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Jesus, early in God’s ministry, goes back to his hometown and is rejected by some in today’s gospel, Mark 6:1-13. Jesus had gained the trust of his twelve disciples and some authority but some of his former neighbors still looked at him as the son of Mary, son of a carpenter and uneducated. Someone pulls…
6/7/2018 12:30:00 PM CHICAGO (June 7, 2018) – The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), has convened ELCA ecumenical and inter-religious partners in a statement addressing concerns over a recent U.S. government policy calling for more stringent enforcement of federal immigration laws. The policy will most likely…
Mark 5:21-43 Gospel tells the story of two people who believed in Jesus’s power to heal and bring life out of death. One, a man with riches and power, begs Jesus to leave the crowds he is surrounded by and heal his daughter and the other is an unclean woman, who knows if she can…
In today’s Gospel (Mark 4:35-41), Jesus called to his disciples to get into a boat and cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. It was evening and they were ready for rest near the warmth of a fire. They had no desire to get up, get in a boat and travel out…
Retired Pastor David Nelson said that after a few week’s worth of Mark’s ‘conflict’ Gospels (they’ll be back later in the year), we now have wonderful little stories. Today’s story is about the mustard seed. The smallest of small seeds. In Jesus’s time, no one planted mustard seeds! They didn’t have any hot dogs and…
Mark 3:20-35 tells the story of how a house divided cannot stand. Pastor David Nelson pointed out how Mark uses conflict in his gospels and even more so in today’s gospel. Jesus is in conflict with his family and the scribes who have come to question him. His family, Mary and her other children, show…
On this second Sunday of Pentecost, our Gospel of Mark (2:23-3:6) continues with a theme of conflict. The laws of the Sabbath were examined when the Pharisees questioned Jesus about his disciples plucking grain to eat, and Jesus healing a man’s withered hand, both on the Sabbath. Jesus defends the laws of Sabbath in its…
On this Trinity Sunday, Retired Pastor David I. Nelson reminded us that God is all about relationship. The Three-in-One is just as easily the One-in-Three. As we pray to God as Jesus did, the Spirit prays within us, creating between us and God the same relationship Jesus has with God. God is intimacy, community, plurality,…
Today we celebrated the Spirit, through whom and in whom the people of God are created and re-created. The Holy Spirit is everywhere infused in us. After Jesus’s resurrection, he told his disciples that he would see them down the road in Galilee. Pastor Eric sang a new song that he wrote: “I’ll see you…
Today we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Pastor Beth pointed out that the disciples rejoiced but then must have had a time of ‘Now what?’. A time of sorrow, grief, loss, and uncertainty. Two people, dressed in white, appeared to them and asked them why they were looking up at heaven since there…