Explore past sermons from Peace Lutheran Church. Read a summary, find the scripture references, and download the original sermon manuscript.
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Who Counts?
The 2010 census figures are in. What’s so important about census numbers? They not only affect our collective voice in Congress, they also determine how and where $400 billion dollars will be spent annually on infrastructure and services. In a world where money follows the numbers, numbers matter. Tonight St. Luke tells us that the…
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Passionate Patience
Four years ago this week Seattle was hit by the hurricane-force winds and heavy rains of the Hanukkah Eve storm. The storm ripped large sections of shingles off the roof above us, knocked down trees, sent mudslides careening down hillsides, and shut down the power grid—in some places for the better part of a week….
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Imagine
Stirring our hearts and minds this morning, Isaiah invites us to take the risk of using our imaginations to dream with him God’s own dream for the world. A dream where a green shoot emerges from a bleak landscape and a child becomes a sign that the world is about to turn. In the first…
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Swords into Plowshares; Shards into Suncatchers
Today, in the first words from the Lord for this first Sunday of the new church year, the prophet Isaiah unfurls a vision of that time when God’s holy mountain will be lifted above all others, drawing peoples together from all nations, all races and cultures. Swords will be beaten into plowshares, instruments of war…
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Christ’s Hidden Reign
Today Luke’s story of Jesus reaches a climax as the most ghastly evil and the most exquisite good converge upon a cross. But we better watch this scene closely—because this story doesn’t follow the “hero” plot line we’re so used to seeing. Suspended helplessly between heaven and earth, Jesus is the antithesis of a king….
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Real Power, Real Love
If there’s a theme that runs through our texts this All Saints Sunday, it’s a theme that has to do with power and that asks: who has it and how it is manifest? In her book JESUS FREAK, Sara Miles asks: What would it mean to live as if you—and every one around you—were Jesus,…
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Never Too Late
Sometimes, change takes its sweet time in a person. But other times it can happen just like that. On this Reformation Sunday, a story about a “re-formation” of soul that came to the life of one man who’d long been set in his ways.
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Which God?
Some parables are clear example stories, urging us “go and do likewise.” Other parables don’t urge us to do anything but rather present us with a new image of God and depict the way God behaves. I think the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector is one of those parables Too often the Christian…
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Finding Our Voice
Today we participate in Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters campaign. Sometimes it takes one straw, or one letter, piled upon another to break the impasse, to get on the agenda, to turn the tide. The widow’s persistence in today’s parable confirms as much. By participating in the Offering of Letters, we join our…
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Healed by Gratitude
On his way to Jerusalem and all that awaits him there, Jesus travels through a “no-man’s-land” between Galilee and Samaria where he meets ten lepers, calling for mercy. Jesus sends them on their way and they are healed. One of them, a Samaritan, upon seeing what has happened to himself, turns around, and comes back…