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

When I was on internship in Richland Hills, Texas, and area clergy gathered to discuss the scripture readings for the Sundays of Pentecost and Holy Trinity, everyone seemed quite excited about preaching on Pentecost Sunday, but hardly anyone looked forward to preaching on Trinity Sunday.  In fact, my internship supervisor, Pastor Phil, joked the Intern is always given Trinity Sunday as a day for preaching.  He said, “This is a test to see if the Intern is heretical or not!”  You see, the doctrine of the Trinity is one many clergy would often rather avoid.  So, the task of proclamation on Trinity Sunday was mine that year.  However, I was glad I was assigned the task because I believe we need a better understanding of the three persons of the Trinity.  You see, each person of the Trinity gives us language to better understand God.  And, the relationship of mutual love between the three persons of the Trinity helps us better understand how deeply we are loved and how we are to love others. Talking about the Tri

This is a special musical performance of The Lord's Prayer by Ryan Thompson at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. 

This is a special musical performance of Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song by Bob Nelson at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a sermon based on John 14:8-17 

We live in a time when American citizenship and patriotism are too often wedded to Christian discipleship, or at least confused with discipleship.  So, when I read theologian, Willie James Jennings, commentary on today’s reading from Acts, I found it very helpful.  He writes: The church has always been tempted to confuse citizenship with discipleship.  The citizen who is a disciple can no longer be a citizen in the abstract, no longer a citizen in theory but only in the concrete practice of a disciple.  The disciple is a citizen who has had their citizenship tightly bound to the body of Jesus and ordered by the Spirit of God toward one purpose – to expose the concealed architecture of oppression and violence and to set the captives free.  A citizen may do other things to promote the well-being of the republic.  Yet the disciple must never forget the site from which they are obligated to think citizenship: the prison and the places of the oppressed.   Throughout history, disciples of Jesus have worked to expos

This is a special musical presentation of Do Lord from the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical presentation of three songs by the Flutes of Faith at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical presentation of Hallelujah Round of Praise from the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir, Joyful Noise Children's Choir and Faith Bells at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is the special musical performance of True Light with soloists Chris Lewis and Ryan Thompson along with the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir.

This is a special musical presentation of In the Secret from the Joyful Noise Children's Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical presentation of Praise to the Lord the Almighty from the Faith Bells at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

While studying today’s gospel lesson, I was struck by the words of Jesus as they appear in this reading.  Sometimes, particular words jump out at you and cause you to hear the Word of God in a whole new way. These words are so familiar to us.  And, while I have known this before, as I studied this passage for today, some of the words truly jumped out at me and gave me pause.  The initial command Jesus gives is quite familiar when he says, “Love one another. I give you a new commandment:  Love one another.”  Quite honestly, I along with many of you have probably always heard these words in John’s gospel as a form of the Golden Rule. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The Golden Rule – words to live by.  Right?  In fact, these are words Jesus, a Jewish man, would have been very familiar with.  Frankly, these are words Jews, Muslims and indeed people of all sorts of faith traditions hold as sacred. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Do onto others as you would have them do unto you and love your neighbor

Some of you may know something of famed violinist, Fritz Kreisler.  He was one of the best violinists the world has known.  A story is told of Kreisler as he once traveled from Hamburg, Germany to give a concert in London.  Kreisler had about an hour before his boat sailed, so he wandered into a music shop.  The proprietor asked if he could look at the violin Kreisler was carrying.  The store owner then vanished only to return accompanied by two policemen, one of whom told the violinist, “You are under arrest.” “What for?” asked Kreisler. The policemen responded, “You have Fritz Kreisler’s violin.” Kreisler said, “I am Fritz Kreisler.” The cop said, “You can’t pull that on us.  Come along to the station.”  As Kreisler’s boat was soon to sail, he faced a crisis.  His identity was being questioned and there was no time for prolonged explanations.  Kreisler asked for his violin and played a piece for which he was well known.  “Now are you satisfied?” he asked.  They were.  Kreisler’s identity was revealed throug

This is a special musical performance of He Shall Feed His Flock from the chancel choir at Faith Lutheran Church.

This is a special musical performance of Run, Mary Run from the Chancel Choir children's choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of the Calypso Lord's Prayer from the Joyful Noise children's choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

As I studied the lessons for today, I could not help but think about last weekend, when yet another alarming attack took place in a California synagogue.  It was horrific to again see someone go into a place of worship, take the life of one person and injure several others.  I think it is important to think about the zealousness that is being voiced and acted upon by a growing number of extremists whose ideologies are anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, or anti any considered “other.”  The speech and actions proponents of these ideologies are taking are evil.  And, what is so troubling is that such action is borne from a very skewed, distorted perspective of “perceived” righteousness.  No one is more dangerous than one with the power to take life and the one who already has mind and sight set on those who are a perceived threat.  Such a person is a closed circle of a person, a person living in an ideological bubble relying only on the inner coherence of their distorted logic.  They live in a circular form of denial an

This is a special musical presentation by Ryan Thompson of I know That My Redeemer Liveth

Jack Dingledine:  Martin Luther wrote, “The power of God is present in all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf.  Do you think God is sleeping on a pillow in heaven?... God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, behind you and before you.”  When Dr. Lisa Dahill was here a few weeks ago, she reminded us that the reality in which all of us live is Christ, the Risen Christ.  In fact, the reality in which each one of us and all of creation exists, is the Christ who has been present from the beginning of creation, from the time of the Big Bang, and continues to be present to us, to all of creation, to the entire cosmos.  The Christ in whom we exist, in whom we live and move and have our being, is the same Christ that took on flesh and blood in the person of Jesus.  Dr. Dahill reminded us that the Christ in whom we and the entire creation exists is all about healing, wholeness, love and reconciliation for the world.   Tula Ngasala:  In Psalm 118, our Psalm for today, we sing with the ancient Hebrews,

KIM O’BRIEN (as Mary):  It has been a horrible, heart-wrenching week.  And over the past couple of days, the silence has been deafening.  Our world seemed to come to an end when our friend, Jesus, died on Friday afternoon.  He had been executed in a ghastly, violent way – executed by crucifixion.  Since that time, the silence had been ear-piercing as our hearts were breaking, so heavy laden with grief.  We had been in such shock we honestly did not known what to do.  Jesus’ body had been buried in a tomb late on Friday afternoon and, because the Sabbath was beginning, we could not even give his body a proper cleansing and anointing, not even a suitable wrapping.  So, today, in the silence of the wee hours of morning and in accordance with Jewish burial customs, some of us decided to go back to Jesus’ tomb and perform the last burial duties with our spices.  We wanted to give Jesus an appropriate burial.  At least that was something we could do for our dear friend. We got up early and made our way to the tomb