Sermon and Worship Resources

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John 8:31-36

Sermon

Albert G. Butzer III

... the kind of death he was to die. Clearly, the way of Jesus is the way of the cross. So when he said, “I am the way,” he invited us to follow that way, the way of the cross, in terms of service and self-sacrifice. Joseph Sittler, who used to teach theology at the University of Chicago, was once attending a conference at a Roman Catholic convent. The convent sisters went to chapel four times each day for prayer and meditation. There they would meditate upon the large crucifix hanging over the altar ...

2. The Messiah

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... venerable traditions of Christmas. I imagine many of you have sung it in church choirs, or community choruses, or Messiah sing-alongs. Let me ask, how many of you have sung in the Messiah? Almost everybody. That's wonderful. It is a great tradition. Joseph Sittler recalls his boyhood as a Lutheran in the Midwest, growing up in a small town. He said that in that small town that the annual presentation of the Messiah by the LutheranChurch was something like the Passion Play at Oberammergau. The soloists were ...

3. Booby Trap

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

... the elderly man was in failing health and could die at any time. Only two families out of the sixteen living on that street are not active church members. Who was neighbor to the man before he died, or to his widow later on? Joseph Sittler, again in Grace Notes, points out to us that which we really ought to know by ourselves: Our natural forms of community - national, family, work, and "a remembered past" - have suffered from erosion. He writes: The national community is now eclipsed by internationalism ...

4. To Thank Is To ...

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

... than for the Dueteronomic Israelite. We are, most of us, at some experiential distance from the ritual of seed, root, stem, leaf, and fruit. It comes to most of us through stores, in cartons and packages, not on stalks of grain, not in the udders of cows. Joseph Sittler highlights this dilemma. A modern man "crouches over levers of a crane and guides it to lift stone from Indiana, which he has never touched, to the top of a construction job in Omaha, where it is fixed in walls he need not look at, designed ...

5. Preaching the Miracles of Jesus

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... miracles were an essential part of Jesus' ministry to proclaim the Word of God, the good news of salvation. This proclamation came through his words and deeds. His words were in parables; his deeds were in miracles. In his book, Gravity and Grace, Joseph Sittler said, "The parables are spoken miracles; the miracles are spoken parables." In each miracle there is a truth portrayed. These truths are "signs" pointing to a truth. The truth points to Christ as St. Augustine explains: "Let us ask of the miracles ...

6. Preaching the Miracles of Jesus

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

7. Advent 1

Luke 21:5-38, Jeremiah 33:1-26, Zechariah 14:1-21, 1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon Aid

George Bass

... that Christ will come again, as he promised. 2. The signs should wake us up - The signs of the times tell us that, despite the fact that time is running out on the inhabitants of the earth, there is still time to take definitive action and, as Joseph Sittler put it, to take "care of the earth" because "it is all that we have." A modern type of repentance is needed that will reverse the processes of consumption and destruction and begin to restore the world we live in. The signs of these times are sure ...

8. Whatever He Says - Do It!

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... these people can't understand the difference between those who drink wine and drunkards. St. Thomas Aquinas could. He said that "the heart of all sin is that men use what they ought to enjoy and enjoy what they ought to use." Our eminent Lutheran theologian, Dr. Joseph Sittler, commenting on Aquinas' statement, said, "I adduce a small sample: wine is to be enjoyed; it is not to be used. Wine is as old as human history. It is the symbol of nature in all of its smiling beneficence. It is in all places and all ...

9. A Mission and a Message

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

... the call of Christ and are ordained and commissioned to serve Christ as missionaries and pastors, the base of operations - the church - seems to be growing smaller in size and influence. In his Grace Notes and Other Fragments (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), Joseph Sittler observes: The church in the next several decades is going to be a smaller, leaner, tougher company. I am convinced that the way for the church now is to accept the shrinkage, to penetrate the meaning and the threat of the prevailing ...

10. Thanksgiving Day

Deuteronomy 8:1-20, Philippians 4:2-9, Philippians 4:10-20, 1 Timothy 2:1-15, Luke 17:11-19

Sermon Aid

... than enough food to sustain us; we could provide food for much of the world by ourselves. This is our cause for thanksgiving today. 3. Care and share. Our business is to care for others, as Christ has cared for us, and also to care for the earth (see Joseph Sittler's volume of sermons, The Care of the Earth, and Other Sermons.) Thanksgiving is caring enough to thank God, to care for the earth, and to share what we have with other people. 4. Give thanks, for God is good. He creates us, feeds us, and saves us ...

11. Why Not a Christian Live 8 for the Environment?

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... "America the Ugly"? Why are those most dedicated to keeping America beautiful (some politicians are fond of calling environmentalists "green-green lima beans") often seen as the most unpatriotic? After reflecting on this text we read this morning, Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler concluded that our #1 ecological mistake as Christians is to separate creation and redemption. We can no longer put nature "out there" and grace "in here." It's not immaterial whether we preserve or pillage the earth. Let me end ...

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