded a global alarm, warning leaders about the survival of humanity and the planet.  For those of us who follow the teachings of Jesus, we discover God calls us to compassionately act in response to the many crises in our present context.  Now, as we respond to Jesus’ message, some may say his teachings are just for our private lives, not for our public behavior, or he is irrelevant to our times.  But, as the Rev. Jim Wallis writes in his book, Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus, he says, “That is hard to do for those who call themselves Christians, if God so loved the world.”  You see, if the gospel ha

Grace to you and peace from God our parent, Jesus our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Greetings to you from myself, from the North/West Lower Michigan Synod, and from the thousands of congregations and millions of Lutherans across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ELCA. This past August, from August 8 - 12, I served as a voting member to the churchwide assembly of the ELCA. During the sermon, we’ll be sharing pictures from the churchwide assembly on our monitors in the sanctuary and on the live stream. These are just a brief snapshot of the events that took place. Most of these photos come from the ELCA’s Facebook page, with some from the Synod’s community Facebook group. The primary focus of today’s message is a recap of my experiences at the churchwide assembly, but first, let’s take a look at today’s readings. In the new testament reading from 1 Timothy today, we have a quick reminder of who the Gospel, the good news, of Jesus, of God is for - quite simply - everyone, all humankind, all. 

This is a special musical presentation of Jubilation by the Faith Bells at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical presentation of Come Taste the Goodness of the Lord by the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan

This is a special musical presentation of Holy Manna by the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical presentation of Character Pieces for Clarinet No.2 played by Michael Fox at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

I don’t know about you, but I am increasingly appalled by some of the public rhetoric we hear these days.  I find it disconcerting the way name calling and verbal attacks on others have become a mainstream component of public discourse.  In fact, every day brings a new barrage of verbal bullets that dominate the headlines and take this vocal warfare to a new, unprecedented level.  And, quite frankly, I don’t see it getting better over the next couple of years.  This war of words does nothing but categorize and diminish others, and at the same time create increased brokenness in our culture and society.  And the brokenness spreads like a virulent virus into other facets of life, into our communities, organizations, our schools, our local governments and even our families.  All the name calling, the vicious verbal attacks, and the spoken forms of assault only breed violence, hatred, fear, and contempt.   In the depth of this present cultural context, one name calling word used all too frequently is the word “lo

This is a special musical presentation of He Knows My Name by Tammy Heilman at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

The Cost of Discipleship is the title of a book by German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  In it, Bonhoeffer spells out what he believes it means to follow Christ, what discipleship really is all about.    Bonhoeffer understood that following Jesus is not always easy.  He wanted to honestly communicate the message that, if you live into a life of discipleship, there will be costs to living such a life.  And, ultimately, toward the end of World War II, Bonhoeffer was killed because of the choices he made and his commitment to faithfully follow Jesus. In our gospel reading for today, we find Jesus bluntly teaching about discipleship and what it means to follow him.  And, I have to say, his words regarding discipleship are daunting and uncomfortable to hear.  Today, we find Jesus speaking to a large crowd of people.  Among the throng, there were some who were contemplating the possibility of becoming disciples.  Jesus’ response to them communicates the seriousness of discipleship and his words make it clear tha