Sermons by Rev. Richard Mittwede
Sermon for Good Friday Tre Ore 6
[Machine transcription] It is finished. That’s usually good to say or hear after completing a project, or paying off a debt, doing your taxes, or some other stressful chore. For my college students that I work with, it’s long papers, final exams, or just the end of a semester. But “it is finished” doesn’t seem good for Jesus to say;…
Sermon for St Michael and All Angels
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Culture and society often produce sweet and cute images of angels. Hallmark, Etsy, precious moments, they all do their part in this. And there’s fondness for guardian angels, and having guardian angel pins and little plaques on dashboards of…
Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I loved fishing. My brother Andrew and I had a pretty good business of it. So did my friends, James and John. My name’s Peter. And the Sea of Galilee, or the Lake of Gennesaret, another name for it, that was a great place for us to fish. I…
Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. It’s my habit to get up early every day and go for a run. And it’s my habit to pray Lamentations chapter 3, verses 22 and 23 on my run. I’m going to read it for you again; it’s the Old Testament reading. The steadfast love of…
Sermon for Third Sunday of Easter
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. I’m going to be referring mostly to the first reading from the Book of Acts today. Maybe you’ve noticed or not that during the Easter season there are no readings from the Old Testament. It’s always from the Book of Acts instead. And…
Sermon for Third Sunday of Advent
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated. During the Advent and Christmas seasons, we hear a lot from the prophet Isaiah. Especially we hear about his prophecies about the coming Messiah, the chosen, anointed one of God to come into our world to free it from the oppression…
A Contentious Response
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Not too long ago I was talking with a student at the University of Lutheran about their concern about current events of the world and their anxiety over the overall contentiousness of society. And no doubt, it’s a very contentious time in our…
It’s Not Fair!
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. There’s a lot of talk today about justice and equality and fairness in the public arena. And people can be very quick to point out injustice and inequality and unfairness. Take the parable in the gospel reading for today, where five different…
The Value of You
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. I think it’s safe to say that people like high-value items. For example, the TV show Antiques Roadshow. People have old items, antiques even, and they bring them to somebody to be appraised, first hoping that they have value or maybe are even…
Joy in Suffering
[Machine transcription] Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Suffering happens, right? We’re no strangers to suffering, especially in our current times, it seems. And suffering happens in several different ways, okay? It happens by natural problems, like hurricanes, fires, floods, earthquakes,…