January 4, 2015. All of us, everyone, wants to know their lives have a meaning apart from the day-to-day, that they have a purpose in their lives. Pastor Penny preaches on the first chapter of John, how the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and how we are given the power to become children of God. In this season of Epiphany, what we do is share that gift by sprinkling little invitations around our lives, inviting people to know that God is with us, through this life and into the next. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As Becky was gathering up the last of her Christmas cards, she felt a familiar pang in her heart realizing that once again, neither of her brothers had sent her a Christmas card. She and her brothers had become kind of estranged. They had become distant. Her older brother, who was always very outgoing and popular, had gone into sales -- and he'd gone right to the top and he was moving in social circles that were different from Becky's. He had several houses in different cities, and she kind of figured he was spending the holidays abroad. She hadn't heard from him in years. Her younger brother was a different story altogether. He had started drinking, and the drinking had taken over his life and his personality. And Becky had pleaded with him. She had warned him. She had loaned him money. When nothing seemed to help she just cut it off, and he kind of drifted away, and she had not heard from her younger brother for years. But as she was cleaning up and putting her decorations away, it just kept bothering her. She remembered old Christmases where they all had such fun, she and her brothers. And she wanted so badly to reconnect, so she decided to do something different. She decided she would call them. She had phone numbers and she thought they might still work. When her older brother received the call, he was on his sailboat. He saw on his caller ID, to his surprise, it was his sister. "Becky? What does she want?" He thought about it. He was so hesitant to pick up. "What do we have in common?" he thought. "What could I say to her? This would be very uncomfortable. I'll just let it go to voice message and maybe I'll text her later." And he went back to his book and to his martini. When Becky's younger brother got the call, he was in his trailer house. And he too saw on caller ID that it was his sister, and immediately he felt guilty. The last words she had said to him were very harsh, and he had let her down so many times. He hesitated to pick up. All he could feel was shame. But then he knew that what she had said to him was what saved him, because he finally heard it, and he finally gave up drinking and had been clean for a year. And so he reached over, hoping that she would forgive him, and he picked up. Like Becky's brothers, when God calls us -- and God does, through our conscience, through other people, through the scriptures -- when God calls us, we too are often hesitant to pick up. We know the voice at the other end might tell us something about ourselves we don't want to hear: that we drink too much, or that we should quit smoking, or that we should never talk to our spouse the way we do, or that success has gone to our heads -- whether it's at school or in the office or in sports -- it's become everything, or that we haven't become very generous in our lives. We are hesitant to pick up when God calls. And we hear in the scripture today that God knew that would happen from the very beginning. And so God created a plan to rescue us from this disconnection with God that we insist upon. And it is in the Book of John that we hear this plan most vividly described. You know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke -- those gospels tell the story of Jesus. But John tells it and tells what it means. John gives us the plan that God had for rescuing us. John, the Gospel, is the one that we read part of together back and forth this morning. It starts out in a very poetic manner: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And then a little later: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Well, we can tell now where it's going. The "Word" obviously is Jesus. In Jesus, God became flesh. But why call Jesus "the Word?" That is very strange -- until you think of the fact that words are our best way of communicating. I can imagine that most of you who have been parents have looked into the face of a screaming infant and thought, "Oh, if she could only tell me what she needs." You know, words. They are the most effective way that we can share something from our heart to someone else's heart. And of course then what better thing to call Jesus, who is God's way of communicating with us? But as John goes on to describe the Word, we find out that the Word became flesh and dwelt here on the earth. But some people didn't accept the Word, while others did. And then comes, I think, one of the most beautiful passages in scripture, where John says, "But those who accepted him, who believed in his name, were given the power to become children of God." There is not a person in this world who does not want to be connected to something bigger than themselves. They may think of it as God. They may think of it as fame or posterity. All of us, everyone, wants to know their lives have a meaning apart from the day-to-day, that they have a purpose in their lives. All of us want to know or be comforted by the thought that when we take our last breath, that's not the end of us. And here is that promise: those who accept him are given the power to become the children of God, the family of God, flesh and blood with God. That means that God promises to be with us and protect us and to be bonded to us, past the time we take our last breath in this life. So that's the plan that John reveals. But then we go to the gospel and suddenly we come out of the cosmic realm, and we land firmly on the ground. In fact, our feet are in the dusty town of Bethlehem. And it's two years or so after Jesus is born, and he's a toddler. And Mary and Joseph are probably living in a modest home. And they have visitors, strange people. Now, of course, we always want to tidy things up in the church so we've glamorized these strange people, we've called them kings. But the Bible doesn't say that. They are called in the Greek "Magi" -- magicians, sorcerers, astrologers. And they were on the fringe of society. They were not highly regarded people. In the book of Acts, Paul encounters a Magi and calls him son of the devil. And yet these fringe people were guided by something that they were familiar with, a star, to the very place where Jesus was born. Now, they had gone to look for him in a palace where you would look for a king. But they had come to a little dusty town, and there through the eyes of faith that were given to them, they could see in this little toddler a king. And they fell down on their knees in front of him and worshiped him, and gave him gifts. That event, of course, is called the Epiphany. It's celebrated in the church year on January 6th every year, which is Tuesday. Today we're kind of celebrating it in advance. And the time in the church year, after Epiphany to the beginning of Lent, is called the season of Epiphany. We remember that event for lots of reasons. But I think today it teaches us two things: it reminds us, as we have been reminded so many times, that God builds God's kingdom with people on the fringe, probably because they're the ones that will answer the call, they will pick up. The other thing it tells us is that God uses things that are familiar to people. The stars were familiar to the Magi. That's what they studied. And so it was a star that drew them to Jesus. In the Bible, God uses ordinary people: David, Abraham, the disciples. I firmly believe that what God wants us to hear from this account, this story today, is that we are the familiar people that draw others to Christ, that we are the stars that make that call. Now it's not easy to make a cold call. So what we do is we sprinkle "little invitations" around in our lives. Maybe a mug that says "Christ Lutheran Church" that's on your office desk. Or maybe in your home there's a plaque, a religious plaque, that kind of describes your faith. Or maybe when someone has revealed a deep problem to you, you conclude the conversation with something like "I'll pray for you." We set out these little invitations because there is not a person in our offices, in our home rooms, in our book clubs, or on our soccer teams, who does not want to be connected to something beyond themselves, who does not want to know that their lives have meaning and purpose, who does not want to be assured that their lives will have meaning past the time they take a breath. And so we leave these invitations knowing that sooner or later, someone will come up to us having seen these little hints and say something like, "My wife and I are kind of having a hard time, and we've been thinking about finding a church." Or, "We are looking for a place to baptize our child." Or maybe just, "You know, I've been feeling that there must be more to life. I've been feeling that I'm missing something. You go to church. Why do you do that?" And then that's when we need to have a very short statement about what it means, what our faith means. And we've heard some beautiful ones over this last year, as some of you have done the welcome at the beginning of worship. We've heard people say that "I come to church because this is my anchor" or "I come to church because I want to be in this community" or "I come to church because this is where I know I'm forgiven" or "I come to church because I need to be here." It's not easy to talk about our faith. And I'm as shy as any one of you to talk about it outside of these walls. But we are not being asked to sell people something, to promote something, to push an idea on someone, or to disrespect their spirituality. God works in mysterious ways. God worked through sorcerers today. What we are simply doing is inviting people to experience what we experience, to be in the family, to be flesh and blood with God, to know that God is with us through this life and into the next. All we're doing is inviting people to be what God, by God's grace, has allowed us to be: children of God. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2015, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, John 1:1-18, Acts 13:8-12

August 3, 2014. Pastor Penny preaches on the feeding of the 5000, from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus has invited us into his world of abundance. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I wonder if you would rather have more time or more money? Maybe a show of hands? How many would like a little more time? How many would like a little more money? Or both? And the two go together of course. If you have more time, you can probably find a way to get more money. If you have more money, you can find a way to give yourself some more time. But the bottom line is that we usually go through life feeling we don't have enough of something: time, money, whatever. It's kind of what keeps us awake at night wondering, "Am I a good enough parent? Do I have enough friends? Do I look good enough? Have I done well enough at school? Have I done well enough at my work? Is there going to be money at the end of my life? How is my health?" These are the things that we worry about, and it always comes down to this: do I have enough? And when we worry, we become afraid. And when we become afraid, it is not our best person that is shown forth, because we pull in on ourselves. We don't notice other people and their problems. And if we do, sometimes they even seem to be competitors with us for this small amount of goods that is available to us or not. I have an idea though, that when you walked through the church doors you wanted to hear about a different world than the world of scarcity and fear. And when you open up your Bibles, and when you open up your hearts in prayer, you're looking for a different reality than a world of scarcity and fear. So this morning let's just push that world, that seems to control us so many times, out of our minds. Let's just push it out. Because there is a different world, a world we hear described in the Old Testament, when the world was new and everything was good, and God said to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply." It was a world of abundance. God told Abraham, "You will have so many descendants you won't be able to count them. They'll be like the stars in the sky." An abundant number of descendants. Or even when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and they were hungry, God sent manna. Everyone got everything they needed. There is another world. It's a world of abundance in which not the bank, and not the health insurance company, but God is in charge. And it is that world of abundance that broke into the world of fear and scarcity in today's gospel. Because there were people who were afraid and who didn't feel they had much: the crowds that came to hear Jesus. They were by and large poor people. They were there because they, or someone they loved, was sick and they were bringing them to be healed. And they probably had traveled for days, and they were very tired and hungry. And then there are the disciples. They had their own fears. First of all, they were tired because they were all thinking, "Oh good. We have a chance to take a little break here and be off with Jesus by ourselves." And then the crowd shows up. But they were also afraid because just before this event, we're told in Matthew that Jesus' cousin John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod. And then Herod heard about Jesus and thought that Jesus was John brought back to life. So the disciples of course were afraid. Herod would be after Jesus, and them next. So even with their fear, the disciples could see the need of the crowd. They knew they were hungry. But because they were tired, and because they were fearful, and because they felt they needed more power and they needed so much, this was the disciples' solution. They turned to Jesus and said, "Jesus, send those people to the cities to buy their food." But Jesus turned to them, and I can just imagine he had a smile on his face, and he said, "No. You feed them. You give them food." You see, what Jesus was asking his followers, his disciples to do, was to push away that world of scarcity and fear and to believe that they had the power of Christ. What he wanted them to do was allow themselves, through his power, to change the world. Now, this story of Jesus feeding these people — the feeding of the 5000 as we've come to call it — is the only story about Jesus' miracles that is in all four gospels. And people have looked at it and said, "I'm not sure that really Jesus miraculously fed 5000 plus people. Maybe what happened is that people started sharing. And when people started sharing, everyone had enough." But others have said, "No. No, this really happened." And you see, if we're willing to push aside the world of fear and doubt, if we're willing to suspend our doubts, if we're willing to believe that there may be a truth out there that we can't prove in a laboratory, that we might not understand, if we say this is God's world, then I think we too can say, "No, it happened." And I believe it happened. I believe Jesus fed those people, for two reasons according to the gospel. First, they were hungry and he wanted to help them. But secondly, he wanted to show the disciples that they could participate, they could do a miracle. And this story has been passed down all these years, and is here today I believe, because God wants to tell us the same thing. We, through the power of God, have the power to do God's will, God's miracles. The miracle of course that we saw Jesus doing was sharing. And so God's telling us the same thing: "You can do it." Now, of course the reason we can is that Jesus has invited us into this world of abundance where we can lose our fears. Jesus says, "You don't have to fear the past — those things that you wish you hadn't done — I've forgiven them. You don't have to fear the future. I'm with you every step of the way. You don't have to fear the end of your life. I've got that covered. I died on the cross to assure that you are in my kingdom." And he says, "What you just simply need to do is feed my people." And of course what we have, and I've often worried that we don't have enough of, is money and time. After the church service today, we're all invited to join the people of Emmanuel Episcopal and go down to a homeless shelter where there are mostly women and children — Gateway 180 — and we're just going to spend some time. We're not doing much for them. We're going to bring some pizza, play games with the kids, just talk a little bit with the moms. But you know what that does. We all have felt a healing power from being given time by someone. If you can't do that, you know of many people in your lives who either need money or time, and I know our first thought is, "But I've barely got enough for myself!" But this is God's world. And I imagine you've had the same experience I have, when you start the day and you try to prioritize, try to think, "What would God want me to do today?" It works out. Somehow there is the time. And even if you're really tired at the end of the day, it's a good kind of tired. Because this is God's world. It's a world of abundance. So in this world, Jesus looks at us and says, "Feed my people." And in this world of abundance, knowing of God's promises and love, we have the courage to look at Jesus and smile and say, "We can and we will." Amen. *** Keywords *** 2014, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Matthew 14:13-21

February 9, 2014. In Matthew 5, the scribes and the Pharisees were hustlers. They used the law of God to their own advantage against others. They refused to admit it and to seek forgiveness. But that is the difference between them and us. Pastor Penny preaches today on this text, and reminds us that Jesus doesn't call us hustlers. Jesus has other words for us. He says we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. His father owned a company that didn't do very well because people took advantage of him, so he determined he would be different. He would be famous and rich, at the expense of others if need be. She left a small town that didn't seem to notice her and struck out to find fame and fortune, and she didn't care if she had to shove people aside to do it. And they, the man and woman, met at a party and instantly were a dynamic duo. And they went through life garnering glamour and goods on the backs of other people. They sold fake loans and counterfeit art. They bribed politicians. They even got a little close to the Mafia, and they did alright for a while. Okay, now that is the plot of a movie. It's called, if you've seen it, "American Hustle." But it's not just a movie. It was loosely based on the Abscam event, where politicians were bribed or did accept bribes. But it's also called American Hustle because I think it really does describe what we have learned to accept as the way the world goes: you need to watch out for yourself. You need to stretch and get what you need. And if you hurt other people, or if they somehow get hurt, don't notice it. Just carry on. I mean, we're not surprised when we hear about a politician accepting a bribe anymore. It seems the way of life. Or we hear about a high financier getting inside information to make a deal. It's normal. It's so normal, this idea that we look out for number one even at the expense of others, that it gets into our blood. Somebody does something dishonest at work or at school and we look the other way. We've got our careers to worry about, or our friends or our status. Don't get involved. Someone proposes building something that would be great for the community, but it might jeopardize the value of your home, so you oppose it. I mean after all, isn't the American way to elect officials that will help us? We don't think too much about whether it will help the state or help the country or the world, but that's the way government works: they help us. And we use resources that we know deep down are going to be needed in the future, but it's so hard to give up the comfortable life. In so many ways we have bought into the American hustle, and we don't even notice when we work to get what we want at the expense of others. But Jesus doesn't call us hustlers. Jesus has other words for us. Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. And he said that because we have been given a different understanding of success, a different reason to feel good. We have been given this view of goodness that means we look out for each other. We heard that in the Old Testament. God said, I don't want all your false fasts. What I want you to do is be merciful, clothe the naked, take the homeless into your home, feed the hungry. Then, then I am pleased. That's what is beautiful. That's what is good. And we have this vision. But how do we carry it out in a world that is constantly trying to shape us into hustlers? Well we can't do it alone. And if you read the gospel in the Greek, you will see that when Jesus says you are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth, that word "you" is plural. He's not saying it to one person. He's saying it to all the followers. He's saying it to us as a community, as a congregation. And we know that it makes a huge difference that we do things together. It is such a beautiful thing to be part of a community. We had a meeting a few nights ago thinking about the vision of this church. And as we talked, we began to wonder: although we value the community, do we value the gifts of the individual members? Maybe some of you have thought: why don't they ask me? I know about this. Why hasn't anybody asked me to do this or my advice, or come to me? And we began to think that maybe it's for shyness or lack of knowledge of who has what gifts, or just because we're in a hurry, we may not have asked people to use their valuable gifts for this community. And then on the other side, there's that part of us that may not want to use our gifts. We might think, oh no, another meeting. We may not see the value that we have to offer, the value of what we have right here. There's a story about a pastor who came to visit a parishioner who hadn't been coming to church for a while. And he graciously received the pastor, and he knew what the pastor was there for. And he had made a fire in the fireplace, so he invited the pastor to sit down. And they sat there and he waited for the pastor to say what a pastor would say. The pastor didn't say a word. After a few minutes the pastor got up and he pushed the screen of the fireplace over, and took the tongs and he took a little piece of wood that had been burning right in the middle of the fire, and he put it over to the edge all by itself. And then he sat down. Together he and the parishioner watched as that little piece of wood just got darker and darker, until it was hardly even an ember. And then he got up and he took the tongs and he put it back in the middle of the fire, and it burst into flames. And then he said well, I guess I should be going now. And as the parishioner walked the pastor to the door, he said: thank you pastor for your visit, and for your fiery sermon. And he said I'll be back in church next Sunday. We need each other. This is how we get our fire. This is how we keep on the level path. We need each other, and we're best when we're together. We think of what the church has done together, how we have stood up against racial discrimination, abuse of women, prejudice against gays and lesbians, how we have built hospitals and nursing homes and had a whole social service network, how we have helped stop world hunger. This is what we can do together. And even a congregation, like the salt, can influence all that is around it. When Keith was on his internship at Our Redeemer in Indianapolis, already the neighborhood was getting kind of crime-ridden. But the congregation refused to move, as they have up to this time. They have a beautiful plan. They say if we keep our building up, if we come driving in there every Sunday morning, we're helping the neighborhood -- even if it means that we hire a guard to watch our cars for evening meetings, which they do. There's so much we can do together. But is it enough? We hear that haunting last sentence of the gospel: unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But you see, the scribes and the Pharisees were hustlers. They used the law of God to their own advantage against others. They refused to admit it and to seek forgiveness. And that is the difference between them and us. Every Sunday we publicly confess our sins. In our own homes we probably say the same to God, and we receive that forgiveness. And so Jesus says to us: I didn't say you will be the salt of the earth. I didn't say if you work hard enough, you might be the light of the world. I died and rose to say to you: you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. All we need to do is to live what we already are -- to live life, watching out for others, and being able to step back ourselves. Not an easy task, but we have each other, and we have the power of the Holy Spirit. And we have the promise that when Christ returns, everything will be transformed and we will all see together the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2014, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, LGBTQ, Matthew 5:13-20

May 19, 2013. There are big changes ahead for the church. Today, 20% of people in the United States say they have no affiliation with any religious group. They are the "unchurched." How can we reach them? Pastor Penny draws a parallel between this challenge and the day of Pentecost. She suggests that Pentecost was not a one-time event but that it goes on, and that we need it. *** Transcript *** When we had this lesson on the day of Pentecost in Bible class on Wednesday, one of the women said, "You know, we never hear what it was like from the disciples' point of view." We don't, really. So if you will imagine with me and permit me, I'd like to imagine what the day of Pentecost might have been like from the point of view of one of the disciples: Peter. When Jesus told us, the disciples, that we would receive this power, we had no idea what he meant. I thought the power would come gently, gradually. But when Pentecost day came, I discovered it was anything but gentle. I was almost in pain with the light and the sound and the sense that a spirit was filling me and moving me. We were literally drawn out of the door of that room and into the crowd waiting around the outside of the building. And I, walked up to a group of people I would never have approached before -- Peter, just a country bumpkin from Galilee -- and I walked right up to sophisticated Romans. And I began to speak to them. And I discovered that I can speak Greek, even though I was never taught that language. And they could understand me, and I could understand them. And so of course I began to say: I need to tell you what this is all about, what my friends and I have experienced, about how God is changing everything through this man called Jesus. But I had no longer begun to tell them, when I was compelled by the Spirit to climb up on a wall and begin to preach -- me, a fisherman, who just days earlier had been too afraid to tell a group of servants that I was Jesus' friend. I was preaching to hundreds of strangers. And here is the most amazing thing: they listened. And thousands of people joined our group that day because of what we said. And the marvels kept coming, because we did things entirely differently. We were used to worshiping in the synagogue, but we began to meet in homes. We were used to staying with our own, you know the poor and the rich. We were all together. We pooled our money. We ate a common meal. And I have to say, I didn't always like the people I was eating with. But I grew to love them because of one man: my friend, my savior, the one who took me -- a sinful fisherman -- and cleaned me up, forgave my sins, and gave me a reason to live. That's how that first Pentecost felt to me. I'd like to suggest this morning that Pentecost was not a one-time event -- that it goes on, and that we need it. Because there are big changes ahead for the church. The church has been changing over the last fifty years. Fifty years ago, half of the people in our country went to churches like this -- mainline Protestant: Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal. And now maybe 8% to 16% do. Fifty years ago Christians filled the Muny for an Easter sunrise service. They filled Kiel Auditorium for reformation services. Not anymore. Today, 70% of our youth fall away from the church, and only a third come back when they're older. Across the board, congregations -- and not just in Protestant churches, across the board -- are reporting that Sunday morning attendance is down, collections are down. And it trickles up to their church bodies, to their publishing houses, to their seminaries. The Seminary I graduated from just let 8 of their 44 professors go for financial reasons. While the Protestant, the Christian, the organized church like this is diminishing, something else is growing in our country -- and maybe you've seen the statistics. It is the "unchurched." Today, 20% of people in the United States say they have no affiliation with any religious group. Now here at Christ Lutheran, we are truly blessed. Our membership is stable and grows a little bit. We have a nice cross-section of ages. We have vital lay leadership. We meet our budget -- not always easily, but we do. But even here our Sunday morning attendance diminishes. We're okay right now. But we have to be prepared. And I don't mean to cast guilt; I think we're all doing the best we know how. But what I'm saying is across this nation, people are meeting in churches, they're baptizing, they're marrying, they're burying, they're communing, they're praying, they're talking about doctrine, they're singing songs, and they're shrinking. So clearly, we need to be open and thinking about how we can share the gospel in a new way. Now I think we get some guidance, and we definitely get some hope, from the story of Pentecost and from the gospel. The story of Pentecost shows us that if people, the unchurched, are not coming to us, it is very important that we go to them. And you do that because you work with unchurched people, you live next door to them, you go to school with them. They may be in your families. And the second thing we learned from the Pentecost story, besides the fact that we need to go out, is that communication is essential. Now, I don't suggest that you get on a wall and preach to your friends. That wouldn't be effective. That's not how we do it. But as you engage people that you know, or don't know so well, but are unchurched, you listen. You learn from them. You learn to care. You model in your life the hope that is within you. And you are ready and may be given the opportunity to answer the questions "So why do you go to church?" and "What is this all about to you?" The individual, the one-on-one, is going to be the new thing of the future. It's the old thing of the past, but it's certainly going to be part of our future. But beyond that, how the church will organize itself, how it will worship, how it will share the message and pass it on -- we bring this challenge to the Holy Spirit. We bring it to the Holy Spirit the way the disciples did: they waited and they prayed. Because we learn two things about the Holy Spirit that give us the confidence and the hope that that's the place to go. The first is we learn the Spirit is powerful. The spirit of Jesus -- and that's what we're really talking about when we say the Holy Spirit, that Jesus lives on in our lives -- the spirit of Jesus can do new things in the most unusual places and ways. Jesus turned death into life by rising from the dead on Easter and brought us back to God. So the Spirit is powerful. But this is maybe even more important: the Spirit is forever. Jesus said that: I send you an advocate who will be with you, not for a time, not for a generation, not for a millennium. But forever. This Spirit as believers lives within us. We make that a formal event here at the baptismal font, but the spirit of Christ lives within us and uses us as it used the first disciples, to move out and to wait for change. So we have a challenge before us. But we don't bury our heads in the sand like the ostrich, and we don't look at it fearfully. What we do is what we heard the disciples doing in the story today. They prayed and waited for the Spirit. So we pray, and we wait to see how the Spirit will bless us and use us to bless the world. We pray and we wait to see what new thing the Spirit will do among us. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2013, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Acts 2