Christ the Vine

Grace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Today we hear in the Gospel of John, that Jesus is the true Vine, which if I understand it, means he’s the place where you can post video clips of the totes righteous sandwiches you are eating right now to share with your friends. For those of you that aren’t tech savvy, Vine is a web-service and phone app that is like twitter but with video instead of text. You get six seconds to tell your short video tale to the world! And you can share with all your friends, and you can even do stop motion tricks, and… And so what we learn today is, Jesus is the true place to send your video snippets?? OK, so maybe Jesus is not talking about the Vine App on your phone, he’s talking about...

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Thoughts About Stewardship-Vicar’s Corner

Newsletter article on Stewardship written to my internship congregation Trinity Lutheran Church wherein I make a poop joke. — In this time of gathering harvest, families, and thoughts– it is good to take a moment and think about what lies at the heart and other end of gathering: giving. What do I mean by “what lies at heart and other end”? I mean that what we often take to be the opposite or other-end of a thing (gathering in, versus giving out) can often also be found deep at the very heart of that thing itself. Luther made this discovery in distinguishing between Law and Gospel, that is, the word that puts to death and the word that brings to new life. Sometimes at the very bottom of the law is written the gospel. The very thing that puts us to...

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