by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 29, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 28
Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 28, 2025
Amos 6:1a, 4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is some question about whether what we hear from Jesus today should be classified as a parable. It is never described or introduced as such in the text. It lacks some key features of parables. Parables are often offered as similes, as in “the kingdom of God is like…” Parables are often playful and sometimes mysterious, laced with ambiguity and layers of meaning, gently inviting the hearer in. What we hear today is more like getting whacked upside the head with a two-by-four! And so it has been suggested that instead of thinking about this as a parable, we should think of it as an editorial cartoon. Those of us from the newspaper generation are familiar with editorial cartoons. They are drawn with exaggerated features and stark contrasts. They are more in-your-face. For those who are of the internet generation rather than the newspaper generation, you might think of this as a dank meme, as an edgy message conveyed through sharply contrasting images.
The contrast is indeed sharp here. On the one hand we have a rich man. He is dressed in purple and fine linen. The dye to make purple clothing was extremely rare, which made purple fabric extremely expensive. Only the super-rich could afford to wear purple. He feasted sumptuously every day, eating the finest of food and lots of it.
On the other hand, we have a poor man. He lies at the gate of the rich man. He was so hungry that even the scraps left on the rich man’s plate would have been a feast for him. He was covered in sores. This could have been leprosy, which was common in the ancient world. It could have been ulcerative lesions, a common affliction of the very poor. It could have been bedsores from lying in the same position on the hard ground for so long. Instead of being waited on by servants, he was being licked by dogs. These were not sympathetic puppy kisses. These were the mangy street dogs that roamed the city in packs. These scavengers were licking him in anticipation of the dinner in store for them when he finally expired. His sores were appetizers.
The poor man had none of the things the rich man had. He had no home. He had no food. He had no clothing by which to cover his wounds. But he did have one thing that the rich man didn’t. He had a name. The rich man isn’t named at all. He is anonymous, unknown. But the poor, suffering man is known. He has a name. His name was Lazarus, which means “God helps.”
And when both of these men die, we see that God does indeed help Lazarus. Lazarus is personally escorted by the angels of God into the arms of Father Abraham, where he is comforted at last. When the rich man dies, he finds that their situation has been reversed. Now he is being tormented. He finds himself in agony, roasting in the flames of Hades. Wham! Right between the eyes. No subtlety here, right?
But as clear as the contrast is between the rich man and his fate and the poor man and his fate, we shouldn’t be too quick to make this about rich verses poor. This editorial cartoon is not about the haves verses the have-nots. After all, Abraham himself is described in scripture as a rich man, and he is on the good side of the great chasm. He is with God in heaven. We have other people in scripture who are both wealthy and faithful, people like Zaccheus and Joseph of Arimathea and Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth. So, this editorial cartoon isn’t some anti-capitalist critique, damning the bourgeoisie and idealizing the proletariat. This is about something else, and this becomes clear as we look at the rest of it.
Even as the rich man asks Abraham for mercy, he still thinks he is in control. Even as he is roasting in the flames, he still thinks he has power to call the shots. He practically orders Lazarus to bring him a Gatorade! He still thinks other people exist in order to serve him. And so he is still acting like the Lord of the manor.
Abraham tells him, “Nope, sorry, that’s not how things work here,” but even then, he still acts like the Lord of the manor, asking Abraham to then send Lazarus to warn his five brothers, who are still alive. He still sees Lazarus as someone who should do his bidding. He is still unrepentant.
And what Abraham says next is the final flourish on this editorial cartoon, revealing what it is all really about. Abraham says that they have Moses and the prophets, and that they should listen to them. The rich man insists that Lazarus would be a much better messenger, coming back from the dead and all. Surely he could get them to repent. But Abraham is unmoved. “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
The great chasm is not divided along the lines of rich and poor. It is divided along the lines of those who listen to and trust in the Word of God and repent and those who do not. It is divided along the lines of those who insist on being the Lords of the manor and those who know how desperately they need the Lord’s help.
Our other lectionary readings help clarify this for us. The prophet Amos convicts those who lounge and feast and drink wine from bowls, not merely because they do those things, but because in doing them they have come to see themselves as their own Lords who can safely ignore the ruin of Joseph. St. Paul says it isn’t money that is the root of all evil, but the love of money which causes people to wander away from faith. That’s the key problem – wandering away from faith! Those who are rich in the present age, Paul warns, should be careful not to place their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. We should instead place our hopes on God, who richly provides us with everything.
The great chasm then, is divided along lines of unfaith and faith. It is divided between unfaith which leads to indifference to those in need, and faith, which inevitably moves hearts towards love of neighbor, noticing especially the ruin of Joseph and the beggar at the gate.
Editorial cartoons can evoke a variety of responses. The same cartoon can make one person squirm and another person laugh. It depends on where you see yourself in the cartoon, right?
Many of us should probably see ourselves as the rich man. We have been given so much that it is easy to be lulled into thinking that we are the Lords of our own manors. It becomes easy to feel that we are in control. Our wealth and our comfort make it easy to wander away from faith in God. And once we wander away from faith, we no longer see that everything we have been given comes from God, to be used not to numb ourselves with overindulgence, but to serve others, especially our neighbors in need. How we do that is complicated and demands wisdom. It does not necessarily mean indiscriminate handouts, which can often make things even worse. But it does begin with noticing the need. It does begin with seeing the person behind the problem. To shut ourselves off to the needs of others is a sign that we have shut ourselves off from God. It is that serious.
There are others among us, however, who may well see a bit of themselves in Lazarus. I’ve had conversations with people this past week who are experiencing great suffering. Some are sick. Some are hurting. Some feel alone and abandoned. To those I want to point out that just as God knew Lazarus’ name, so too does he know yours. You are not forgotten. You are not abandoned. God’s help will come, even if you can’t see it now.
You might identify more with one or the other of the contrasting characters in this editorial cartoon, or even a little bit of both. But where we all should find ourselves reflected today is in the five brothers sketched lightly in the background. You see, like them, we are still alive. And because we are still alive, we can hear the Word of God. Because we are still alive, we can listen to Moses and the prophets. And do you know what they have to say to us? They tell us that what we really need is not more money or more wine or more status or more control. What they tell us is that what we really need is a savior. What they tell us is that we all need God’s help, and that this help has come in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus has planted an Easter egg in this editorial cartoon. The reference to one who comes back from the dead is an Easter egg hidden in plain sight, pointing us Jesus himself, who is the fulfillment of everything spoken of by Moses and the prophets. Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, and he came to the living with a message. He called people to believe. He called people to trust in him as their Lord and not themselves. He called people to relinquish control and to receive his peace. He called people to feed his sheep.
In this editorial cartoon, Abraham didn’t think anyone would believe even one who rose from the dead. But this is Jesus winking at us, because when Jesus rose from the dead many did believe in him.
And this risen Jesus is still bringing people to faith today. Our risen Lord continues to come to the living through his Word. He comes to us even now. He comes to us as the God who helps. He comes to us as the savior who heals both hardened hearts and open wounds with his forgiveness and his mercy. He comes to us as the one who has ultimately conquered death for us all, so that we can one day be carried by the angels to his side, where we will receive eternal comfort on the safe side of the great chasm. He calls us to repent of our love of money, to repent of trying to be our own Lords, so that we can take hold of the life that is really life – a life lived with faith towards God and fervent love towards one another.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 23, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 21
Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 21, 2025
Luke 16:1-13
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the great archetypes in all of storytelling is the antihero. An antihero is a character who is utterly lacking in all the qualities you usually see in a hero, and yet, you can’t help but root for them. An antihero is a character who lacks typical hero qualities like, oh, say, morality or honor or respect for the law, and yet, you can’t help but like them.
One of the most famous antiheros of all time is Robin Hood, a character who has been around in various forms since at least the 15th century. Robin Hood, of course, breaks laws left and right. He is constantly on the run from the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John. He steals from the rich and gives to the poor. While he is a thief and a lawbreaker and exceedingly crafty (and thus portrayed as a fox in the Disney classic), he is also a beloved hero. There are plenty of other examples we could point to. Han Solo was a smuggler. Jack Sparrow was a pirate. Sherlock Holmes describes himself as a “high functioning sociopath.” These aren’t “good” guys, but somehow, they’re the good guys! You can’t help but admire their craftiness, their cleverness, their shrewdness.
The archetype of the antihero was common in the ancient near east as well. Poverty-ridden peasants of Jesus’ time loved stories about crafty antiheroes who outwitted the privileged and the powerful. Today we hear Jesus use just this kind of character in one of his parables.
“There was a rich man with a manager…” Jesus begins. The rich man accuses the manager of squandering his property and fires him. What’s this suddenly unemployed manager going to do? He knows he isn’t strong enough to dig ditches for a living. He knows he doesn’t want to beg. So he cooks up a plan. Before any of his boss’s clients know he’s been fired, he goes out to them to settle their accounts. He cancels their debts left and right! Oh, I see you owe a hundred jugs of olive oil? Make it fifty. What is that, a hundred basked of wheat? Make it eighty. This manager goes around unilaterally cancelling the debts of his boss’s clients! It is unethical. It is illegal. And it is….celebrated?
Yes, it is indeed celebrated! When the boss finds out what his former employee has done, he COMMENDS him for his craftiness, for his shrewdness! And not only that, but when Jesus himself finishes the story, he lifts this character up as a positive example! Jesus encourages his disciples to emulate him! He says, “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”
Now we need to understand what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is not telling his disciples to acquire wealth through illegal and unethical means. Jesus would never encourage anyone to violate the Eighth Commandment, “You shall not steal.” The point here is that the disciples are to be crafty and clever and shrewd in how they manage their money. The word “shrewd” here can also be translated as wise. They are to use their resources wisely, in ways that benefit others, with an eye towards eternity. They are to use what has been entrusted to them wisely while always keeping in mind where their true riches lie. They are to manage their resources well while always remembering that they cannot serve both God and wealth. Only one can have first place, and it cannot be wealth.
Jesus is telling this antihero story to put his finger on what he knows will be the biggest temptation for the disciples, which will be to feather their nest rather than build the kingdom, to worship the almighty dollar rather than Almighty God. Martin Luther writes in the Large Catechism that “Money is the most common idol on earth.” That was true in Jesus’ time, it was true in Luther’s time, and it is most certainly true in our time as well.
You’ve probably heard the old observation that $100 looks huge in the offering plate, but not so significant when you’re spending it at the movie theater or the golf course or the tavern or the yarn store or the bookstore. (Did I manage to poke everyone at least once?) People can be extremely clever and resourceful and driven when they want something. We are to be even more clever and resourceful and driven in the funding of the kingdom of God. We are to be even more shrewd and wise in investing in God’s work in the world and in tending to our neighbors in need.
I’m so grateful to say that so very many of you are. We make a point here at Oak Harbor Lutheran Church to protect your privacy in giving. There are very few people who see your year-end giving statements, and I’m not one of them. So unless a giver specifically tells me, I don’t have any idea who gives what around here. But I do know that we have many people here who have been very clever and resourceful and driven and so very generous in giving to this congregation and to the ministries we support. You have cleverly utilized so many different ways to give. We had people dig deep this summer during our catch-up campaign, which has brought our budget out of the red and into the black. Pete Pedersen has come to me more than once with a huge grin on his face, telling me that he has to make three runs a week to take food to Help House because we have so many donations coming in. You are so quick to respond to needs, both within our congregation and outside of it. You are so wise, so shrewd, so resourceful, so generous in investing in God’s work.
This is all truly wonderful – but it is also true that it is part of our sinful nature for all of us to keep wanting to cling to that idol of money. This is an idol we keep returning to, thinking it will give us peace, thinking it will help us feel secure, thinking it will give us joy. And when we return to clinging to our bank accounts, we are no longer clinging to God.
This story is told to the disciples, and to us, to remind us once again not to cling to that idol. “You cannot serve both God and wealth,” Jesus says. This story with its antihero is told to begin to peel our fingers away from the false god of our bank accounts so that we might take hold of Christ the true riches of his grace.
The parables of Jesus are never just a morality tale. They are never simply a way to cajole people to do something. The parables of Jesus can usually be understood on more than one level, and much of the time they are not just about what we are to do, but what Christ has come to do for us. This story is no exception. Because, you see, Jesus is the ultimate antihero. It might feel slightly irreverent to think of him in this way, but consider the work of Jesus from the perspective of the Pharisees. They had just been complaining that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. That’s not typical hero behavior! Not to them! They complained that Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, which they saw as a total disregard for the law. Jesus was going around just announcing that people’s sins were forgiven – like he was God or something! From the perspective of the Pharisees, what Jesus was doing was immoral, illegal, even blasphemous. And so Jesus is the ultimate antihero. He dined with sinners and he died with criminals. He didn’t have any of the qualities the Pharisees expected their hero Messiah to have.
You could even say that Jesus bears a striking resemblance to the clever manager in the parable. Jesus was going around cooking the books on the debt sinners owed to God. Jesus engaged in some clever accounting as he went around writing off people’s sins, just forgiving them. He made a lot of friends in the process. He made it possible for them to enter into those eternal homes. This was an epic scandal! And all the while, his boss, God the Father, sat back and smiled. God commended him for it! God patted him on the head and said, “You are my Son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
When Jesus died on the cross he said, “It is finished.” What Jesus said here in the biblical Greek can also be translated as “paid in full.” The word is tetelestai, and it is the very same word that was stamped on the bills of the ancient world whenever an account was settled. This is what Jesus has done for all of us. Jesus is like the clever manager in the parable – only he didn’t just reduce our debt, he paid it in full.
This is where we find true riches. As we receive the riches of his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness, his love, our hearts are set free to live for the Giver and not the gifts, to worship the Giver and not the gifts, the serve the Giver and not the gifts. Our hearts are set free to cling once again to God alone, who is the only one who can give us true peace, true security, and true joy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 14, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 14
Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 14, 2025
Luke 15:1-10
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
This summer our brothers and sisters in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod had a large youth gathering in New Orleans which was protested by the Westboro Baptist Church. You’ve probably heard of Westboro – a tiny sect made up mostly of Fred Phelps and his family members. They show up at all kinds of events. They were at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Phoenix this summer too. They show up at rock concerts, sporting events, and all kinds of other public gatherings, both sacred and secular.
The youth of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod seem like a very odd target for this group to protest, but the Westboro Baptist Church is all about purity. They see themselves as the pure Christians, the only truly righteous ones. They protested the LC-MS as a lukewarm denomination full of sinners. Their signs made this point using some pretty harsh language. From what I heard from some of my friends in the LC-MS, the chaperones did a great job, and the kids handled themselves well, but it was still a little unsettling for some of them.
In a sermon to the twenty-thousand youth gathered in the Super Dome for the closing worship service, Synod President Matthew Harrison made reference to the protesters earlier in the week. First he quoted from the gospel we hear today. He said, “Jesus’ critics complained, saying “He welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then he said to the kids, “Those protestors the other day, you know what they said to me? They said, ‘You have sinners in your church.” He paused for a minute and then said, “Well, duh!”
There was laughter and there was applause and there was joy from the crowd, and Harrison went on to assure them that Jesus came into world to save sinners. They could laugh and applaud and rejoice at his “Well, duh!” not only because he was bluntly stating the obvious, but because, as Harrison told them, they have big sins, but they have a bigger Jesus.
They dynamics of all of this reflect the dynamics we see in our gospel reading for today, in spirit if not in scale. Jesus was indeed eating at a table with tax collectors and sinners. And the Pharisees, whose pursuit of righteousness had turned into a self-righteous purity cult, objected. Jesus was presenting himself as a holy man and as a teacher of Israel, and here he was rubbing elbows with sinners, sharing a meal with them.
In response to the grumbling of the Pharisees over the company he was keeping, Jesus tells two parables. (Three actually, but we only hear two of them today.) He tells a parable where a shepherd pursues a lost sheep, and when he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. He calls together his friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost!”
He tells another parable in which a woman loses a coin. She searches diligently for it. She lights a lamp and sweeps the floor. And when she finds it, she rejoices. She too calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost!”
With these two parables, Jesus is painting a picture of what God is up to through him, through his ministry. He is painting a picture which explains why he welcomes sinners and eats with them. He is doing so because he has come to save sinners! He has come to pursue lost sheep so that he can lay them on his shoulders and bring them home. He has come to recover the lost coin from the darkness underneath the couch, where they are stuck with the spiders and the dust bunnies. He has come to bring them out into the light. All of this is cause for rejoicing, not grumbling! “Just so, I tell you,” Jesus says, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” This is what Jesus came to do. St. Paul says it so well in our epistle reading: “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
And he still is! We are here today not because we have passed some purity test. We are here because our Lord Jesus has found us. We are here because he has rescued us. We are lost sheep who keep chasing the wrong clumps of grass, but our Lord Jesus keeps on pursuing us. He gets hold of us, laying us across his shoulders, bringing us home to God. We are lost coins. We have no power of our own to roll ourselves out of the darkness under the couch, but we have been plucked up, retrieved, and held in the hand of our dear savior. All of this brings much rejoicing in heaven. It brings much rejoicing here in what should be understood as the fellowship of the found.
There should be no grumbling in the fellowship of the found. There should be no complaining that the fellowship isn’t pure enough. It is easy to make an example of Westboro Baptist Church, but I’m afraid this purity test creeps in among us too from time to time. There is a quieter version of Pharisee in each of our hearts. People grumble about those they wish were more active in the church. People grumble about those at church with personalities they don’t like, or traits they find annoying. People grumble that some at church aren’t reverent enough while others grumble that we are too reverent, too stiff and formal. People grumble about the fact that there are those at church who might think differently about politics than they do or belong to a different party. People grumble about what some people wear to church. We preach the great gospel truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and then when real, actual sinners show up, people grumble!
Now it is true that part of repentance is turning away from sin. In our first reading, when God forgave the people for worshipping the golden calf, God didn’t say, “It’s okay. You can keep worshipping it if you need to. You do you.” In our epistle reading, as Paul describes his own conversion story, confessing that he had been a blasphemer and a persecutor and a man of violence, it is obvious that his repentance involved turning away from those things. There are some evil things which cannot be tolerated. When Jesus sits at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we should in no way assume that he was affirming their sin or turning a blind eye to it. Part of repentance means turning away from sin.
The greater part of repentance, however, is being turned towards. It is being turned towards the One who has come for us. It is being turned towards the shepherd who has chased us down when we were lost and wandering. The greater part of repentance is simply letting ourselves be picked up by the gracious hand which has come to pluck us out of the darkness and bring us into the light. It is the grace and mercy of our rescuer which finally starts to turn us away from sin and towards holiness of life.
But make no mistake about it – none of us ever achieve a level of purity that we no longer need that grace and mercy! None of us ever achieve a level of personal holiness such that we no longer need to be rescued. We all remain in desperate need of Christ’s forgiveness. As we say at the beginning of worship most Sundays, “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” This is a direct quote from scripture, from 1 John 1:8, and it remains true throughout our lives. We only ever gather here as sinners, and none of us has any standing or status by which to grumble that there are other sinners here too.
The good news for all of us is that our Lord Jesus continues to eat with sinners. The reason you are here today is that Jesus is like a shepherd who pursues the lost sheep until he finds it, and then he carries it back on his own shoulders. The reason you are here today is that Jesus is like a woman who turns her house upside-down to look for a single lost coin, and will not rest until she has it back safely in her coin purse. Instead of grumbling about the other sheep in the flock or the other coins in the purse, this is reason to rejoice! God is not scandalized by the sinners who show up. God invited them! Jesus brought them here!
Do you know what God says when we grumble that there are sinners at church? God says, “Well, duh!” And our response to this should be laughter! Our response to this should be applause and joy – because that is exactly what is happening in heaven! “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” Jesus says.
Let there be joy here too. Let there be rejoicing among us. For we who were lost have been found once again. Today our gracious shepherd finds us amidst the anxieties and dangers of this world. He finds us in the midst of our lostness, our wandering, our sin. He comes to us not with a scolding, but with forgiveness. Not with wrath, but with grace. He rescues us from the muck, lovingly takes us up on his strong shoulders, and carries us home to his holy flock, where, with all the other sheep, we can celebrate.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 8, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 7
Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 7, 2025
Luke 14:25-33
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we hear the word “hate,” it gets our attention. The English definition of the word “hate” is “an intense and passionate dislike for someone or something.” We hear about hate mail and hate groups and hate crimes. Adding the word hate to those things ratchets up the intensity. We use the word hate to describe a dark and dangerous force, an ugly loathing. There is so much hate seething in our society today, coming from all corners, from all across the political spectrum, from all walks of life, and I think we are all so weary of it.
Hate is an ugly word, and so it is jarring for us to hear it on Jesus’ lips in our gospel reading for today. It is especially shocking to hear Jesus say that no one can be his disciple unless they hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself. It is hard to hear. It certainly gets our attention, right?
Well, it should get our attention – but the first thing we need to do in order to understand what Jesus is saying here is to distinguish between our definition of hate and the way Jesus is using the word. Jesus is using a Hebraic idiom, a non-literal, hyperbolic manner of speaking. “Hate” here doesn’t have quite the same meaning as it does in our English dictionaries. In this particular context and culture to “hate” is not to despise or loathe or be hostile towards. Here it means to detach yourself from something. It means to consider something to be of lesser importance. It means to let go of something. I appreciate how Eugene Peterson deals with this passage in The Message, where he translates Jesus’ words as: “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple.”
Throughout his life Jesus upheld the fourth commandment, in which we are called to honor mothers and fathers. Jesus upheld and even intensified the sixth commandment, in which marriage is to be honored and spouses are to be faithfully loved and cherished. Jesus loved children and chastised those who tried to prevent them from coming to him. Jesus called people to love even their enemies. Jesus does not require us to have “an intense and passionate dislike” of anyone, let alone our parents, spouses, and children!
He does, however, call us to loosen our grip on anything that has become an idol for us. He calls us to put him first, above everything else in our lives, even the best parts. In a similar passage in Matthew’s gospel Jesus says, “whoever loves father or mother or son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” This captures what Jesus is saying here in Luke in a more shocking way. Jesus calls us to love him above everything and everyone else. Jesus calls us to let go of all that we hold most dear, even our own selves, our own lives, in order to take hold of him.
This is a season of letting go for my wife and me. Our oldest son now has a wife who outranks mom and dad in his life. This is exactly as it should be, and we’re thrilled about it, but it does mean we need to do a little letting go. We also recently helped our middle son move out after he took a job down in Fife as an engineer. This is exciting and wonderful and everything we’ve been working toward, but it also involves some letting go. A few weeks ago, we dropped our youngest off at college for his sophomore year and came home again to an empty nest which, we are realizing, is becoming an increasingly permanent situation. We are learning that this is not without its benefits, but it still involves some letting go. This letting go is difficult. It is painful. It is also revealing – even convicting. It has revealed to me just how much I have been clinging to my children as my highest good. It has convicted me of how much idolatry has crept into my heart in the form of parental love.
A few years ago, I came across a devotion someone shared from the “Jesus Calling” book by Sarah Young. I’ve found this particular devotion helpful to return to from time to time. In case you’re not familiar with these devotions, you need to know she writes as though Jesus is addressing the reader directly. This one says:
Entrust your loved ones to me; release them into my protective care. They are much safer with Me than in your clinging hands. If you let a loved one become an idol in your heart, you endanger that one – as well as yourself….I detest idolatry, even in the form of parental love, so beware of making a beloved child your idol. When you release loved ones to Me, you are free to cling to My hand….My Presence will go with them wherever they go, and I will give them rest. This same Presence stays with you as you relax and place your trust in Me.
Brothers and sisters, this is what our gospel reading for today is about. It is not about despising or loathing or being hostile towards father and mother and spouse and children and brothers and sisters and even life itself. It is about letting go of it all in order to take hold of Christ more fully and firmly. This is how we become disciples – not by clinging to our loved ones as idols, but by clinging to Christ.
It might seem harsh to associate our love for our families with idolatry, but it fits the definition. Idolatry is turning to something other than God for security and wholeness and meaning. People often look to their parents for security. People often look to their spouses for wholeness. People often look to their children to provide meaning and purpose. These aren’t entirely unreasonable expectations. The problem comes when those expectations move beyond their proper vocational boundaries and become idols for us.
Not only is our idolatry offensive to God; it isn’t fair to our loved ones either. It isn’t fair to expect parents to protect us from every hardship or challenge. It isn’t fair to spouses to expect them to fulfill every need someone might have. As urgently important as children are, it isn’t fair to make them one’s sole purpose and project in life. These are all vitally important relationships, but there is a relationship that is even more important.
Our gospel reading begins by telling us that people were traveling with Jesus. They were traveling with him, but they weren’t necessarily following him. They hadn’t yet put their trust in him. This seems to be what prompts these sharp words. Jesus demands more from people than merely lurking on the outskirts. Jesus doesn’t want mere travelers, he wants disciples. He doesn’t want fans, he wants followers.
Following him is not something you can do from a distance. He won’t be kept at arm’s length while you take on supposedly more important things. Following him cannot be of lesser importance than anything! It cannot be a part-time gig, or something we dabble in or take up casually. Christianity is more than a general philosophy or a worldview. It is a relationship with God in Christ, and nothing can be allowed to take precedent over that relationship. Nothing, not even good things, can be more important to us. If our hands insist on clinging to something else, they will never cling fully to Christ, and we will not be his disciples.
And so we need to let go. We need to let go of all those things that compete for the highest priority in our lives. We need to loosen our grip on the lives we so diligently build for ourselves. We need to let go of every idol we have so that we can take hold of something better, so that we can cling more tightly to Christ and the life only he can provide.
This letting go isn’t easy. Preschool starts here at Oak Harbor Lutheran this week, and there will be kids crying in the classroom and parents crying in the hallway or the parking lot, I guarantee it! I’ve seen lots of fellow parents posting pictures this week of college drop-off or first day of kindergarten or first day of senior year of high school. And these pictures are often captioned with a note of sadness. There is a letting go that happens, and this isn’t easy. Many of you have had to let go of loved ones. Many of us have lost parents. Many of you have lost spouses. A few families in our congregation have even lost children. This letting go of loved ones, this letting go of our lives, can be so very difficult, so very painful.
But we aren’t only called to let go. We are also called to take hold. We are called to take hold of Jesus. We are called to take up our crosses and follow him. This involves a crucifixion, to be sure, but it also brings a resurrection! It brings not only death, but life! We are called to take up our crosses and follow Jesus into the new life he brings.
In this new life we have in Christ we are free to love our families and friends without turning them into idols. We are free to love them better than we did before, because now they are rightly ordered in our lives as gifts and not gods. In this new life in Christ, we are free to appreciate and cherish the life we have been given, while not living only for ourselves and our accomplishments and our self-preservation. In this new life we have in Christ we have the ultimate security, we find the ultimate source of wholeness, we find ultimate meaning and purpose.
Best of all, this new life in Christ is a life with God that begins now and continues forever. And so when we take hold of Christ and the new life he brings, nothing that we love is ever really lost. As Martin Luther once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
Whether we’re dropping our kids off at school or lowering a loved one into their grave, we can let go in the confidence that God still holds them in his mighty and loving hands. And if they are in God’s hands, they are safe. If they are in God’s hands, they can never be lost, they can never be far from us. To let go of them, then, isn’t an abandonment, and it certainly isn’t an ugly loathing. It is instead to place them in the hands of the One who loves them even more than we do. It is releasing them to Christ’s care so that our hands are free to cling to him too.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 31, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 31
Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – August 31, 2025
Proverbs 25:6-7a, Luke 14:1, 7-14
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
After worship one Sabbath day, Jesus was invited to dinner at the home of the leader of the Pharisees. They were watching Jesus closely, but Jesus was watching them too. And what Jesus noticed was how the guests all tried to rush for the best seats, the seats of honor. You see, there was a pecking order in the ancient world. The honored guests would sit at the head table with the host. The most important people would sit closest to that table. The more important you were, the closer you were to the front. The less important you were, the further away you were. Jesus watched as people self-selected their seats, going for the seats closest to the host. I picture it looking like a game of musical chairs, with everyone quickly trying to get their butt in a seat close to the host as fast as possible, trying to get that advantage, trying to bring honor to themselves.
Jesus, perhaps with the proverb we heard this morning in mind, points out how foolish this is. Don’t they realize that they might be asked to move seats by the host? Don’t they realize how embarrassing it would be for them to have to get up in front of everyone and go to a lower seat? Rather than shoving your butt into the chair you think you deserve, claiming it for yourself, Jesus says, take a lower seat. Let the king say, “Come up here,” rather than crowning yourself with that honor. Let the host be the one to say to you, “Friend, come up higher.”
It is good advice.
Jesus then turns from the guests to the host himself. Jesus seems to have noticed that the leader of the Pharisees only invited certain kinds of people to his sabbath day dinner. It appears that this host only invited friends, relatives, and rich neighbors. And it appears that the motivation for inviting these people was the expectation that they would return the favor in some way. Maybe he’d be invited to their house for dinner on the next sabbath. Maybe he would get an equally sumptuous meal a week later. Maybe the rich neighbors were invited because they would bring the best wine. Maybe they were invited to up his own status. Maybe they were invited because they were the biggest givers to the synagogue. Whatever the specifics were, the guest list for this banquet was based on what people brought to the table. It was based on whether they could repay the favor or not. It was based on what the host could get out of them, how he could benefit from their presence.
Jesus calls the host out on this. He challenges him to not invite his friends, relatives, and rich neighbors, but to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Jesus challenges him to invite people who bring nothing to his table, people who could not possibly repay the favor, people who don’t bring some kind of benefit or status to him. Jesus challenges him to stop treating people like commodities, like pawns used to advance his own status.
It is good advice.
Jesus is teaching two important virtues. He is teaching humility and hospitality. These are two virtues we should be cultivating in our lives today as well.
Humility is an important virtue. This doesn’t mean self-loathing. It doesn’t mean burying your talents. Assertiveness can be okay. Arrogance is not. Confidence can be okay. Cockiness is not. For example, it is important to sell yourself in a job interview. It is not a good idea to nominate yourself for Employee of the Month. Trying to bring honor upon yourself often has the opposite effect. It can lead to embarrassment. It can lead to shame. It is far better to humble yourself. It is far better to take the lower seat and then have someone say, “Come up here,” or “Friend, come up higher.” This is good advice!
Hospitality is an important virtue too, and part of hospitality is extending a welcome to people without regard to whether they can do something for you, whether they can return the favor.
There’s a bit of Jewish hyperbole here in Jesus’ words when he says do not invite your friends and relatives to dinner. Such hyperbole was common in a Hebrew manner of speaking, as it is in many cultures and idioms today. Jesus doesn’t mean we should never dine with friends and relatives! Jesus himself enjoyed the hospitality of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. Their home and their dinner table was a refuge for him. The Last Supper was a private meal with his friends.
And when Jesus says to invite those who are poor, crippled, lame, and blind, he doesn’t mean you must have one from each category at every meal. This is not DEI for your dinner table. This would just be repeating the same mistake from a different direction, turning people into commodities, into notches in your belt, into pawns to advance your own status.
The bigger principal Jesus is teaching us here is that true hospitality is free from ulterior motives. True hospitality means serving people regardless of whether they will ultimately bring some benefit to you. These categories of people represent those who brought nothing and who couldn’t possibly repay. True hospitality makes a place at the table for them too.
I remember in my first call in Montana when a new doctor came to town and then showed up at our worship service. You should have seen the way people tripped over themselves to welcome him! You could almost see people doing the math for how much his tithe would help our budget. I’m not picking on this congregation, which is full of good and godly people. In fact, we literally had a young blind man in that congregation who was dearly loved and warmly welcomed every Sunday. But I did notice that when there were new scruffy ranch hands in town who visited us for worship, they weren’t quite welcomed in the same way that the doctor was.
This kind of stuff happens everywhere, in lots of different ways, but Jesus calls us to a higher form of hospitality, a hospitality that welcomes people regardless of whether they bring something to the table or not. Whether we’re talking about the tables in our fellowship hall or the tables in our homes, this is good advice.
So we have good advice about these virtues of humility and hospitality. But this is Jesus, remember, and Jesus never just gives good advice. Jesus always has good news! The good news for us today is just underneath the surface of this good advice.
First, when Jesus gives his good advice about humility, he roots it in the good news of what God is up to. Jesus tells the guests what Luke calls a parable, which should be our first clue that this is about more than how to avoid embarrassing yourself at dinner parties. This is about the kingdom of God! Jesus tells the guests that they should stop rushing to take for themselves the seats of honor because “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” This is what God is up to in Jesus! God is humbling those of high status. God is bringing down those who would claim honor for themselves. God is putting the self-righteous back in their place and exalting all those who humble themselves by confessing their sin. Through Jesus, God is saying to all those who have taken the lowest seats in humility and repentance, “Friend, come up higher!”
And when Jesus gives his good advice about hospitality, he roots it, too, in the good news of what God is up to. He tells the host that he should invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind because his reward is to be found in something other than what his guests bring to the table. “For you will be repaid,” Jesus says, “at the resurrection of the righteous.” In other words, this host doesn’t need to commodify people any more to advance his status, because he has already been made right with God through the grace and mercy of Jesus, who has an eternal banquet prepared for him!
This is Jesus. It is not Dear Abby. It is not Miss Manners. It is Jesus. And because it is Jesus, we have more than good advice to hear today. We have good news! As we gather in the presence of our King, humbling ourselves before him, he says to us, “Come up here!” Christ our King calls us close to himself! He calls you. You are important to him!
As we gather at the table of our Divine Host, confessing our sin before him and singing “Lord, have mercy,” our song of humble repentance, we hear him say, “Friend, come up higher.” Our Lord Jesus calls us his friends! And as his friends, Jesus invites us to take our places right next to him. He exalts us, giving us a place at his own table, the table of salvation, the table of grace.
We bring nothing to this table but our sin. We come as those who are spiritually poor, crippled, lame, and blind. We can never begin to repay what he gives us at his table. But in his great and perfect hospitality Jesus invites us to his banquet, that he might feed us with forgiveness and give us a foretaste of the feast to come.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 26, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 24
Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost – August 24, 2025
Luke 13:10-17
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I had to call our sister in Christ, Pat, this week, because I wanted to get permission to talk about her today. You see, as soon as I read the gospel reading, I thought of her. You would never know it from her glowing skin, her bright eyes and her even brighter smile, but Pat is one of our most “chronologically advanced” members. Her bones get achy and don’t move like they used to. She needs a little help getting into the sanctuary, which, of course, we are happy to provide. But she is in worship on a regular basis. She doesn’t love it when we are on our summer schedule and worship is an hour earlier for her, which doesn’t give her body as much time to loosen up in the morning, but most Sundays she is here.
And the reason she is here is because of what the Lord Jesus does for her here. Pat has a way of describing what Jesus does for her in the Lord’s Supper which I just love. It has become an ongoing bit of banter between us. Pat often says that she loves Holy Communion because, “It puts some starch in my spine.”
Can you see why I thought of Pat when I starting digging into our gospel reading for today?
As we heard, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. There was a woman there who was bent over with a stiff and achy back. We don’t know her age, but the scriptures tell us she had been unable to stand up straight for eighteen years. That’s a long time to suffer with chronic pain! That’s a long time to have to deal with mobility issues! But there she was in the synagogue for worship.
This reminds me of a joke that gets passed around among my pastor friends every winter, especially those serving in the Midwest. When there’s a storm on a Sunday the joke is that “this weather is so bad that only the elderly and the infirm will be in worship!” There are just some people who will crawl over glass to be in worship, and often it is those who have a hard time getting around in the first place.
And what motivates these people to be in worship is what happens next in our gospel reading. Jesus called this woman to himself. He said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Jesus then laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began praising God!
Jesus put some starch in her spine! Jesus healed her, and this was a spiritual healing as much as it was a physical healing. You see, this woman didn’t just have a bad back. The scriptures say that it was a spirit which was crippling her. Jesus himself describes her as being held in bondage to Satan. She was not only hurting physically – she was hurting spiritually as well.
And so this whole interaction points to something bigger than achy bones. It points to something bigger than physical healing. Jesus is setting her free from something much bigger than a back problem. He is setting her free from everything which has her bent over and weighed down. He is setting her free from her bondage to Satan, her bondage to sin, her bondage to everything that contributes to the groaning of our bodies and the decay of creation. He is setting her free to praise God as a redeemed and restored daughter of Abraham, as Jesus calls her.
This makes this relevant for all of us. Because you see, we all have this same ailment. There is a Latin phrase the church often uses to describe the universal condition plaguing humankind. That phrase is in curvatus se. It means to be turned in on yourself. It means to be self-centered rather than God-centered. The symptoms of in curvatus se vary from person to person. Jesus has a list of symptoms which include “evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, lying, and slander.” (Matthew 15:19) St. Paul has lots more lists, which include things like “idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.” (Galatians 5:19) Paul mentions greed a lot too, which he says is a form of idolatry. Your symptoms may vary, but make no mistake about it, it is in our blood. It is in our bones. Our spines are curved in on ourselves. We all have this spiritual scoliosis. We are all bent over by sin. We are all in bondage to the fallenness of creation and the fallenness of our hearts.
It is here in worship on our sabbath day that the Lord Jesus sees us crippled by our condition. He calls us to himself. He speaks his Word of grace to us, forgiving our sin, setting us free from our ailment, setting us free from everything that has us bent over and weighed down. Jesus comes to us through Word and sacrament to redeem and restore us as daughters and sons of God, so that we can assume a posture of worship and praise.
This is what the sabbath is for. This is what worship is for. Sometimes we don’t get this. Sometimes others don’t get this. Sometimes people believe that the sabbath is for showing our righteousness, our obedience. This is what the leader of the synagogue thought the sabbath was for. The leader in the synagogue that day was indignant that Jesus healed on the sabbath, which was a violation of the ‘no work on the sabbath’ rule. Never mind that this poor woman had been suffering for eighteen years! For him, the sabbath had become an occasion to show how much more righteous and devout he was than everyone else.
But Jesus put him in his place, didn’t he? He pointedly asked him: “Don’t you untie your animals on the Sabbath day in order to water them?” Isn’t that technically ‘work’? “You hypocrite,” Jesus said, “how can you make allowances for the unbinding of livestock and then complain when I unbind this precious daughter of Abraham?”
Jesus does not abolish the Third Commandment, which is to remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Jesus does nothing to undermine it. Jesus himself was a faithfully observant Jew, observing the sabbath and all the festivals from the time he was a baby. What Jesus is doing here is reminding everyone what the sabbath is for. It is for renewal. It is for healing. It is for the restoration of God’s people. God gathers us together into his presence on the sabbath so that we can be set free from our bondage to the world and the devil and our sinful selves and stand up straight, even if only in spirit, praising God. Jesus was restoring the sabbath to its original purpose, and as the scripture tells us, “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.”
These wonderful things continue here today. We gather here this morning having been hobbled by the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. We gather here aching from our in curvatus se, our spiritual scoliosis. We gather here bent over by the weight of the burdens we carry and the bondage we are in.
Sometimes people think we come to worship because we are a bunch of goody-two-shoes, trying to show others how righteous and devout we are. But that isn’t why I come, and I doubt that’s why most of you are here.
We come to worship not because we are a bunch of goody-two-shoes, but because we have stepped in it over and over again! We come because we have a hard time standing up on our own two feet. We come because we need to be straightened out. We come not because we are good, but because God is!
We come to worship because it is here that we hear the gracious Word that sets us free, the word that forgives sin, the word that gives us hope and peace.
As Martin Luther teaches in his explanation of the Third Commandment in the Small Catechism, “We are to fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” We come gladly to hear this freeing Word!
We remember the sabbath and keep it holy because it is here that we are redeemed and restored. It is here that we find true rest for our weary bodies and our anxious, sin-sick souls. It is here that we are healed from our self-centeredness as we spend some time being God-centered once again.
We come to worship because it is here that Jesus puts some starch in our spine as he gives himself to us in bread and wine, his own body and blood, so that our souls can stand up straight and offer praises to God.
Dear friends, the Lord Jesus sees everything that has you hunched over and hurting today. He sees you here in worship on this sabbath day, and through Word and sacrament he is doing a wonderful thing. He says to you, “You are set free from your ailment.”
So rejoice in his goodness and rest in his grace on this blessed sabbath day.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
