May 15, 2016. What does Pentecost mean? On the first Pentecost, the followers of Jesus asked Peter, who expanded on the words of the prophet Joel, and told them that they would be prophets themselves. We are modern day prophets. Emboldened, inspired, and ignited by the Holy Spirit, we too can share the importance of our faith. In Pastor Penny's message today, she talks about how we can see the hand of God at work in difficult times, and how we can convey our message of hope to people even when they aren't asking the question. *** [Keywords: Auschwitz Holy Spirit I'm willing Mac Man's Search for Meaning book Nazi prison camps Pastor Penny Holste Peter Troy Viktor Frankl ability to see achieve and they will prophesy are you okay avoiding going home back on track barbecue coach son's baseball team coffee comment under his breath concerns cosmopolitan crowds courage crowds of people discovery donuts shop downturn in economy early Christians emboldened even slaves everyday faith made life meaningful feelings felt good financial problems finding meaning in difficult times first Pentecost first grandchild born flooding down on us forgiven gift granddaughter saved my life hand of God help us what we're going through high school his old self how God is working to relieve our pain how to convey to people ideas ignited inspired interpretation invite to Lutheran church inviting jokes joy took some pain away leader lost clients meaning in our lives meetings modern day disciple modern day prophet mug on desk no meaning in life anymore not asking questions not enthusiastic not getting along office meetings one person at a time pamphlet parents love their children phenomenon pour out my spirit prayer precious to God predicted new era priests promise given us in baptism prophet Joel purpose pursuit of happiness or power question most religions tried to answer rabbis recognizing reluctant restaurant scribes scripture living vehicle selling something sit down with you small office some people survived speaking languages they had not been taught spirit of understanding stayed at work late tell the future tells people who don't already see it terrible circumstances tongues trouble try church turned back on his father uneducated followers of Jesus unprecedented democracy use me voices of support we are God's children we are alive we are important we are prophets what God is doing right now what does Pentecost mean what does life mean woman lost husband words in church words of hope words of the prophets workers world wrong wrong crowd]

April 3, 2016. In John 20:24-31, Jesus says to “doubting Thomas” blessed are they who do not see, and yet believe. For us, it doesn’t always feel very blessed not to be able to see Jesus and yet to believe, even as more and more skeptics pull away from the church or don’t believe in God at all. In her sermon today, Pastor Penny talks about how important trust is in believing — even more important than seeing. Maybe God puts people in our lives we can trust, people who believe that their faith is vital and live-giving, so that even when we don’t have Jesus to look at, we don’t have to be distracted by beliefs that serve only our own purposes and which may not be life-giving, but we can have the life that God wants for us and for the world. And by the power of the Holy Spirit we can become the people others trust, we can be witnesses, and by just living out our faith, someday others may see that Christ brings life to the world. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I have to confess that there's a part of this gospel that always has bothered me and maybe, until lately, it's really made me angry. And it's where Jesus tells the disciples that "blessed are those who haven't seen me and still believe." Because that's where we are, isn't it? We didn't see Jesus after the resurrection in bodily form. And so we believe in a God we can't see. We believe in a resurrection that we haven't experienced. We believe in the power of sacraments that we can't explain. Meanwhile, all around us, there are more and more skeptics about the church. More people have pulled away from the church. And there's a vocal, if not growing, group of people that call themselves atheists, that don't believe in God at all. So, it doesn't feel very blessed to be here without the opportunity to see Jesus and yet to believe. Well we say seeing is believing. But that's not really true, is it. You know, if we watch a magician do a card trick or pull a coin out from behind the ear, we see that. We don't believe that it's really happening. There is something more important than seeing that makes us believe, and that's being able to trust. And in fact when Jesus told Thomas, "Thomas, don't doubt me," that's the way we have the translation that we read. In the Greek it's, "Thomas, don't not trust me." — in other words: trust me Thomas. When we don't trust, even if we see, we won't believe. A case in point are the people that gave so much trouble to Jesus — the leaders, the religious leaders who saw him heal a blind man, who saw that Lazarus had been brought back to life, but who would not allow themselves to believe that Jesus' actions were from God. Because their trust was really not in God as much as in themselves. They trusted their own way of living that they believed would bring them closer to God. They trusted their own political savvy. They had determined that it was better for Jesus to die and prevent a riot by his followers that would bring the Roman troops down on them. And so Jesus stood right before them, God in the flesh, and they should have recognized his words and his actions as Godly. But they wouldn't let themselves trust, and so they didn't believe. Now it's true that we have not been blessed with the ability to see Jesus walking around, though I'm sure some of you have had visions. And they count for a lot. But God has done something more important for our faith. The Holy Spirit has put people in our lives we can trust. And those people have shown us that they believe their faith is vital and life-giving. You know, we teach our children, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." But really (and you've heard this before) it should say "but Mommy told me so" or "Grandpa taught me." Because we first learned the faith from people we care about, often people we love, and that's why we believe it. Some of you probably have hymnals or catechisms or Bibles written in a language that you don't speak or know very little of, that have been handed on to you from great-great-grandparents that came here with not very many things to this country. But they brought the symbols of their faith. They brought the word to delve into, because it was a life-giving source of strength. And it still is. I know Keith was helping clean out an apartment where some summer laborers from Mexico had lived, and they had gone back to Mexico for the season. And there's a poster with the Ten Commandments in Spanish, and some other Christian literature in their tongue, because they were coming to a country where (especially in our area) people didn't speak Spanish. It was their source and their rock. So we have been given people that have found the faith to be life-giving and have found the community of faith to be life-giving. We know that when relatives or friends lose a loved one, we see them turning to the community of faith for a listening ear, for prayers, for support, to hear again the promise of the resurrection. So we don't have Jesus to look at. But maybe this is the blessing. I'm still not sure about that passage, but maybe this is the blessing: we are not distracted by trying to understand "Oh did I see that, or didn't I see that?" It's not all on us. It's much easier, I think, to embrace the life of a person you love, and to watch through their lives how they find their faith to be life-giving, and to believe because of it. It is life-giving for us and for the world, and sometimes that means that we need to give up some of the beliefs that get in the way that are not life-giving. I don't know if any of you have seen "Zootopia" but it's a really fun movie, Disney's latest animated movie. And of course, it's about animals, Zootopia. And so the main character is Judy Hopps. She's a rabbit, and she had a dream to do something no rabbit had ever done before, and that was to be part of the law enforcement, to be a police officer. But it would require her to leave the safe little town that all the rabbits lived in and go to Zootopia, which was a city full of different kinds of animals, including the animal her parents most feared, which was a fox. And so they begged her not to go. Finally they relented because she was so adamant, and sent her off with three different fox-fighting weapons in her arsenal. Well Judy gets to Zootopia, and sure enough the first character that she begins to have a relationship with is a fox. And at first she's a little shy, but she soon understands that underneath that street-savvy demeanor is somebody who has become a really loyal and good friend. But her prejudices that she learned as a child bubbled up again later on in the movie when Judy, now a police officer in high standing, is making an announcement to the public explaining why some predatory animals — including that would be foxes — have suddenly gone violent when they hadn't before, and she chalked it up to their evil nature. Of course when her friend the fox heard that, really he was cut to the heart. Like the Jewish leaders in Jesus' day, we are so prone to having beliefs that serve our own purposes, and they're not serving God's. If they seem to make us feel safer, if they promote whatever ambitious idea we have, they're so easy to hang onto. But they can be so divisive, between our friends, between other people in the world. And we push God away. God wants life for us and for the world, and the two do go together. I don't know if any of you read the story in the paper a couple days ago about a man named Johnel Langerston. He moved here from California. He grew up in Oakland, in a tough neighborhood, got involved with drugs, went to prison, and when he got out of prison he made a change in his life. He got involved in business. He soon owned his own marketing business. And a few years ago he decided he wanted a new challenge. And this is a sad thing: he Googled worst places to live, and St. Louis came up. And I did it, and we're on some of the lists. Anyway but he did that, and then he moved his family to the College Hill neighborhood — not an easy neighborhood to live in in St. Louis — and he bought an old UCC Church that wasn't being used. His family lives in the Sunday School area, and he refurbished the gym. And he has an after-school program to encourage the youth in the neighborhood to be serious about their studies. He wants them to make better choices than he did. He wants to see that their lives have life. And his program has a time limit, because a few years ago, before he moved here, he was told that he has an immune disorder and only a few years to live. He's outlived the estimate, but this is what he has chosen to do with the remaining few years of his life: showing us, I think, that to live in a way that gives life to the world is also life-giving to ourselves. It is not an easy time to be a Christian, not with so many people believing so many different things. But at a workshop recently on the New Atheists, the professor said this. He said, "Don't argue with people who don't believe what you believe. Just live out your faith." And what I believe he was telling us is that as we live in ways that are life-giving to the world, we become those people that they can trust, we become those witnesses, through our lives, through the work of the Holy Spirit, that allow them someday to see that Christ brings life to the world. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, John 20:19-31, Sarcoidosis, Urban Born

March 6, 2016. Are we tempted to push our relationship with God aside and trust only in ourselves? In talking about Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) Pastor Penny shows us that we can make the world a place of justice and mercy, passing on a legacy for sons who have been lost, by knowing that God forgives and loves us and by trusting in Him. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Last Friday Keith and I went to a very moving presentation at Eden Seminary. There were about a dozen men, all African American, who were recounting how they lost their sons to a violent death. The deaths were different. Sometimes it was gang-related. Sometimes it was related to the police. There was one death that had mysterious circumstances around it. There were men waiting to get court documents to get more details about their son's death. There were other men waiting to get a day in court to talk more about their son's death. And this presentation had two goals. I could tell that they were all waiting for justice. And that was one of the goals, to encourage the African American community and the white community to provide more justice for African Americans. But the other goal was to pass on a legacy for the sons they have lost — because it became very evident, when you heard one testimony after another, how much these men loved their sons, and how hurt they were to lose them. Jesus told a story, a parable about a man who loved two sons. And they were very different from one another. If we can fill in the details (because this is a story after all) we can maybe imagine that the youngest son was kind of cocky. He didn't really want to get up in the morning and go help on the farm, and he chafed at having to be under his father's supervision. Maybe he was like Joseph and he had these dreams, of getting out on his own and creating his own life and making his own success and being his own boss. So one day, he made an unthinkable request of his father, unthinkable in his culture. He said, Father give me my inheritance. Now that was tantamount to wishing his father dead in his culture. It was a cruel thing. He wasn't thinking about his father's feelings. It was a selfish thing, as we were talking about selfishness. And another unthinkable thing was that the father gave him what he asked! He sold his half of the property and gave his son the money — not maybe a very wise thing, but he loved his son. Well, we know what happened after that. The son went away, and despite all his great dreams, he ended up frittering away the money, all of the money, all of his father's hard-earned money. And only when he was starving did he have second thoughts about what he had done. And then he hatched a plan to come back and ask to work on his father's farm. What the boy didn't know, because he really wasn't thinking about his father the whole time, was that even after what he had done to his father, his father never stopped loving him. And we know that because when the young man approached from a distance, before a word of apology had come out of his mouth, his father ran to him, had compassion on him, threw his arms around him and kissed him. And I think the cover on the bulletin is very telling. You can imagine this young man just collapsing into his father's arms, his head on his shoulder, maybe bursting into tears — and at that moment, maybe for the first time, realizing what he had almost lost, at that moment realizing for the first time that he had almost lost his most precious possession: the love of his father. Now there was an older son as well. And he (if we can embellish a little) I think it's safe to say he probably hated to get up and go to work in the field as well, as his younger brother had. He probably chafed under the supervision of his father and wanted to call the shots. But he waited. His tactic was to wait. He knew sooner or later he would inherit half the property and then he would be his own boss. So his role was to be the good son. He bit his tongue instead of saying things that he might. He mumbled under his breath. He wasn't happy, but he waited. In fact, he was probably happy when his younger brother made that cruel statement about his property and taking his money, because he thought finally, my father will see what a brat my little brother was, and we'll be rid of him. But when that brat came back and the father reinstated him as if nothing had happened, the older son was outraged. It was not fair, I'm sure he said. And it wasn't. His father wasn't being fair. He wasn't showing justice. He was going beyond justice to mercy. And then the older son said something I'm sure that hurt the father so deeply. He said, all my life I've been slaving for you. And the father must have thought: is that what it was like, is that what you thought you were doing? I thought we were working together and that everything I had was yours. For the older son couldn't see it, and didn't care and wouldn't celebrate. Now it's important to notice the first verses in our gospel today. They come before the story. "Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.' So he told them this parable." This story is for the scribes and Pharisees. And they were the good sons in their day. Oh, they had a relationship with their Heavenly Father, but they had pushed it to the side and were focusing on their role. Their role was to keep the laws. They believed that would please the Father, and then God would bless the whole nation. But in the process, their focus, their trust was on what they were doing, on being the good sons. And I wonder sometimes if that isn't our temptation, too. Because we are good people. We are good churchgoers. We are good wives and husbands and mothers and children and fathers and workers and students and citizens, and we have a relationship with God. It's important. But do we push that to one side, and do we focus instead on who we are and what we do? Is that what we trust? I wonder if God is not saying to us this morning: don't be more sure of yourself than you are of me. Don't trust yourself more than you trust me, or you will never really know me, and you will never have the joy I intend you to have, and you will never work side by side with me in the kingdom. The joy I intend you to have. As Pastor Keith mentioned, this is Laetare Sunday in the tradition of the church year, from the Latin word for joy, rejoice. And I have to believe that if we could hear the story of the younger son after he came back, it would be full of joy. I can imagine him waking up and wanting to go to work, being so happy to have a roof over his head and three meals a day. I can imagine him seeing his dad for the first time and really knowing him, noticing how carefully his father treated the hired hands and the slaves. And he had been a hired hand, so it would mean a lot to the young boy, noticing that maybe his father left some of the crop so that the poor could come and glean it. And he had been poor, and it would mean a lot to see that, seeing maybe for the first time that his father was the greatest possession he had: the gift of his father's love, and how eager he was to live out that same lifestyle and legacy. This is what God offers us today, that we too can collapse into the loving arms of a Heavenly Father, confessing our weaknesses, knowing that we are forgiven, hearing words of love, and hearing our Father say to us: I'm so glad you came back home. Now you can have the joy I intended you to have. Now we can work together to make the world a place of justice and mercy. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, Prodigal Son

February 14, 2016. Pastor Penny's message is about temptation, from Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by the devil in Luke 4:1-13, to how we are sometimes tempted to forget our identity as Christians. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. A mother was listening to her four-year-old recite the Lord's Prayer and she said, "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us some email." That's how she heard it. And there was a bumper sticker that said, "and lead us not into temptation, because we'll find it for ourselves." And that unfortunately is too true, isn't it? Temptation is the topic of the gospel story today. And I think when we think of temptations, we think of being tempted to have that second piece of cake or another glass of wine, or maybe watch one more TV show or play one more video game, even though we know we have other things to do. But as we hear about Jesus' temptations, we begin to see that there's something much deeper than a piece of cake involved in temptation. And I think that this story of Jesus' temptation is kind of like an onion. We have to sort of peel away the layers to get to the real message, which I believe God has for us today. The first layer to peel off is what do we do with the devil? Okay, with Satan. I mean the whole story was like a dream, wasn't it? In an instant, Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world. And so we have to think, who is this Satan? Was it a real person? Was Jesus dreaming this? Was this a way that he personified evil, to explain to his followers this time of testing that he went through? And you know, that makes sense in a lot of ways, because evil sometimes just seems to have a life of its own. We think of all the horrible things that have happened through history when mobs get violent. But it doesn't even take a mob. If you've been at a meeting or at a party, you can see that one or two people can change everything. They can get people turned against someone, criticizing them. And you might walk away from that meeting and think, why did I vote the way I did? I didn't really think that. Or walk away from the party and think, why did I laugh at that? I don't really believe that. So often, evil just seems to have a life of its own. And I think that's often why we personify it and we call it Satan or the devil. Maybe that's what Jesus was doing. But the most important thing to know about Jesus' temptations is to know what happened just before he was tempted. He was baptized. He was baptized, and the Spirit came into him and he heard the voice of the Father saying, you are my Son whom I really love and am really pleased with. And then that same Spirit led him to the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by Satan. And he didn't eat in those 40 days, so at the end he was very hungry. And that's when I think we're most vulnerable, isn't it, when we are empty -- whether it's physically or spiritually -- when we are empty and hungry for something. So that's when the devil comes and says well then, just change this stone into bread. But you know, I think throughout the wilderness tempting, and in this temptation as well, Jesus must have heard the sound of his Father's voice reverberating in his mind and in his heart: but you are my Son. And so he detected that this wasn't the plan that God had for him and that God, who would take care of his beloved Son, would certainly feed him at the right time. And he said no, I won't do it. And he quoted scripture. And he refused to give in. It seemed as though it was a matter of being tempted by food. The second temptation, the devil takes them to see all the kingdoms of the world and says: these are mine. Just worship me and all the authority and glory will belong to you. But again, Jesus had the words of the Father in his head: you are my Son. In you I am well pleased. He knew that God would provide for him, and that at the right time and in the right place he would receive the glory and the authority that he deserved. So he quoted scripture and said no, I won't do it. And it seemed as though it was a matter of being tempted by glory or power. Finally, the third time the devil gets smart and starts quoting scripture to Jesus, figuring that's the way to do it. He says, why don't you (they're on top of the temple) just jump off of this, because right here in the Psalms it says the angels will catch you and you will be protected. But Jesus knew who he was. He did not need this kind of testing of the Father. He knew the Father would care for him and protect him in the way that was best. And so he said no, quoted scripture, and refused. And there it seemed as though it was a matter of safety that he was being tempted. Bread, power, safety... are those really what Jesus was being tempted to do, to give things up for those? Or was it something deeper? Because underlying all of these temptations, and all of the temptations that we feel, is the temptation to forget who we are, the temptation not to remember whose we are, because we heard the same voice in a way when we were baptized: you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and blessed with the cross of Christ forever. You are a child of God. These were the promises given to us. And in every temptation we face -- it may be a temptation about power, it may be a temptation about another piece of cake -- but underneath it all is the temptation to forget our own identity as sons and daughters of God. And we're being pressured so much to forget. Advertisers are always telling us what we lack, what we need, we're not prestigious enough or glamorous enough, or healthy enough. And so we should buy the car, the hair product, the medicine to save us, because we're not enough. Or the politicians are always telling us what's wrong with the country, so that we will vote for them and they will be our saviors and change everything. So often the way to undermine our identities is through fear. I was talking to a pastor who long ago had a call to a very wealthy section of Detroit, and when he came to his first meeting of the council (and this is Missouri Synod so they were all men) he said they sat around the first meeting and they were worried. They were fearful that they wouldn't be able to keep the lights on in the building. And how could they do this? And they were analyzing the budget very thoroughly. Well, this seemed to happen every time they met. So, three months into the call he got up in the pulpit and he -- and his wife was sitting there, and she said I was sinking down when he started talking -- and he said you know, if you want to keep the lights on in this building you just have to tithe. He said we sit at meetings and you talk about nickels and dimes how to keep this $250,000 building going, and you go home to your $400,000 homes. He said just tithe. Well of course there was a meeting right after that, and they said: you can't say that! You can't preach that! And he said yes I can, I'm called by God. That's the truth. Well, eight of the ten leaders of the congregation resigned and threatened to leave. Six of them came back. And with the remaining leaders and families, they were able to build a half million dollar addition to the church within five years -- and then there was another addition after that. It was simply a matter that they forgot who they were. They thought of themselves as business people, trying to keep all the dollars and cents in a row. They forgot that they were chosen people, that they were loved, protected, and that God had died for them. Because that of course is why Jesus was tempted to begin with: because Jesus, who was God, was willing to come and be a person and suffer temptation and be tortured and be killed, so that we would know beyond a doubt how much God loves us, so that we would know that God understands what we're going through and is with us. And Jesus was raised from the dead on Easter so that we would know beyond a doubt that God has the final word, that God's word is stronger than evil, stronger than fear, stronger even than death. Now, I know that our temptations are a lot more complicated than a piece of cake or a video game, that many of us struggle with balancing work and family and hobbies and health and commitment to the church. And I know that as citizens we struggle to balance giving people jobs and taking care of the environment, caring for the needy, keeping our country safe. But in all of this, in all of this, we need to remember who we are, that our identity does not depend on what we have or what we do, or the decisions we make, or even that we fall on our face and fall into temptation. But finally, our identity rests completely on the fact that we are loved, that we are protected, that we are chosen by God, and that we live in the promise that one day we will live out our identity perfectly as daughters and sons of God. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Luke 4:1-13, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

January 24, 2016. Pastor Penny preaches on Luke 4:18-21, in which Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favor, and tells us about how the spirit can open our eyes to the needs of others and proclaim the era of God's welcome.