The grumbling of the religious leaders in today’s gospel is actually our holy hope: This Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. That our God seeks and saves the lost is not only a holy hope, it is our only hope. As the writer of 1 Timothy reminds us, “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Thanks be to God.
Augsburg Lutheran Church is thrilled to announce that we have called the Reverend Joe Yucha to serve as our next Associate Pastor.
Though we sometimes doubt and often resist God’s desire to protect and save us, our God persists. In holy baptism, God’s people have been called and gathered into a God-initiated relationship that will endure. Lent provides the church with a time and a tradition in which to seek God’s face again. Lent provides another occasion to behold the God of our salvation in the face of the Blessed One who “comes in the name of the Lord.”
lifelong member of Augsburg. Alex’s parents joined Augsburg when they moved to Winston-Salem because of their familiarity with Pastor Ritchie. He had previously been their pastor when serving the Lutheran church in Albemarle they had attended. As an infant and boy, Alex did not have a choice about where his family attended church.
Foreman. Then we were single parents. We usually had our respective children in tow when we did things together. But that Sunday we were on our own. As worship began, Art handed me the green LBW, setting and hymns ribboned. Just like that, I was introduced to liturgical worship.
Christ’s presence in our midst in the wonder of the holy supper is cause for singing. The nearness of the God in prayer, in every circumstance, is cause for rejoicing. The coming of one “more powerful” than John, even with a winnowing fork in hand, is good news—and cause for exultation—for us who are being saved. Great joy is the tone for the third Sunday of Advent.
The mustard seed becomes a great shrub that shelters the birds, recalling ancient images of the tree of life. We’d expect a cedar or a sequoia, but Jesus finds the power of God better imaged in a tiny, no-account seed. It’s not the way we expect divine activity to look. Yet the tree of life is here, in the cross around which we gather, the tree into which we are grafted through baptism, the true vine that nourishes us with its fruit in the cup we share. It may not appear all that impressive, but while nobody’s looking it grows with a power beyond our understanding.
When we say God is the triune God, we are saying something about who God is beyond, before, and after the universe: that there is community within God. Our experience of this is reflected in Paul’s words today. When we pray to God as Jesus prayed to his Abba (an everyday, intimate parental address), the Spirit prays within us, creating between us and God the same relationship Jesus has with the one who sent him.
Join us for Worship on this, the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.
We invite you to join us for worship today by viewing the recorded service or by listening to Hannah’s sermon...
The Mission of Augsburg Evangelical Lutheran Church is to Glorify God by Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Worship, Witness, Education, Service, and Fellowship.
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