Explore past sermons from Peace Lutheran Church. Read a summary, find the scripture references, and download the original sermon manuscript.
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Exercise Your Faith
In response to Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, the apostles cry: “Increase our faith!” I can identify with that plea. God knows that we all could use a bigger dose of faith active in our lives. Confronted with the impossible challenges of walking the way of Jesus and talking the talk of Jesus, we can find…
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The Rich Man and Lazarus~A Dialog in Three Parts
This sermon dialog explores how well we middle class North Americans fit in the shoes of the rich man of Jesus’ parable. How many of the assumptions that framed his life are part of ours as well? What do we claim as our birthright? Living the American Dream? Having access to cheap food and inexpensive…
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Taking Risks
The parable of the dishonest manager reminds me of an M.C. Escher drawing. It draws us in, and suddenly becomes an enigma we can’t solve. By the end of it we’re left shaking our heads, wondering if we heard Jesus right. What if the question beneath it all—between the lines—is: WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO…
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Total Commitment
Following Jesus means doing the hard work of disentangling ourselves from all the other voices and authorities that seek to own or define us. Christ is totally committed to our total transformation! He loves us too much to leave us where we are! But he never said it was going to be easy. No, he…
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Hunger for Hospitality
The life to which the gospel calls us is a life of unreserved hospitality and radical trust. Jesus does much of his teaching around this topic, particularly in Luke’s gospel, while sharing dinner at people’s homes. The central meal which grew out of this teaching of Jesus and the practice of his disciple community is…
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Heavy Song / Healing
Recent needs of parishioners have me singing a Heavy Song. God’s invitation in Christ is always to seek healing, even when asking seems risky.
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Closer
Five short verses and a whole world of conversation opens up around the role of women in the church and the two fundamental instincts of followers of Christ: serving others in the name of Jesus and being drawn closer to God through Christ’s teaching. This story is about the role of women in the church,…
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Risking Love
Of all the stories Jesus told, the parable of the good Samaritan is probably the most well known, and the point seems crystal clear: even your enemy is your neighbor, and this is what loving him looks like. But we like to make things complicated. Like the lawyer who came to Jesus, we, too, seek…
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UNIVERSE
On this final Sunday of the Season of Creation we pull out our telescopes to behold a universe unimaginably more vast and complex than our wildest imaginations, where single galaxies exist composed of a trillion stars, and where peering at them through the night sky means peering back into the expanding universe’s distant past in…
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STORM
When we think of storms we’re not inclined to think of the beauties of creation, the delights of discovery and fascination with the natural order of things. Storms are more terrifying than beautiful! Storms are about the natural disorder of creation! We may well stand in awe in the face of a storm, with the…