by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 4, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 2
Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 2, 2026
Matthew 14:13:21
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sometimes a meal is more than a meal. Sometimes eating food is more than just a way to get your body the calories it needs. Sometimes a meal means something. Maybe it is a recipe from a long departed loved one which makes it feel like they’re right there with you. Maybe it is an ethnic food, a tradition you carry on that connects you to your ancestors. Maybe it is something special you always eat on a holiday, without which it just wouldn’t be the same.
My wife and I were married up in Bellingham. We only had a weekend for our honeymoon because I had to come back and take my last final exams at Western Washington University that next week. So, we took a short trip to Victoria, BC. We left right from the church to catch the ferry out of Vancouver. On that ferry ride we got an order of French fries and gravy, which is how they often serve it in Canada. To this day, French fries and gravy means something to us. We sometimes have it on our anniversary. We sometimes have it when we’re up in Canada. It is a very simple dish. There’s nothing fancy about it. But whenever we have it, it is meaningful to us. It is only French fries for crying out loud, but when you put gravy on them, they become intensely romantic to us. It is a meal that points us to our honeymoon. It points us to the promises we made on our wedding day. It is a meal that points us to the covenant relationship we share.
The Bible is full of meals that mean something. Over and over again, God reveals himself in and through meals. Over and over again, God establishes relationships with his people through meals. After God made a covenant with his people, establishing a relationship with them, Moses and the elders shared a meal in God’s presence. When God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, they didn’t just witness salvation, they ate it! God gave them a meal, the Passover meal, which delivered salvation to them! As God’s people wandered in the wilderness for forty years, unable to feed themselves, God provided manna, bread from heaven, which nourished and sustained them. There were the sacrifices made at the temple, many of which concluded with the worshippers eating a portion of the sacrifice, indicating a restored and renewed relationship with God. There are meaningful meals found in the lives and writings of the prophets. Elijah and Elisha both presided over miraculous meals which revealed that the God of Israel was the true God who brings life.
And then there is our reading from Isaiah for today, one of several passages in the Old Testament where the prophets declare that when the Messiah comes, there will be a freely given feast to which all are invited! As we heard:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant.”
Do you see that this is about more than food? This meal is about relationship. It leads to a new and everlasting covenant. It isn’t just about calories for the body, it is about food for the soul. It is a meal that means something.
All of this is vitally important background for understanding our gospel reading for today. In order to truly savor this well-known miracle of the feeding of the more than five thousand, we need to keep in mind that God has a history of revealing himself through meals!
Often this miracle story is turned into a moral lesson about sharing, about feeding people. Now of course it is important to share. Of course Christians should be concerned about feeding the hungry. We do that through our contributions to Help House, and in a number of other ways, and we should. It is part of how we live out our faith.
But this story is not about that! At least not directly! When the disciples pointed out to Jesus that it was getting late and there were more than five thousand people there, it was a valid concern. They were being practical. It was time to wrap things up so people could get home for dinner. And when Jesus told the disciples that the crowd didn’t need to go away, that they could feed them, he wasn’t scolding them for being selfish, he was setting up the scenario for his miracle. And when the disciples expressed confusion about how exactly they were supposed to feed more than five thousand people with only five loaves and two fish, they were only being realistic. How do you divide five loaves and two fish between that many people? How can you possibly cut the servings up that small? Even if you could, how would that microscopic morsel possibly be enough to fill anyone up?
What happens next is what makes this meal meaningful. Jesus took what they had, even though it wasn’t enough. Jesus told the crowd to sit down in the grass. Then Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up to heaven. He blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. The disciples then gave them to the crowds. All ate and were filled. They didn’t get tiny scraps; they all ate their fill! There were even leftovers! Twelve baskets full – more than they had when they started!
This meal means something. Here’s what it means: It means Jesus is God’s Messiah, the savior who has come with abundant blessings for all, filling people up as a free gift. It means Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises spoken by the prophets, that God would send a savior to bring salvation to all, establishing a new covenant, a new relationship. The way Jesus prepared the meal means something. Jesus looked to heaven and blessed and broke the bread, lifting it up and saying the berakah, the prayer of thanksgiving. This means that this was not just a way to get calories for the body; it was offered as food for the soul. The twelve baskets of leftovers mean something too. They mean that the twelve tribes of Israel, God’s original chosen people, are now being expanded to include all those who gather around the bread of the New Israel, founded on these twelve apostles and their twelve baskets of bread from Jesus. Talk about rich food! This is a richly meaningful meal!
There is a church which stands today on the site of this miraculous meal. It is called, appropriately enough, the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fish, or Church of the Multiplication for short. It has been there on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee since 350AD. There is a Byzantine-era mosaic on the floor of the sanctuary with an image of loaves and fishes. Christian tourists familiar with this gospel story often point out that there are only four loaves in the mosaic. They assume that the artists messed up because the Bible says there were five loaves.
But the artists didn’t mess up. The four loaves were very much on purpose. You see that mosaic is directly under the altar. The fifth loaf is lifted up every Sunday as the priest lifts up the host of the Lord’s Supper. The artists were making a very intentional point that the miracle of the Multiplication continues in perpetuity as Jesus continues to feed his people with food for the soul, the food of the new covenant.
And so that miraculous meal of the feeding of the five thousand which happened so long ago means something to us here today too. It reveals to us who Jesus is for us. He is the savior who enacts and embodies Isaiah’s feast, given to us as a free gift. He is the savior who has invited us into the new covenant he has established, a new relationship with God, and he keeps calling us back into this relationship again and again. He is the savior who takes our “not enough” and turns it into an abundance of grace. He is the savior who fills our deepest hungers, who gives us food for our souls.
Jesus is the savior who continues to reveal himself to us through a miraculous meal. For on the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus again took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples as the food of forgiveness, the food of grace, the food of new life, the food of himself and his sacrificial love, freely given for us and for our salvation.
This meal is more than bread and wine. It means something. It means that in spite of all the things we lack, all the things we don’t have enough of, the strengthening and sustaining and life-giving grace of Jesus Christ continues to be given to us in miraculous abundance, that we would eat and be filled with his great love for us, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 26, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 26
Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – July 24, 2026
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here’s a cool thing a congregation did: They invited members of their church to submit digital photos of themselves. They collected hundreds of candid photos of their members, taken during ordinary activities of daily life. They then ran those photos through a computer program to create a mosaic. The picture of Jesus you see on the screen this morning is the result. If you zoom in on those tiny cells you can see the church members. Many of the photos appear to be taken at their church, but there are others showing them at weddings, or out on boats, or playing with children. Together, these small pictures of daily life form a mosaic of Jesus. Pretty neat, huh?
I think this is a helpful way to understand our gospel reading for today. We’ve been hearing one parable per week for the last couple of weeks, but today we get not one, not two, but FIVE parables all in one reading! They are very short parables. Word pictures, really. Jesus takes several common images from daily life to give us a picture of something bigger. He uses these little word pictures to create a mosaic revealing to us what the kingdom of heaven is like.
Before we go any further, I should probably explain that when Jesus uses the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” in our reading for today, he isn’t just talking about going to heaven when we die. He isn’t just talking about the pearly gates and eternal life. That is absolutely part of the promise of the gospel, and it is in the background here, but Jesus uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven,” particularly in Matthew’s gospel, to refer to something broader. “The kingdom of heaven” means the same thing as “the kingdom of God.” The two terms are interchangeable, and both refer to the ways God breaks into our world and into our lives. They refer to how and when and where God is active and at work. And so, these short parables we hear today about the kingdom of heaven, these small word pictures, create a mosaic illustrating how God is at work through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The first word picture is of a mustard seed which someone has sown in his field. Even though it is the smallest among the seeds commonly planted, it grows up into the greatest of shrubs, a tree in which the birds of the air come and make nests. Mustard seeds are not only small, they are a humble crop. It isn’t a cash crop like olives or grapes might be. And even at their biggest, they don’t grow up into anything all that big or strong, like the cedars of Lebanon. They are not only small; they are also the least of the seeds sown – the least important, the least profitable, the least impressive. And yet, if you plant some, I sure hope you like mustard, because it has a way of taking over! Plant one small patch and it will spread! It will take over a field in no time!
The second word picture is very similar to the first. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” In Jesus’ time yeast didn’t come in the dried, granular form we have today. They didn’t have Bob’s Red Mill or Red Star active dry yeast. People passed down naturally occurring yeast by sharing a pinch of dough from the previous batch, not unlike how really good sourdough is passed down still to this day. The yeast is already in there, unseen but at work. The woman in the parable takes this pinch and adds it to three measures of flour. The amount named in this parable is the equivalent of about 84 cups, or 23 pounds of flour. That’s a lot of bread! And yet this yeast goes to work, unseen but powerful, leavening this entire enormous new batch of dough, expanding and rising in abundance!
With these first two word pictures, we start to see part of the mosaic taking shape. God came into the world in a most unimpressive way. God came as a tiny infant. Jesus was laid in a humble manger. He was raised in the backwater village of Nazareth, a place so insignificant it doesn’t even appear on many of the maps from that time. He would ride a donkey into Jerusalem, not a stallion. Instead of being seated on a throne he was nailed to a cross, alongside criminals. And yet, in these small, unimpressive by the world’s standards, seemingly insignificant ways, God’s kingdom was breaking into the world! The kingdom of heaven was drawing near! Soon this kingdom would grow into a home for many, like those sparrows making a home amidst the mustard. Soon it would rise into something which gives life and nourishment and strength to many, like leavened bread.
This is still how God works! God still brings his kingdom to us in ways that are hard to see on the surface, in ways that don’t seem all that obvious or impressive to the world but nonetheless prove to be powerful in our lives.
God’s word is sown in us through the feeble words and the stumbling delivery of preachers, most of whom rarely match the skills of the world’s great orators. St. Paul himself was criticized, and even self-critical, for being “unskilled in speech.” (2 Corinthians 11:6) And yet, God’s Word was planted through his words. Those words grew things. They grew the church, where many have found shelter and a home. They grew faith. Those words took over people’s hearts, their lives!
God’s word is kneaded into us through a pinch of bread and a sip of wine in the supper Christ has given us. It isn’t much of a meal, really. It is barely a nibble. It isn’t even enough to qualify as an appetizer. There are hardly any calories and no protein. And yet, through this holy supper Christ is literally added to us, just like the yeast is added to a measure of flour. His true presence leavens us. He works, unseen, to expand in us and fill up our lives with hope and joy and peace and love, making his rising our own.
Another pair of parables gives us two more word pictures. These parables are about something precious – a treasure and a pearl of great value. Like the first two parables, they include things that are hidden and small, but here they are pursued at any expense. The finders of these precious items give up everything they have in order to possess these precious items. In the first parable the finder goes and sells everything he has in order to buy the field and claim the treasure. In the second parable the merchant also sells everything he has in order to buy that one precious pearl.
As we take these two parables together, we start to see another part of the mosaic taking shape. God is establishing his kingdom, his reign, through a savior who is willing to give up everything in order to have what is precious to him. You are that treasure! You are that pearl of great price! Jesus gave up everything to have you. Jesus gave up the comforts of heaven to come into a fallen world that would reject him. Jesus gave up his outward glory as he went through the humiliation of being crucified for us. Jesus gave up his very life so that we would belong to him. This is what the kingdom of heaven is like. It is like a savior who gives up everything to make us his own. We are that valuable to him. You are that valuable to him.
The last word picture in this mosaic is very similar to the parable we looked at last week, the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Since I dealt with that at length last week, I’ll be brief with this last one. In short, here Jesus describes a net which is thrown into the sea, bringing up fish of every kind. When the net is full, it is pulled up to the shore and sorted. The good fish are tossed into a basket, and the bad fish are tossed aside.
This is yet another snapshot of daily life in Jesus’ time, and in it, Jesus gives us yet another part of the mosaic. As God’s kingdom unfolds, the net is cast widely over the earth to gather in all people, both those considered good and those considered bad. And so, like the wheat field from last week, it is going to be messy at times! The world, the church, and our sinful selves will be a mix of good and bad until the very end. It is not ultimately our job to do the sorting. That job belongs to Jesus, who will send his angels to separate what is evil from what is righteous until everything is pure and whole and holy at last.
Are you starting to see the mosaic in full? Are you starting to make out the big picture?
The kingdom of heaven comes to us in ways that are often unseen and unimpressive by the world’s standards. It doesn’t come through smoke machines or fireworks or specific dramatic feelings. It comes through a humble savior who wants to be found in words and water and bread. While simple to the point of being easily overlooked, these means of grace are a force to be reckoned with as our Lord Jesus uses them to feed us and shelter us and leaven us and nourish us and strengthen us. His kingdom quietly grows in and through us.
We are part of this kingdom because even though we are sinners, our savior sees us as precious and valuable, and he has given up everything in order to claim us for himself. You are his treasure. You are the pearl of great price, and Jesus was willing to pay that price with his own precious blood in order to make you his own, today and forever.
This kingdom will be a mixed net until the end, there will be good and bad both in us and around us, but eventually everything evil will be cast out, so that we can dwell with our Lord forever in peace.
Your life is a cell in the great mosaic that makes up the kingdom of God. In every scene, both good and bad, in every picture, both joyful and sorrowful, God is at work – loving you, forgiving you, guiding you, teaching you, healing you, blessing you, carrying you. You might not be able to see it at times, you might not feel it, it might not seem obvious, but even now your Lord Jesus is weaving your life into this great mosaic that is now and forever will be the kingdom of heaven.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 23, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 19
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – July 19, 2026
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As many of you know, my wife and I just got back from a big trip to Hawaii. One of the many things we enjoyed about the Big Island is the amazing plant life. We enjoyed fresh fruit from the farmer’s market just about every morning. We went to a tropical botanical garden, which was spectacular. We also did three farm tours, including a place which grows both coffee beans and cacao. We toured a vanilla farm, which was fascinating.
The third place, however, was a little bit disappointing. Amy and I are big tea drinkers, so we were really excited to visit a tea farm. Maybe our expectations were too high after all the other cool things we’d seen, but the tea fields just looked a little….messy. The tour guide took us through chest-high rows of tea growing, for the most part, in neat rows, but there were ugly branches sticking out all over the place which were obviously not tea. He kind of sheepishly admitted that they were weeds.
Today we hear our Lord Jesus tell another parable which is rooted in the soil. It is another parable using the imagery of agriculture, of growing things. And in this parable, Jesus describes a field which has been beset by weeds. Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven can be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while he slept, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. When the farm hands wake up the next morning, they see the weeds. They confront the farmer, asking him if he knows what he’s doing. Did he plant this stuff? Did you not plant good seed? The farmer explains to them that an enemy has done it. An enemy has come along and planted weeds in his field. The farmhands then ask if they should go and start yanking those weeds out. But the farmer says, no, you’ll just end up pulling the wheat along with the weeds. Leave it be, he says. We’ll deal with it at the harvest.
This was the approach at the tea farm we went to as well. This is going to sound a little too perfect, a little too on the nose, but it is absolutely true: The tea farmer told us he had to leave the weeds there because their roots are all entangled with the roots of the tea plants, and so to pull one out would cause great damage to the other.
This is the exact problem in the parable! Even though it is messy, the farmhands need to let the weeds be. Even though it is messy, the farmhands need to be patient. They need to wait for the harvest, when the farmer will take care of everything.
Jesus tells this parable to describe the world we live in as he goes about his ministry, sowing the seed of his Word, raising up children of the kingdom. This parable describes the age we live in, the age between Christ’s first coming and his final coming. This field that is the world is a messy place! This age we live in is a messy time! We live in the midst of both wheat and weeds!
On the one hand, the world is a beautiful place, filled with wonder and delight. There is beauty and there is goodness and there is love. On the other hand, the world is full of weeds. There is also much cruelty and corruption and violence.
This messy field is a good description of the church too. Luther liked to say that wherever Christ builds a church, the devil builds a chapel. At its best, the church can be bravely and boldly faithful, while at other times it can be a platform for some really stupid and unbiblical ideas – as any number of clips on the internet can attest. The same sacred institution which has safeguarded the precious words of the gospel has also been the source of great disappointment for many people. There is precious wheat and some ugly weeds and they are all tangled up down to the roots, and so it gets messy!
We find that the weeds and the wheat even grow alongside each other inside our own hearts. One of the great insights of the Lutheran Reformation is that human beings are simul iustis et peccator, we are simultaneously saint and sinner. The Old Adam or Eve still dwells in us even as we have been declared righteous on account of Christ. And so our lives are often messy. Our hearts have not yet been made fully clean and pure. There are weeds that grow in us, poking out awkwardly. Our growth isn’t always in neat rows. Our sanctification is never quite complete in this life, on this side of heaven.
When we encounter these weeds, our instinct, like those farm hands, is to want to pull them out. And in some cases, this is exactly what we should do! Scripture teaches us that God works through earthly authorities to restrain evil, to create a measure of order in this messy world, to limit the damage the weeds might do. Scripture teaches the church to be on guard against false teachings. Matthew 18 gives us instructions on how to deal with problematic weeds that might crop up among believers, and it involves rooting them out. There are some ways we sin against each other that just can’t be ignored. Scripture tells us as individuals to strive against sin, to watch our behavior and to be careful about the company we keep. So we are not to be entirely passive in dealing with the weeds. Sometimes weeding is warranted! Sometimes it is necessary! The same Bible that gives us this parable also teaches us that there are times and places when weeds need to be pulled!
What this parable is doing is telling us why the world, and the church, and we ourselves, are the way we are. An enemy has been sowing weeds. They do not come from God. They have been planted by the Enemy. Our Enemy the devil is to blame for much of the messiness we see.
This parable is also teaching us to be careful about our weeding. There is a time and a place for it, to be sure. The problem comes when we want a pure field – whether that is the world, or the church, or us as individuals. The problem comes when we try to pull out every weed ourselves. This is difficult and dangerous, because life is complicated. The roots of the wheat and the weeds are often entangled just below the surface. When we make it our mission to clear the field of every weed, we end up hurting a lot of good wheat in the process.
Jesus isn’t calling us to complacency about the weeds, but he is calling us to have a measure of patience, a measure of grace. He is calling us to be patient with our troubled world, patient with a frustratingly messy church. He is calling us to be patient with others, and patient with ourselves. He is telling us that the time between his first coming and his final coming is going to be messy at times, but that he will ultimately be the one to clean things up – not us.
While things were messier than I expected at that tea farm, as we got further into the fields there were two women who were harvesting some of the tea. They showed us how they did it, plucking two leaves and a bud from every branch, carefully gathering them into large fabric-lined baskets. Even with the weeds, things were growing. Even with the weeds, there was a harvest. Even with the messiness, there was beauty in watching their practiced rolling of the hand in a fluid motion, plucking those perfect green sprigs, held safely in their cupped palms.
Life in this world, life in this in between time, is often messy. It is often disappointing. Our lives don’t always line up in neat rows the way we expect, the way we would like. But even now our Lord Jesus is sowing seeds. Even now he is growing children of the kingdom. Even now there is beautiful, good wheat. You are the good wheat he is after. Even now he is working around the weeds growing awkwardly in your heart, in your life. Even now he is gathering you to himself in his grace and mercy and forgiveness.
One day all those weeds whose roots are so tangled up in our world, in the church, and in our lives, will be uprooted once and for all. This is the promise of the parable. On that day, Jesus says at the conclusion of the parable, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.” That day is not yet here, but it is coming.
In the meantime, we are invited to live in hope, knowing that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son. We are invited to live in confidence that this same Son will do the weeding and bring in the final harvest, destroying every last weed once and for all.
We are invited to live in the confidence that the church, even though it is infested with many weeds, will endure to the end – for our Lord Jesus has promised that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
We are invited to have faith that in spite of the weeds in our hearts, through Jesus Christ we ourselves have been declared to be good, harvestable wheat. We are invited to entrust our weeds to his abundant forgiveness and watch as he grows something beautiful in us.
We are invited to live in the joy and peace of knowing that by his grace he will one day gather us into his barn forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 28, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 28
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 28, 2026
Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Your body matters.
It certainly matters to you. When a body part is injured, or fails, or gets diminished by age, you notice. It starts to impact other areas of your life. Even the smallest body part matters. I was listening to a podcast on the biomechanics of walking (I know, I live a very exciting life) and part of the discussion centered on how important toes are in regulating your gait and keeping your balance, which impacts other parts of your body in profound ways. Even your toes matter!
Your body matters to other people. Your bodily presence makes a difference. It means something. I was so touched last Sunday to be able to spend Father’s Day with two of my three sons. My youngest son requested the entire day off from work even though he’s trying to get as many hours as he can over the summer, and my middle son drove all the way up from Fife to be with me. We didn’t even do much other than eat some good food together, but their bodily presence was the best gift they could have given me. Your bodily presence means something too. Your bodily presence here today matters. It means something. It is a blessing to others to have you here.
Your body matters. It matters to you. It matters to other people. Your body also matters to God. Both our gospel reading and our reading from Romans show us that God is not only concerned with our souls, but our bodies as well.
As the Apostle Paul writes in our reading from Romans.
Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
And then a bit later:
For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
When Paul refers to our “members” in this passage, he is referring to our body parts. What we do with these “members” matters. Our body parts can be used as instruments of wickedness. Lies and gossip and cruel words are spread with the tongue. Lust and covetousness are pursued with eyes. Violence is done with fists. Greed is practiced with hands. Legs can be used to distance ourselves from others. This ought not be so, St. Paul argues. Having been redeemed by Christ in body and soul, we are called to “present our members to God as instruments of righteousness.”
The predominant idea in our culture today is the idea of the autonomous self. We see ourselves as entirely independent agents, especially when it comes to our bodies. This is perhaps best summarized by the slogan, “My body, my choice.” This idea animates questions about many different controversial social issues, from abortion to physician-assisted suicide to vaccine mandates. Christians have wrestled with these issues as political problems and have sometimes come to different conclusions about how they should be handled politically. You know I am not a political preacher, so I’m not going to discuss them that way – vis a vis our relationship to the government. But as a theological matter, as a spiritual matter for us as individual Christians, when it comes to our relationships with God we cannot claim to be autonomous selves. Before God we cannot say “My body, my choice.” Our bodies are given to us by God. They rightly belong to God. Our bodies have been redeemed by God, reclaimed by God. Because this is true, St. Paul is saying, because God has redeemed us in body and soul, our bodies belong to him. And because our bodies belong to him, our body parts cannot be used in service to sin. Instead, they are to become instruments of righteousness.
So, for us personally, as individual Christians, the slogan must instead be, “God’s body, my obedience.” Instead of speaking lies or gossip or cruelty, our tongues are to become instruments that speak the truth, instruments that build others up, instruments that speak life and love into people’s lives. Instead of gazing lustfully or covetously, our eyes are to shun wickedness and instead focus on the gifts God has given us. Instead of violence or greed, our hands are to become instruments of care and service and generosity. Instead of walking away from others, our legs are to become instruments for pursuing reconciliation and community.
Jesus has something to say about this too. In our very short gospel reading for today (just three verses!) Jesus talks about how our bodily presence matters. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says, “and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” Do you see what this means? Your bodily presence brings Christ to others! You’ve heard it said that 80% of success is just showing up? This is true for ministry too! 80% of it is just being there, because simply being present with others as a Christian brings with it the very presence of Jesus. It brings the very presence of God. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says, “and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” There need not be any heroic gestures. You don’t need to bring any great wisdom or eloquence. Simple acts of hospitality will suffice. “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple,” Jesus says, “truly I tell you – none of these will lose their reward.” When legs are used to show up, when hands are used in ways as simple as sharing a cup of water, Christ is present. God is there. And so, your body matters. Your bodily presence matters. What you do with your members matters.
We are becoming an increasingly disembodied culture. Our technology is constantly pulling us out of our bodily surroundings to focus our attention elsewhere. My wife and I were recently walking down at Windjammer Park, and we saw a guy flying a drone while wearing a big headset that completely covered his eyes. I assume he was looking through the camera on his drone, and I’m sure the views were spectacular – but while he was doing that, he was completely oblivious to the people walking past him. He stood there awkwardly, completely entranced by his electronic do-dad.
It was easy to shake my head at this, but is it really so different from the way all of us are so often enthralled by screens of various kinds? I’m not saying it is always wrong or bad to use screens. I use them all the time. But it does have a way of feeding this sense of disembodiment, living in our heads while ignoring or neglecting the reality right in front of us. It has a way of leading us more and more into living a life that is virtual – which means not quite real.
This disembodied culture can lead to a disembodied Christianity. We can start to think that faith is only in our heads, that the gospel is just content we can download, that the Christian life is just having the right ideas or feelings and that it doesn’t really matter what we do with our bodies.
But this is not Christianity, friends! God did not send us an idea. God came to us in the flesh through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was not a virtual savior; he bore the cross in a real human body. His resurrection was not an uplifting thought in the minds of his disciples; he rose with a real human body, with a heart that resumed beating and a stomach that got hungry and hands that still bore his wounds.
True Christianity is a deeply embodied faith. Through his physical suffering and his very real death and his bodily resurrection, Jesus has redeemed us, body and soul. And so, both body and soul belong to him. And because they both belong to him, our members, our body parts, are to become instruments of righteousness. Our slogan must become: “God’s bodies, our obedience.”
Because Christianity is a deeply embodied faith, Christ’s forgiveness is delivered to us bodily. Thank goodness, because we need it! Our members, that is, our body parts, are often instruments of sin as we struggle to live into the new obedience to which we are called. But when we were baptized, water was put on our bodies. Christ claimed us, body and soul, as his own. In Holy Baptism our bodies were marked with the cross of his forgiveness forever. When we receive the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s body is received bodily, so that we can be renewed in this forgiveness. Grace upon grace is put on and in our bodies as we bodily gather to receive this very real gift of Christ’s forgiveness.
And as we live into this gift of forgiveness, our bodies and all their various parts begin to move more and more at the direction of the one who gave his Body for us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 23, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 21
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – June 21, 2026
Matthew 10:24-39
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Like many of you, I’m thinking about my dad today on Father’s Day. I was thinking this past week about how he taught me to ride a bike. I was an anxious kid, not much of a risk taker, so I imagine it wasn’t easy for my dad to get me going on a two-wheeler. I was scared of crashing. I was scared of skinned knees. I was scared of embarrassing myself in front of the other kids on my block. My dad never said that those things wouldn’t happen. He was honest about the risks. He was honest about the dangers, the possible negative outcomes. But still, he challenged me to take off those training wheels and go. And did those things I was so afraid of actually happen? Yes. Yes, they did. I did crash! I did skin my knees! I did embarrass myself!
But my dad wasn’t just there to challenge me. He wasn’t just there to push me beyond my fears. I also remember him running alongside me as I learned to ride. When I crashed, I remember him already being right there beside me to pick me up. It was this fatherly love, expressed in both challenge and care, which eventually helped me learn the balancing act that is riding a bike. It eventually led to the exhilarating freedom of riding on two wheels without fear.
Our gospel reading for this week is a continuation from last week. Jesus continues to challenge his disciples, pushing them beyond their fears to go out into the world to share the gospel. Jesus is honest about the risks. He is honest about the dangers, the possible negative outcomes.
Jesus tells them that just as he was facing persecution, they could expect the same. The servants shouldn’t expect better treatment than their master! If Jesus got called nasty names like Beelzebul (which translated literally means “lord of the flies”), they could expect to be called something even worse!
Jesus tells them they could expect to be maligned. They could expect to be in conflict with others. Jesus tells them he didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword. Now of course Jesus came to give us peace in a sense – he came to give us peace with God, the peace beyond all understanding – but following him would not necessarily lead to peace with others. The disciples could expect to be rejected and persecuted and ostracized. Sadly, some of this might even come from their own family members.
There will be crosses to carry as they follow him, Jesus tells them. There will be times when it is difficult, times when it is painful, times when it is humiliating.
But Jesus doesn’t just warn them about the challenges they will face. He also gives them a promise. Jesus tells them that their Heavenly Father will be right there with them through it all. He tells them that their Heavenly Father will be there to care for them, come what may.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Jesus asks. This is a rhetorical question. That’s how much sparrows actually cost back then. And I need to tell you, they weren’t being bought as pets! You see, sparrows were a common source of protein in Jesus’ time. Some of you here today no doubt will be horrified to learn that sparrows were netted and plucked and put on skewers and roasted and eaten, with a little Ranch dressing on the side to dip them into. As strange as it might sound to us to eat these cute little birds, in Jesus’ time they were considered heavy hors d’oeuvres. They were plentiful, and so they were cheap.
And yet, Jesus says, not one of them fell to the ground without the Father knowing about it. God sees each one. God cares for each one. God values each one. And you, Jesus goes on to say, are of more value to him than many sparrows! God sees you and cares for you and values you even more! Much more! Exponentially more! In fact, Jesus says, God has every hair on your head counted!
Leading up to Father’s Day, I’ve been thinking not only of my dad, but also about the incredible blessing of being a dad. When Jesus talks about every hair on our heads being counted by our Heavenly Father, it reminded me of how when our boys were babies, every little thing about them was precious to us. We counted and kept everything. Things that nobody else would care about were noted and kept and treasured by us – even things that are probably gross to other people. I think I still have a box of their baby teeth somewhere. For a while we even held onto the dried-up stumps from their umbilical cords. We also kept a tuft of hair from each of their first haircuts. We didn’t count each strand, but we carefully taped them into their baby books, and those little tufts of wispy hairs are so precious to us.
Parental love is like that – and this is how our Heavenly Father loves us. God sees us. God cares for us. God values us. Even the hairs on our heads are numbered and held as precious. And so, Jesus says, we do not need to be afraid.
The challenges and risks and dangers Jesus describes are still with us, in varying degrees.
As we seek to share the gospel, we can expect to be called names. We can expect to be maligned. We can expect to be rejected and ostracized, just like he was – and is. I don’t encourage spending time in the comments sections of social media platforms, but if you do, you will soon see that even the most innocuous Christian references can be met with the most vitriolic, hateful responses. As Christianity recedes from our culture, you can expect more maligning, not less. As we seek to follow Jesus, we run the risk of coming into conflict with others. This doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. Jesus makes it clear that it comes with the territory.
As we seek to be faithful to our Lord, these divisions might even surface within families, Jesus says. This danger was perhaps more pronounced in Jesus’ time, when following Jesus often meant breaking from one’s parents in tragic ways. This is not something God wants to see happen. The fourth commandment upholds the divine order of fathers and mothers being at the heart of family life and worthy of honor. But at the same time, Jesus knows that the call to follow him will sometimes result in divisions even within families, even between these most holy and cherished relationships. Sadly, sometimes it still does.
Jesus is honest about the fact that he has come not to bring peace, but a sword. That is to say, some will face violent persecution for their faith. This happened to the disciples themselves, and it continues to happen today in places like Nigeria, where our Christian brothers and sisters are being murdered at a shocking rate, with Anglican clergy especially being targeted recently by anti-Christian terror groups.
Our Lord Jesus is honest about the risks, the dangers, the potential negative outcomes that may come our way not only in spite of our Christian faith, but in many cases because of it. And still, he challenges us to take up our crosses and follow him.
But Jesus doesn’t just challenge us, he also gives us a promise. He promises us that his Father is our Father. This in itself is a remarkable thing!
My theologian-friend Chad Bird from the 1517 Network wrote a piece about this this week, and I’d like to quote part of it. He writes:
It is difficult to imagine a more audacious act than to stand before the Creator of the world and to name him “Father.” And mean it. And not only to mean it, but to act and speak as a child acts and speaks before a loving and doting Dad.
It’s shocking. It’s exhilarating.
And it’s beautiful beyond words.
To call God “Father” is simply to live in the space which Jesus created. To move from residing far from God as his enemy; or on the other side of town from him as a stranger; or down the street as an acquaintance; or in an adjoining house as a servant; and to move into our own bedroom as a child in his family.
You see, when we live in this house, when we move into the room built by Jesus, we inhabit the home not merely of a Master or Lord or King, but the one who’s given us his name and made us his own, now and forever.
“Our Father”: two of the most amazing words ever uttered.
Brothers and sisters, today Jesus describes God as “your Father,” and this Heavenly Father of yours values you more than many sparrows. This Heavenly Father is running alongside you as you learn to find the balance that will carry you forward in Christian faith and discipleship. This Heavenly Father is holding on to you even now. This Heavenly Father will be there in the painful moments, the wipeouts, the crash-and-burns, to help you, to heal you, to raise you up.
Because of this Fatherly love, expressed in both challenge and care, we do not need to be afraid. We can instead go forth in the exhilarating freedom that comes from trusting that this loving Heavenly Father sees us and cares for us and is near to us, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 16, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 14
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 14, 2026
Matthew 9:35-10:8
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Christians today, it is easy to look at the world around us and feel discouraged, angry even. The buzzword of the day is decline: the decline of Christianity, the decline of the church, the decline in worship attendance, the decline of Western civilization, the decline of our cities, the decline of our public spaces, the decline of civility, the decline in character and virtue among our leaders, the decline in basic morality in our culture – which keeps legalizing every vice and then wondering why things keep getting worse. It is very easy to look at all of this and be discouraged, angry even. I admit I’ve had moments when I’ve felt this way.
When Jesus looked at the world around him, what did he see? To be sure, he saw a big mess. There was sickness of every sort – physical sickness, spiritual sickness, moral sickness, societal sickness. He saw the fallen world we still live in today, a world that rejects God, a world that chases pleasure at the expense of righteousness, a world full of sin.
But that’s not all our Lord saw. When Jesus looked at the crowds, he saw people who were harassed and helpless. When he looked at the world, he saw people who were like sheep without a shepherd. To be harassed is to face danger and threats from outside of yourself. To be helpless is to be without the means or strength or resources to handle those dangers and threats by yourself. To be like sheep without a shepherd is to be vulnerable to these dangers and threats. It is to need help from something or someone more powerful than you. It is to need the Shepherd.
And so, when Jesus looked out at the world, he saw a big mess, to be sure, but he wasn’t discouraged and he wasn’t angry. Instead, he was compassionate. “When he looked at the crowds,” it says, “he had compassion for them.” He proclaimed Good News. He brought healing and hope. He was the shepherd people needed.
Instead of being discouraged or angry, Jesus also saw an opportunity. He said to the disciples: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Jesus then empowered his disciples to address this opportunity. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits, so they could cast them out. Jesus sent his disciples out into those ripe fields to proclaim the Good News that in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven had come near. Jesus sent them first to their fellow Jews. The mission would expand to Gentiles later with the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, but for now they were to focus on those opportunities which were close at hand.
As Jesus’ disciples today, this is still the mission. We too are given authority from Jesus to speak in his name. We are given authority over unclean spirits, to cast out the wicked one and his lies. We have Good News which can chase away hopelessness and despair. We have a word that is more powerful than any wickedness, any evil, a word that can bring healing and hope to others as we share the Good News that in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven has come near to us. We can share the Good News that in Jesus Christ we have the shepherd we need, a shepherd who can protect us from evil, a shepherd who can guide us into paths of righteousness, a shepherd who can bind up our wounds, forgive our wandering, and give us peace.
This is still the mission. But if we are going to carry it out, we need to begin to see the world differently than we sometimes do. We need to begin to see the world more like Jesus sees it. Instead of being discouraged and angry all the time, we need to look at the world around us with compassion. We need to look at the world and see the opportunities God has given us.
To look at the world with compassion is to understand that we are all born into brokenness, every last one of us. It is to recognize that some people are fighting battles we can’t see. It is to acknowledge that many people are harassed from the outside, negatively influenced in ways they probably don’t realize. It is to be mindful that many people lack the ability or the resources to help themselves. Our response to all of this needs to be compassion, not just anger.
Anger has its place. Jesus was pretty angry with the money changers who desecrated the temple. There is such a thing as righteous anger towards the evils of this world. But the Bible is also clear that anger is dangerous. It can consume us. It can disfigure our hearts. Anger is a response, but it is not a virtue. Compassion is a virtue, and compassion is how we are to look at the world as Christians.
Now, there are versions of compassion out there which are unhelpful. Compassion doesn’t mean enabling someone’s destructive behaviors. Compassion doesn’t mean not holding people accountable. Compassion doesn’t mean automatically turning victimhood into virtue. It doesn’t mean living in a permanent state of naivete. Compassion cannot be held apart from truth. Compassion cannot be separated from righteousness. Compassion should not be exercised without wisdom. Don’t take it from me. Just a few verses later in this chapter of Matthew Jesus himself tells the disciples to be “wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves.”
So, compassion needs to be balanced by other important biblical values. But that said, compassion must always remain a primary lens by which we view the world. It must be so, because that’s how Jesus looked at the world.
We also need to look at the world and see the opportunities God has given us. Rather than moping about the declines in Christianity and number of people actively participating in the life of the church – which I will again admit I have done from time to time – we need to see the opportunities we have to reach out, the opportunities we have to invite, the opportunities we have to share the Good News that in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven has come near! The harvest is still plentiful, and when we pray for God to send out more laborers to bring it in, don’t be surprised if you are part of the answer to that prayer!
And just as Jesus sent his disciples to their own people, at least at first, oftentimes it is still the case that the opportunities to reach out to others are close at hand, among people you already know. We have three people joining our congregation today, two through baptism and one through affirmation of faith, and all three of them came as our members saw an opportunity which was close at hand, an opportunity to show compassion and kindness, an opportunity to bring someone into the care of the Shepherd. Dave Myers invited a co-worker to our Lenten soup suppers. Tom Piper invited a new friend at Regency to come to our church, even offering to give her a ride. This is how it is done, folks! These opportunities are often close at hand – if you keep an eye out for them.
When our Lord Jesus looks at you, he looks at you with compassion. He sees the ways you have been harassed by evil forces, by lies, by suffering, by temptations. He sees the ways you are helpless, unable to rescue yourself from your bondage to sin.
He sees all of this, and instead of being angry, he has compassion for you. He has come to be the shepherd you need. He has come to protect you and guide you and heal you and forgive you and give you peace. When he looks at you, his heart is filled with tenderness, with grace, with love. As the Apostle Paul tells us in our reading from Romans, Christ proves his loves for us in that while we were still sinners, he died for us.
When we put our trust in Christ’s compassionate love for us, our hearts begin to beat with that same compassion, and our eyes begin to look at the world through that lens.
When our Lord Jesus looks at us, he also sees an opportunity. First, he sees an opportunity to make us his own, an opportunity to redeem us from the fallen world in which we live.
Then he sees an opportunity to recruit some laborers for the harvest! He empowers us with his Spirit, he authorizes us to speak the Word he has given us, and he sends us out into world with all of its decline and all of its sickness to go to work sharing the Good News which brings healing and hope.
The opportunities are all around us, so look for them.
And because it is ultimately the Lord’s harvest, don’t ever be discouraged.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
