Sermons from September 2021
Salted with Fire
18 Pentecost, Proper 21 – September 26, 2021 Mark 9:38-50 So, this week let’s look at the similarity in our first reading from Numbers and the gospel that we just heard. In our first reading the Lord “took some of the spirit that was on [Moses] and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, the prophesied. But notice that Eldad and Medad stayed in the camp. But the Lord caused the spirit to rest…
“But Who Do You Say that I Am?”
16 Pentecost, Proper 19 – September 12, 2021 Mark 8:27-38 Today Jesus asks the question, ‘who do people say that I am’? And Peter responds with “You are the Messiah”. A perfect, A-plus answer, right? The whole gospel story in a nutshell, right? Wrong. Or, at least, not quite. Because after this, the story Mark tells gets really weird. Instead of praising Peter’s prophetic answer, Jesus tells him to keep his mouth shut, and launches into a grim description of…
Make a Feast out of Crumbs
15 Pentecost, Proper 18 – September 5, 2021 Mark 7:24-37 We just heard two interesting stories about a child, someone’s daughter, and a deaf man — both were suffering from ailments that isolated them from society. And the story of the Syrophoenician woman, the mother, is an unusual one, because Jesus insults this unnamed woman — he calls her a dog. But she persists, even with the insult, and then Jesus has a critical shift in awareness. Because she…