Sermon given on the Second Sunday of Advent, December 6, 2009, at Wooddale Lutheran Church by Pastor Tim Rauk. Text is Luke 3:3-9.

Sometimes it’s really hard to get people’s attention.

Why you bunch of hypocritical venomous snakes. Why are you here today? You come here in your big cars and your fancy clothes, to this big expensive church and sing pretty, nice hymns and say things that make you feel good; throw a few coins in the plate, and then go home and worship the only things we build cathedrals to worship today: professional football.

You talk about Christ changing your life.. But you go out of here with no intention of living any differently than you did when you came in. Let’s see some action for a change instead of just a lot of talk and empty promises.

And don’t think that you can comfort yourself by saying that you’re children of God. Or “I’m a lifelong Lutheran.” Why I tell you, God could take these hymnals and make them into his children. God could take lutefisk and make it into Lutherans. I tell you, none of this makes any difference to God at all.

Already God is prepared to cut it all away and all those who have no room in their life for God are going to find that … God just may find it hard to make room for them.

So you better wake up. You better be prepared for nothing will stand as it is when God comes. Everything will be shaken up. So you better get ready.

Sermon given on the First Sunday in Advent, November 29, 2009, at Wooddale Lutheran Church by Pastor Tim Rauk. Text is Luke 21:25-36.

Today’s Gospel reading is about looking at signs.

Out driving yesterday, I took a route I hadn’t taken before to get to my sister’s house, and in a half hour trip, I’m sure I made a conscious effort to literally, “read the signs” dozens of times on the trip, in order to get to where I wanted to go. Street signs, highway signs, mileage signs, all tell you if you’re on the right track, or if you’re headed somewhere you didn’t plan on going.

Every day we spend time looking at the signs that will tell us something about where we’re going. Weather forecasting is a complex science that tries to look at all the signs, and then predict what the weather will be. The fact that some weather forecasting is inaccurate is not for lack of effort or expertise. It just is an indication that we’re dealing with a complex system that defies simplistic explanation.

Kind of like the economy. And on this first Sunday after Thanksgiving, almost every newscast includes somebody’s attempt to look at the signs of last Friday’s retail sales, and see those signs tell us something about the economy. Just as every night, all year long, the news reports the latest indicators of how the stock market is doing.

Now of course, we can’t particularly do anything about the weather, or the economy, but there are lots of important signs that we watch that affect our day-to-day lives.

Sermon given on Thanksgiving Eve, November 25, 2009, at Ecumenical worship service Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church by Pastor Tim Rauk. Text is Matthew 6:25-33.

This is now the 14th time I’ve had the opportunity, the privilege of preaching from this pulpit on Thanksgiving Eve, and every time I do, I think of Paul’s letters to the early churches that begin, “I thank God through Jesus Christ, for all of you, for I have heard of your faith, and your love.” I enjoy telling people I’m a part of an ecumenical worship tradition, that’s been going on now for 35 years. This is the 36th joint worship service and we’re excited tonight to have members from Spirit of Christ Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church of the Reformation with us. So, my brothers and sisters at Most Holy Trinity: I thank you for again opening your hearts and your congregation’s worship life to all who have gathered on this eve of Thanksgiving, for worship, praise, and great music.

As the preacher, it’s my responsibility to pick out the lessons, so I went back and checked the lessons we’ve read in previous years. I found about a dozen different Gospel readings we’ve used, – all of them good – but two that have been used most frequently. One obvious Thanksgiving text is the story of Jesus healing 10 people of their leprosy, and only one of them returns to him to give thanks – from Luke 17. It’s a great Thanksgiving text.

But equally popular has been the Gospel reading for tonight, where Jesus teaches us in the section of Matthew we know as “the Sermon on the Mount.”

Look at the birds of the air;- they neither sow nor reap; yet your heavenly Father feeds them; Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

So, how do you like this as a Thanksgiving text? Let me suggest a way of thinking about its effectiveness as a Thanksgiving lesson.

LEGACY OF FAITH
An 80th Anniversary Cantata

Music has always been a strong part of Wooddale’s history. Our senior choir has been preparing a cantata that will guide us in worship this Sunday, November 22. The title of the cantata is LEGACY OF FAITH in honor of our 80th Anniversary. This is something you won’t want to miss.

The music is stirring. What a wonderful vehicle this cantata will be to help us think about the LEGACY OF FAITH that has been passed on to us by those 47 individuals who defied conventional wisdom and boldly began a new Lutheran congregation in St. Louis Park 80 years ago, even as our country was plunging into the financial catastrophe we now refer to as The Great Depression.

And what is our LEGACY OF FAITH? Sadly much of the world sees faith as an outdated concept, displaced by the comforts of materialism. In our 21st century world, instant gratification and a distrust in anything that is not measurable and tangible have displaced faith as the keys to meaning and happiness?

Sermon given on the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, November 15, 2009, at Wooddale Lutheran Church by Pastor Tim Rauk.  Text is Mark 13:1-8.

This morning’s Gospel is one that most of us, fortunately are quite isolated from.  It pictures dramatic, frightening things, that we’ve all heard about, that we know happen to other people, that are happening somewhere on the earth, even as we speak, causing many to suffer, but most of them have never happened to most of us.

I did an informal survey with a group of about 15 retired people a number of weeks ago.  All remembered WWII very well.  And not a one had lost a close friend or relative to any of the wars fought since they were born, including WWII.  None had ever experienced an earthquake.  None had ever been hungry; truly hungry.

But even as I say that, all of these terrible things are happening to people somewhere in the world.  It doesn’t seem like a Gospel that has much Good News.

Nor was there much good coming in the near future in Jesus’ life.  As the scene opens on today’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem, having entered the city triumphantly being hailed the promised Messiah — an event we know of as “Palm Sunday.”  It would not be long before Jesus would be betrayed, put on trial, and executed on a cross.

And so, we find Jesus and his disciples, as most Passover pilgrims from Galilee would do, visiting and admiring the great Temple in Jerusalem; – Jesus aware of the difficulties that he would soon be experiencing, – but his disciples sounding more like tourists.  “Look Teacher!  What massive stones!  What magnificent buildings!”

In 1929, Wooddale Lutheran Church was formed, and over the last 80 years Wooddale has continued in it original mission to bring God’s message to the community of St. Louis Park and beyond.

This video was created to celebrate this milestone and give those who weren’t around back then a little perspective.

Click image to view video