Explore past sermons from Peace Lutheran Church. Read a summary, find the scripture references, and download the original sermon manuscript.
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Witnessing to the Hope Within
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, and do it with gentleness and reverence.” 1 Peter 3 The focus is on testimony. The focus is on initiative. We owe to any who would ask us a clear articulation for why…
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Under Construction
Today we have a strange and wonderful assortment of texts, and running through the first and second lessons and the psalm (and maybe even the gospel if we’re creative enough…) are images clustered around rocks and stones. The first lesson tells of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, stoned to death because of his testimony about…
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Youth Sunday: Chickens, College, and a Shepherd Who Cares
The setting: a coffee shop. The conversation: real life through the lens of the 10th Chapter of John. The players: Two high school seniors share their take on Christ’s care and accompaniment with a third young woman. Chickens, college decisions, pioneer women, and Martin Luther all enter into the equasion.
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From Way of Death to Path of Life
There are some events in our lives that leave wounds that will never fully heal no matter how much time passes. Some of those wounds are the result of personal losses and tragedies we’ve suffered, and some originate from traumas shared with a larger slice of humanity—a community, a people, a nation… That’s the territory…
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Resurrection Trajectory
Empires crave it, dictators covet it; governments and institutions strive for it. The enemies of Jesus insisted upon it. Security. Yet it is insecurity that has characterized so much of the year 2011 so far. THE ROMANS—now they had security down pat. Those who dared go public in their opposition to Empire were met with…
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Going Where it Stinks
The threat of a head-lice infestation takes over our family. There are plenty of stories, and families, and places in our world, where the stinking curveball life hurls at us morphs into a more serious malady, a dis-ease, a conflict, a sickness unto death; and the stink becomes a stench that we just can’t shake….
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Beginning to See
At its core, the story is simple: a blind man has his eyes opened by Jesus. But in the events that follow his healing, the man finds his life and relationships utterly changed. Witnessing to Jesus as the light of the world may be, as Jesus himself suggests, the very thing for which God has…
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Crossroads
It’s that place where choice determines destiny. The point where the rays of the compass converge–the CROSSROADS. Images from the 9.0 earthquake, the subsequent tsunami point toward a major crossroads for Japan as it faces its greatest challenge since WW2. Crossroads. We’ve been there before—nationally, communally, personally—and we’ll be there again. And this morning, that’s…
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Eve on Oprah
Whether you’re of the mind to understand this story metaphorically, symbolically, or literally, the point is: Adam and Eve’s story is our story—a story about human purpose, human freedom, and human limits. It’s the kind of story that gives us the human predicament in a nutshell—all the possibilities—and all the propensity to bungle it up….
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Tourists or Pilgrims?
The ashes we wear as we begin the 40-day journey we call Lent are an emblem of our common origins and our shared destiny: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The ashes mark our origin and destiny as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. But the ashes are also signs of…