Explore past sermons from Peace Lutheran Church. Read a summary, find the scripture references, and download the original sermon manuscript.
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Thin Places, Thin People
A trip to the highest point on the Isle of Iona found my son and I witnessing heaven coming down to earth. Iona is known as a “thin place;” a place where, as Iona Community founder George McLeod has said, “only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual.” The mountain which Jesus ascends with…
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Love’s Foundation
In the year 1174, Italian architect Bonnano Pisano began laying a foundation for a tower that would take nearly two centuries to complete. Before the first story was completed problems appeared. The saturated ground caused the building to list on its south side, and to compensate Pisano built the columns and arches on the south…
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Practicing the Way of Jesus
We’re sitting at Jesus’ feet again today, and some of his words strike us as harsh and hard to swallow – no? We’re sitting at Jesus’ feet hearing him lay out a new way of being the community God has called us to be; a new way of seeing what’s important and how we are…
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Going Public
Today’s gospel follows right after last week’s Beatitudes, where Jesus gives his growing community of followers a new way of seeing who and what is precious in God’s sight. With these words, Jesus lifts whole categories of otherwise invisible people up from the ash heap and declares them blessed. This week Jesus shifts his attention…
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To See as He Sees
In his sermon on the mount, Jesus shows us a new way of seeing. This way is contrary to the values of dominant culture. The gospel calls us to care for the vulnerable, show hospitality to the stranger, and recognize both enemy and friend as sisters and brothers for whom Christ also died. The recent…
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Precarious: Full of Prayers
New Year’s Day falls in the middle of a Christmas season in which we look into the face of Mary’s boy child and come to recognize him as the long awaited fulfillment of God’s promises. While the New Year brings wildly varying predictions about what the future will be like, as people who put their…
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Our Vulnerable God
A trip to the curb with the garbage becomes a moment of reflection on the vastness of the universe. A painting by John August Swanson shows the children of the world in a procession of light, drawing from “old roots to make a new thing.” Luke also draws from old roots to tell a new…
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Signs
An awful lot of us are looking at signs these days and trying to parse what those signs might mean. I’m talking cabinet appointments, Russian hacking schemes, the future of healthcare, the fate of the Earth—and scores of other talking points that mark the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration. The signs…
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Expectations and Hope
Today’s lessons focus on expectations, disappointment, and hope. Isaiah uses his bold pallet to show us what happens when God brings springtime to desert lives. Meanwhile, John the Baptist, sitting in prison, wonders if Jesus is the Messiah. In this season famous for unfulfilled expectations, we wait for the promises of God to meet our…
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The Unexpected Guest
The prophetic texts we’re hearing from ISAIAH these four weeks offer up expansive portraits of the in breaking of God’s reign of peace, God’s shalom. As we tune in to Isaiah this Advent, be ready to have your breath taken away by the incredible sweeping vision, the all encompassing majesty of God’s dream taking flight….