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2005
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2004 Sermons
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Date
|
Scripture |
Quote
|
Pastor
Jami Fecher |
| 12-25-05 |
Christmas Day 2005
Luke 2:1-20 |
John tells his story about Jesus in an entirely different way.
He tells about Jesus in a way that
cannot be laid out in a charming image
like the nativity scene
And it that cannot be packed up and put away,
like the nativity scene.
John does not utter a word
about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.
Instead, John sings a hymn of praise to God
(our reading for today)
expressing who Jesus is to all creation
from before time began and in all eternity.
This Jesus is not relegated to the barn.
He is the alpha and omega
who seeps into every nook and cranny of creation.
John starts his story like this: “In the beginning…”
These are the exact same words
with which the entire Bible begins. |
| 12-24-05 |
Christmas Eve 2005 |
I wonder, tonight, how you hear the news
that God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
loved you so much and cares so deeply for you
that your heavenly Father sent the Only Son
to become a human baby,
who lived and died for you,
so that you might know
that The One who created a billion stars
loves you, personally. |
| 12-11-05 |
Third Sunday in Advent
John 1:6-8,
19-28 |
John’s ministry was well under way before Jesus even started.
It is likely he was more popular in his day than Jesus.
The nonbiblical
Jewish historian Josephus,
says more in his history of the time
about John the Baptist than about Jesus.
I think John caused a greater political stir.
He publicly condemned the puppet king,
Herod’s illicit relationship with Herod’s brother’s wife.
It proved politically troublesome enough
that Herod locked him up
and finally beheaded him. |
| 12-04-05 |
Second Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 40:1-11 |
The theme of Advent is hopeful expectation.
The hopeful expectation of Advent means,
I look down the road
and I have a positive sense of what lies ahead.
I do not have this positive sense because
that’s how the road ahead looks.
I am counting on it, even if I can’t see it
or figure out how it’s going to be possible.
It is not simple optimism, either.
I do not manufacture this positive sense
in that laboratory of my soul where I create my attitudes.
The hopeful expectation of Advent is placed in me
from outside me.
It is what God does to me and you and to all God’s people.
God promises |
| 11-27-05 |
First Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 64:19 |
It is about anticipation, hopeful anticipation.
The word Advent literally means, coming or appearing.
It refers to God coming or God appearing.
The Church season of Advent is lifting up 4 weeks,
to focus on our hopeful anticipation
of God coming to our reality. |
| 11-20-05 |
Christ The King A 2005
Matthew 25:3146 |
When the New Testament
talks about inheriting or entering the Kingdom of God,
or the Kingdom of Heaven
it is not talking about going to heaven
as if heaven is a place, a location.
To enter the kingdom of heaven is
to acknowledge God’s rule.
It is to welcome God’s judgment. |
| 11-13-05 |
Stewardship #4, 2005
Romans 13:1114,
Matthew 6:19 |
Jesus teaches us about two realities:
one seen and one not seen.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store
up for yourselves treasures in heaven… Matthew 6:1920
He calls them the things on earth
and things in heaven.
Paul also describes the life of a Christian
as a life lived not according to what is seen
but hoping toward that which is unseen. #####
for we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for
what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is
eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 |
| 11-6-05 |
Stewardship #3, 2005
1 Corinthians 1:18, 22-24 |
Way back in prehistory humans were huntergatherers.
Daily life consisted almost entirely of each person
feeding herself or himself, like wild animals do.
Because food was not stockpiled, there was very little time
to do anything else besides hunt and gather, eat,
then hunt and gather some more,
day in and day out, year in and year out,
moving around as the food supply required.
There was no time for people to organize or to develop skills.
Consequently, there was little sophistication or nuance
in society.
Life was brutish and short.
There were no professional musicians, doctors,
teachers, artisans, builders, police or anything.
All hands, including the hands of very young children,
were required to hunt, gather and prepare food
and secure shelter. |
| 10-30-05 |
Stewardship 2
Deut 14:2223,
Malachi 3:710,
II Corinthians 9:612 |
When you were a kid did your parents give you money
to put in the offering at Church or Sunday school?
Mine did.
They always gave me money
for the Sunday school offering plate.
And sometimes when the offering plate came by my mom &
dad would let me put their check in the plate.
I liked it.
I would anticipate, “here it comes…” plunk, I’d put it in!
I got to participate.
Yet, even at a very young age it struck me as odd
that I would make an offering that was not my money.
It did not seem like much of an offering.
This little ceremony of me putting my parents’ money
in the offering plate was their way of
beginning to teach me
the deepest of Christian teachings: |
10-16-05 |
Twenty-Second Sunday of Pentecost
Matthew 25:14-30 |
Jesus tells the disciples that the kingdom of heaven
is as if
For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and
entrusted his property to them… Matthew 25:14
This was an unimaginably big boon for these slaves.
When it says he summoned them
and entrusted them with his property
you should understand that he gave it over into their hands.
He put it in their control.
For as long as he was gone,
it was theirs to do what they saw fit.
To get a handle on what a huge deal it was to those slaves
it helps to know that most people in Jesus’ day
had little or nothing of their own.
They may have known where
their next meal was coming from,
but they did not know where next week’s meals
were going to come from.
They were not middle class Americans
with a little disposable income |
| 10-9-05 |
Twenty-First Sunday of Pentecost
Psalm 23 |
The Psalms are the prayers of God's people
that is, they are the prayers that
God's people have prayed for centuries
and they are the prayers God's people
should pray.
They are model prayers that teach us how to pray.
They are God’s word to us
And God uses them to make naked
the hearts and souls of the people of God ,
those people of the past
and you and me.
God uses both them to help us articulate
what is in our hearts
and to fill our hearts
with what God wants to have in them. |
| 9-11-05 |
Sevenfteenth Sunday
of Pentecost
Matthew 18:21-35
Romans 12:9-21 |
Jesus tells this story to describe
how it is in the kingdom of heaven, that is,
when God answers our prayer,
“thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” |
| 8-28-05 |
Fifteenth Sunday of
Pentecost
Romans 12:9-21 |
I invite you to imagine your heart,
your self,
as innocent and loving as you can imagine.
What would you be like?
What characteristics would you have?
Listen to today’s passage from Romans 12
In which Paul lifts up what
such a Christian loving heart look like
from the inside
and how Christian’s regard each other in community. |
| 8-21-05 |
Fourteenth Sunday of
Pentecost |
A young preacher was frustrated because
although she was fiery and impassioned preacher
the people in her congregation
were not shaping up as she wanted them to.
She exhorted the people to give their hearts to Jesus.
Give their hearts to Jesus.
Give their hearts to Jesus.
She complained to an older preacher
that these people were recalcitrant,
and hard hearted.
“What do you want them to do?” He
asked her.
“I simply want them to do what I have done.
What you’ve done.
The most basic thing any Christian has to do.
Give their heart to Jesus. |
| 8-14-05 |
Thirteenth Sunday of
Pentecost |
The promises of God are irrevocable.
for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable Romans 11:29
There are no qualifiers in that statement.
It is just a pure, absolute, certain, joyful
assertion of praise to the Living God
Who is completely faithful.
God is 100% trustworthy.
If God makes a promise, it happens.
There is no deception in God.
It is impossible for God to renege on God’s promise.
God is truly a Promise Keeper.
In fact, the definition of our God,
the God of the Bible, |
| 8-07-05 |
Twelfth Sunday of Pentecost |
As Nazism arose in Germany,
nearly every institution,
including almost the whole German church;
both Roman Catholic and Evangelical,
was being caught up in the promise and power
of Nazi ideology.
They justified anti-Semitism and were silent
as atrocities occurred in the name of goodness.
In 1934, in the midst of this horror
God provided one saving point of light:
The Confessing Church.
The Confessing Church took a solid stand
against the deadly tidal wave of public opinion.
There was one thing that gave them the courage
to oppose a seemingly unstoppable force:
They confessed: Jesus is Lord. |
| 7-31-05 |
Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost |
The office of the keys is the traditional
way of referring to
forgiving sin or retaining them as unforgiven.
Lutheran’s take this seriously.
We believe that our job as Christians,
especially pastors,
is to forgive sins in Jesus name.
Luther takes it so seriously,
he says in his Small Catechism |
| 7-24-05 |
Tenth Sunday of Pentecost
Romans 8:26-39 |
My son tells me I preach the same
things all the time.
In my words this is what I heard him say:
By turns, I preach that God is furious with us
and ready to judge and smite us
and things are hopeless.
Next, God is pleased with us
Christ died for us.
Our sin is completely forgiven
and there is nothing but hope.
I guess he’s right.
That’s about what I preach.
That’s what the Bible preaches.
At least it is a caricature
of what I preach and what the Bible preaches. |
| 6-19-05 |
Fifth Sunday of Pentecost
Romans 6:1-11
Matthew 10:24-39
|
Paul spends the first 5 chapters of
Romans describing
the greatest news ever:
that Jesus Christ justifies the ungodly.
That is, Jesus sacrificial death is powerful enough to
make even the most profound sinner
a child of God.
Here is a quick overview of the basic argument:
No person has the willingness or the power to be or do
what God expects,
what God created us to be and do.
No one loves and honors God as God deserves
and no one loves her or his neighbor properly.
(Just like we confessed at the beginning of the service.)
That’s why the world is in the mess it is in.
And the problem just gets worse and worse
as it has since Eve and Adam in the garden. |
| 6-05-05 |
Third Sunday of Pentecost
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9: 9-26 |
We are not righteous,
but Jesus clothes us in his righteousness,
which we experience as a reality
when we trust him for it.
St Paul wants me to know how I as a sinner,
can be in proper relationship with God.
In other words, how can you or I
be counted as genuinely righteous by God?
Certainly not by the law, he says, but by faith alone.
For this is exactly how it happened with
from the beginning with the father of all God’s people,
Father Abraham. |
| 5-29-05 |
Second Sunday of Pentecost
Romans 1:16-25
|
Human life is intended to be good
and full = Garden of Eden
Full and good = Eternal life is not so much about not duration
but quality.
God sees exactly what is right and wrong.
Nothing is hidden from God.
God perfectly rewards good and punishes evil.
Good wins and bullying evil loses.
The unpopularity of God as judge is the result of
1) wanting no accountability for actions
2) and not trusting God to be genuinely just.
In Romans, Paul proclaims that God as judge
spells eternal doom rather than eternal life
for anyone who invests in the problem =
bullying evil.. |
| 5-15-05 |
Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:17 & Joel 2:28-29 |
On the day that the disciples of
Jesus
poured out into the street and spoke
about God’s mighty deeds
and people who should not have understood the Gospel
did, indeed, understand
and some even came to faith
What had arrived is the birthday of the Church
when God poured out the Holy Spirit
on Jesus disciples
and they started proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ
to the world,
and the affect was like wild fire. |
| 5-08-05 |
Seventh Sunday of Easter
7
John 17:1-11+ 21 |
The Ascension was Thursday, 40 days
after the resurrection.
It celebrates Jesus departure from the earth to heaven
where he is the king of the kingdom of God,
the ruler of God’s realm.
The story Luke tells in Acts gives us a visual picture
of Jesus literally going up.
John’s story of Jesus does not give any visual,
but instead drives home the theological meaning
of Jesus’ being lifted up.
For John, Jesus’ being lifted up is the same as
Jesus’ being glorified by His heavenly Father. |
| 5-01-05 |
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17: 15-34 |
The place Paul taught, the Areopagus,
or Mars Hill
is the place of the Academy of Plato,
the Lyceum of Aristotle,
the Porch of Zeno,
the Garden of Epicurus.
Interestingly, Paul did not go there to teach.
He was really a refuge.
His friends had whisked him away from another city,
Beroea, to save his life.
In Beroea trouble was brewing for him
because of his preaching.
So they accompanied him as far as Athens
and left him there until his partners
Silas and Timothy could come to him. |
| 4-24-05 |
Fifth Sunday of Easter
1 Peter 2:2-10 |
I appreciate getting feedback on my
preaching.
I do not always like it, but I need it.
It is often the compliments that hint at
my failings and weaknesses
as a preacher and a Christian.
When people tell me I provoke them to thought,
I get nervous.
That is not my goal.
The point to preaching is that I announce God’s word
clearly and truly without mincing words,
being shy, namby-pamby or cowardly
so you, God’s People, might experience the Living God
Who wants to come to you
and move not your mind,
that’s not enough,
but your soul,
the whole of you. |
| 4-3-05 |
Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31 |
It is not stupid and bad people
who think Christians are delusional,
(although I’m sure some are stupid and bad)
Many intelligent people,
Who have no intention to scorn or ridicule others,
think the message is un-true.
It does not fit with reality.
In fact, it avoids reality.
Karl Marx called it the opiate of the masses:
the drug that deadens the pain of life,
making it tolerable.
Some people think that a belief in God
and hope for an afterlife are fabricated
for those who cannot cope with the reality of
their own inevitable death. |
| 3-27-05 |
Easter Sunday 2005
Acts 2: 22-24 |
When so many people complain
that religion was crammed down their throat
as children
and the God they heard about was an angry God,
quick to punish and condemn
for the slightest violation
of some incomprehensible law,
you’d think that I would have gotten
that message too.
But I did not get that message at all.
I heard from the pulpit all about what sinners we are.
I heard that we are violent and selfish
and do not care for others as we ought
and we certainly do not bring proper honor to God.
I tell, from my earliest recollection
I agreed with all of it!
I thought it described me and my family
with remarkable accuracy. |
| 3-25-05 |
Good Friday |
We Christians should be perfectly
clear about one thing:
The cross is foolishness.
It is a scandal.
It is not a pretend scandal.
I do not say the cross is foolishness
tongue in cheek.
Paul is not being ironic in this message to the Corinthians.
He is stating a reality.
The cross is foolishness and a scandal.
Being Christian is not reasonable to anybody
except those who believe despite themselves. |
| 3-24-05 |
Maundy Thursday |
This night is packed more full of
meaning
than Christmas eve.
We remember this night every single Sunday,
as the night in which Jesus was betrayed.
It is the night Jesus instituted Holy Communion.
The night He instituted a new teaching on servanthood.
It is the night in which Jesus said,
“the hour has come”
(John 17:1)
All through John’s story starting in the 2nd chapter
Jesus says, “the hour is coming but is not yet here”.
7 times He says this.
Now, on this night, His death is at hand,
Jesus says
“The hour has come.”
The hour that had come was
the hour for Jesus to be glorified! |
| 3-20-05 |
Palm Sunday
Summary of Lord’s Prayer |
When Christ seems to be acting in
our lives
the way we want him to.
we hear own lips shouting,
“Hosanna! Blessed is the one
who comes in the name of the Lord,”
When he fails to do and be what we want.
we hear our own lips utter, “crucify him”
Christians admit to wanting God only on our own terms.
We confess that we are simply not able
to accept God on God’s terms.
We cannot let God be God.
We can only have a God who does our will.
And of course, that is no God at all. |
| 3-13-05 |
Lent 5, 2005
Thy Will Be Done On Earth
As It Is In Heaven
|
Today’s theme is the third petition,
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
This is probably the hardest petition to pray
because it pinpoints the battlefield
of our Christian struggle.
The main Christian battleground
is not the political arena.
It is not against godless foes
who don’t uphold Christian values
or believe in the Christian religion.
A Christian’s main battleground is not addressing
the awesome social injustice
that oppresses so many in this world,
systems I both participate in and benefit from. |
| 3-06-05 |
Lent 4 2005
Thy Kingdom Come |
The second petition and our theme
for today is
“Thy kingdom come.”
A kingdom is that area of land or body of people
that is ruled over by a king.
By definition kings rule
and a kingdom is what they rule.
By “rule” I mean a king has the power
to make his will be done.
Kings and power go together.
People hope for a good king,
a king’s whose will takes the into consideration
the needs of others, namely me!
But it is not enough for the king
simply to have a good will,
the king also needs to be powerful enough
to make the king’s will be done
against anybody who opposes it. |
| 2-27-05 |
Lent 3 2005
Hallowed Be Thy Name |
I had a philosophy professor in college
who was peculiar.
He liked to tell this story:
One guy tells another guy, “I’m going bear hunting.”
The first asks, “Do you know what a bear is?”
He answers, “No!”
He says, “Well how will you know if you find one?”
My professor told this story to illustrate some point in logic
which I can’t remember,
but I am using the story to illustrate a truth
about Christian prayer.
Many people who try to pray
give up because they conclude it does not work.
It is not helping.
I think that is wrong headed.
When we pray we are like the guy going bear hunting.
We do not know what prayer should be like,
feel like and act like.
So how would we know if it was working or not? |
| 2-13-05 |
Sacramental nature of
Stewardship
2 Corinthians 9:6-12 |
I have been preaching on the topic
of Christian stewardship
for the past 5 weeks.
Here’s a quick up to speed summary:
My greatest desire is to convince you anew
that you are powerful and free in Jesus Christ. |
| 2-06-05 |
EPIPHANY 5
Mat 22:37-40 |
These are you two main stewardships:
God and neighbor
the two things you and I are to focus our attention on.
Luther said the Law (the Ten Commandments) is divided into 2 tables
1 deals with my side of my relationship with God
2 deals with my relationship to my neighbor.
We are looking at table 2 today
and what it teaches you and me
about stewarding our lives. |
| 1-30-05 |
EPIPHANY4
Stewardship of God’s Word
1 Peter 4:8-11 & Matthew 5:1-17 |
Stewardship is how you live your life.
Each person is a steward of her/his life
whether they are Christian or not.
Living your life day in and day out IS stewarding your life.
What an affirmation, to be called a steward!
It is exciting and powerful to understand yourself
as a steward.
It means you have power and influence in your life.
Stewarding your life means, you and I can make decisions,
and act on them.
You and I are even the stewards of our motivations,
the things that lead us to make the decisions we make.
Nobody can make you decide this or that.
You are free to decide on your own. |
| 1-23-05 |
EPIPHANY 3
Matthew 5:17-20,
Galatians 6: 7-8
|
So, I say to you this day,
You are a beloved child of God
because Christ suffered and died for you.
I want you to know and believe this good news
to the core of your soul
so it causes you to say in your own way,
“Halleluia! I am
loved! Thank you, Lord, Thank you!”
Then I want you can say, “Thank you Lord”
by the way you steward your life here on planet earth.
In other words, your stewardship is a response
to the Gospel |
| 1-16-05 |
Stewardship |
This sermon could be entitled:
Confessions of a Stewardship Weenie!
I used to really NOT want to preach sermons
on stewardship.
I’ll lift up two reasons why.
One is, I understood stewardship to be
primarily about money.
Of course I was taught that stewardship is not ONLY
about money.
It is also about time and talents.
But I really did not believe that myself. |
