Trinity 16, 2024

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We cannot say, “Mine is the true religion; yours isn’t true.” That’s what the bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, said on Friday. He continued,

All religions are a path to reach God. They are, to use a comparison, like different languages, different dialects to get there…. There is only one God, and we, our religions are languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian, but they are different paths.

To assert one’s religion is true, the Pope said, this leads to destruction. With these words, the pope places himself outside the Christian faith. It’s a tragedy that goes back nearly a thousand years. The claims of the bishop of Rome split the church in two in 1054, and Rome’s continued false teachings led to the fragmentation of Christianity in the West in the sixteenth century. This is a tragedy, and we must long for unity. But we cannot allow false teaching about salvation. That is not loving. Truth matters. The Word of God matters. The Gospel matters. ...

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Sanctity of Human Life 2022

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The March for Life, however others view it, is a march behind the cross. The liturgical statement of the crucifix leading us both towards the altar and later out of the church is the statement that this alone is the good that overcomes the world’s evil….

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Confidence in Confession

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Walking briskly through the hospital corridor, my thoughts were interrupted by the man calling out to me. “Father! Thank God you’re here. Right this way.” He told me they’d been waiting for hours for a priest to visit his dying wife. I explained that I’d be happy to visit, but he should know I’m a Lutheran pastor. “Just a minute,” he said, and disappeared into the room. After a hushed conversation, he came back out and said, “Close enough!”

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March for Life sermon 2019

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Everything that lives has life from God. St. Paul told the pagan philosophers on Mars Hill, “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

That doctrine undergirds our confession at the nation’s high court today. All human beings are created equal – because all human beings are created. The limbs that God has joined together, let no abortion tear asunder. That baby is living, no matter how small. To be pro-life is also then to embrace that life. Thus we also confess, “That baby, no matter his color, no matter what drugs or alcohol have done to his brain, that baby is loved by God and so by the people of God. He is welcome in our churches, and in our homes. And the teenager who is pregnant, and scared: she is welcome in our churches, and in our homes.”

We are not here to protest. We are here to confess. And we leave here ready to live in, with, and under that confession.

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