Second Sunday after Pentecost

 Video of Service

Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5A)

June 7, 2026

Text: Matt. 9:9-13

It is not lost on me that our Holy Gospel this day is the account of a divine call.  In this case, it is not a divine call into the Holy Ministry.  That will come for Matthew.  This is the call to discipleship.  All believers in Jesus are called to discipleship.  A disciple is one who follows Jesus in His discipline.  That is, one who believes what He says, and walks in His way, doing as He says to do.  Jesus puts it this way: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24; ESV).

So, when Jesus saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, He marched right up to him and said, you… “Follow me” (Matt. 9:9).  And that is just what Matthew did.  He rose… from his seat, yes, but then, this is nothing less than a spiritual resurrection!  And he followed Jesus.

A couple of things to notice about this.  What was Matthew doing at the time of Jesus’ call?  Spiritually preparing himself to become a Christian?  Doing good works to merit Jesus’ notice and qualify himself for the faith?  Considering whether he might want to make his decision for Jesus to become his personal Lord and Savior?  No, no, and no!  He was sitting in the tax booth, charging people taxes!  Now, in our nation, and in our political context, we also have some particular baggage when it comes to taxes.  Still, we’d probably acknowledge their necessity.  But what we have to understand about the days of our Lord’s earthly ministry in Israel, is that tax collector is virtually synonymous with sinner.  Many tax collectors collected more than just taxes.  Call it, “administrative fees.”  And even if a tax collector happened to be honest, the fact remained, he was considered a turncoat.  Who was he collecting taxes for?  Our Roman overlords, that’s who.  

So, it’s a safe bet, Matthew wasn’t sitting at the tax booth, thinking pious thoughts about salvation and living a godly life.  He was a man of the world.  Who, then, takes all the initiative in calling Matthew to faith?  Christ alone.  Christ.  Alone.  One minute, Matthew is all wrapped up in the stuff of this world.  Mammon.  Self.  The next, Christ Jesus speaks, and by the power of His Word, the old Matthew dies, and the new man arises, now to live a new life.  The life that Christ has given him.  Christ’s life.  Life in Christ.  Life from Christ.  Given by grace alone.  No merit or worthiness in Matthew.  Just the goodness and love and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ for Matthew.

That is how it is for us, too, when Christ calls us to discipleship.  To believe in Him and follow Him.  For many of us, that happened at the baptismal font, when Jesus wrote God’s Name on us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and poured His Spirit out on us, to give us life and faith in Jesus.  For others, it resembles the call of Matthew.  Wrapped up in the things of this world, and of Mammon, and of the self one minute, when suddenly a Word from the Lord slays the old man and raises to new resurrection life.  Sometimes it takes many years of someone… or many someones… patiently and faithfully speaking the Word of Jesus before it sinks in.  But then, it happens.  Life.  Faith.  Repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  Discipleship.  Following Jesus.  

But always by grace alone.  By God’s gracious action on account of Christ.  By the Spirit working in the Means of Grace, the Word and the Sacraments.  Not our work.  Not our decision.  Christ’s work.  Christ’s decision, for us.  “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit” (John 15:16).  So says Jesus.  St. Paul echoes Him in a passage you know and love: “For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).  You do nothing to acquire life and faith for yourself.  How could you?  You are born spiritually dead.  You can’t do anything.  Until God gives you life.  But then He does, and now what?  Paul continues: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (v. 10).

God does it all.  Christ does it all.  And when we recognize that… that it is all pure, undeserved gift… that we bring nothing to the table before God but sin and death… that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, or come to Him (much less do good works for Him), but the Holy Spirit has to call us by the Gospel… that our salvation, from start to finish, is all His work (Divine Monergism, we call it… God’s work alone)... then we rightly number ourselves with the tax collectors and sinners (like Matthew) who are… where?...  Reclining at Table with Jesus.  That’s where we want to be.  Because, if we don’t believe or confess that… if we want to reserve at least some little part of salvation for ourselves… a little merit… a little “at least I’m not like them”... even just a turn of the will; i.e. a decision for Jesus… then we’ve numbered ourselves with the Pharisees.  And where are they?  They are excluded from the Table.  Excluded from the party.  That is, they exclude themselves, because they don’t want to be part of that crowd, and they don’t want to be at the mercy of Jesus, and don’t think they need Him.  They think they’re spiritually healthy.  At least healthier than these poor so and sos.  They don’t need a Physician… much less a Savior from sin.  So, they don’t know what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice… I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:13).  Let that never be true of us.  When it is true, root it out.  Rebuke it in yourself.  Repent of it.  And come to the party.  Come to your place at the Table with this group of sinners.  And rejoice that Jesus loves you, and has saved you.  

Anyway, Matthew understood that.  The Lord Jesus gave him to understand it.  That He desires to have mercy even on Matthew.  That He came to call even Matthew.  And so, you.  He desires to have mercy even on you.  He came to call even you.

And what about those good works He prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them?  This is a great thing.  In addition to our call to discipleship (which is the main call… the call to be a Christian), He extends other calls.  We call them vocations.  Not just our day jobs, although working for a living is one way we fulfill them.  Vocations are the various ways we’re called to live out our discipleship in our various stations in life.  For example, all of us are called to be members of our family and community.  We’re called to do that faithfully in Christ.  All of us here are called to be Church members.  We’re called to do that faithfully in Christ.  These are vocations.  Some are called to be spouses.  And some are called to be single.  All are called to live in chastity, because, whatever we’re called to do, we’re called to do it faithfully in Christ.  And to repent when we mess it up (as we will, and often do), and be forgiven, and get back to it.  Some are called to be parents, and some are not, but are rather called to support children and families in other ways.  And whichever we’re called to, we’re called to do it faithfully in Christ.  Some are sons.  Some are daughters.  Some are grandparents, and some are grandchildren.  All are called to friendship and kindness and Christian love.  That is, to be good neighbors.  Because we’re in Christ, and this is what Christ has prepared beforehand for us to do. 

But our calls are specific to us.  Matthew (or Levi, as he is named elsewhere) was called to be an Apostle.  That call takes place in the very next chapter of this Gospel.  An Apostle is one officially sent to speak and act in the stead of the one who sent him.  You and I are not called to be that, but we’re sure thankful that Matthew was.  And he was called to be an Evangelist.  Not just someone who does evangelism, but a Spirit-inspired writer of the Evangel, the Gospel that bears Matthew’s name.  We’re thankful for that vocation as well.  We give thanks for the vocations that others have, even as we give thanks for our own, because God cares for us through those vocations.  

Some are called to be pastors.  Ministers of the Gospel.  Not everyone is a minister.  A priest, yes.  Every Christian is a priest, as Peter writes, You are a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9).  But some Christians are called to be pastors as well as priests.  Undershepherds of the Good Shepherd, Jesus.  Sheepdogs, if you will.  How do you know if you’re called to be a pastor?  This is going to sound very unspiritual, but it’s the truth.  A congregation sends you a packet of papers, calling you, in the Name of Jesus, to be their pastor.  Okay, there’s more to it than that.  There is the noble desire, and the qualifications St. Paul enumerates in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.  There is the limitation of the pastoral office to men (1 Cor. 14; 1 Tim. 2).  There is the study and preparation.  There is examination and certification.  But none of that is yet a call.  I was not called into the ministry until one night in April 2006, when Dr. Fickenscher stood in the pulpit of Kramer Chapel at the Seminary in Fort Wayne, and called out, “Jonathon Krenz, Epiphany Lutheran Church, Dorr, Michigan, English District,” and handed me a packet of papers.  On the basis of those papers, I was ordained 20 years ago this month, 10 years of which I served the saints in Dorr, until you sent me a packet of papers, and I had to decide whether to stay in Michigan or come here.  Because both calls were from God, mediated by His Church.  But I couldn’t keep both.  It’s agonizing, but that’s the call.

So, Christ Lutheran Church in Coos Bay, Oregon, sent me a packet of papers.  And I had to decide.  I had divine freedom to decide.  God certainly knew what I would do all along, but I did not.  And my family did not.  And you did not, nor did the saints in Coos Bay.  What would have happened here if I had taken that call?  You would have been fine.  Oh, there would have been sadness here, and hopefully some celebration to cap off a beautiful decade together.  (By the way, there is undoubtedly sadness in Coos Bay today, and we must pray for our brothers and sisters as they start up the process again.)  But had I taken the call, the circuit visitor would have come, and a vacancy pastor would have cared for you, and you would have formed a call committee, and the district would have given you names, and you would have whittled down those names, and sent some blessed man a packet of papers, and he would have had a decision to make.  Maybe he’d take it.  Or maybe you’d be issuing a second call.  Or a third, or fourth.  It happens.  But before you knew it, you’d be calling another man “Pastor.”  And it would be good.  Because, while it would be a different guy, it would be the same ministry.  The same Jesus.  The same Gospel and Sacraments.  And the Church goes on.  

Because this is the thing about vocations.  Vocations are God’s masks whereby He acts for His people and provides for our needs.  People come and go.  God remains forever.  You are called to be a disciple of God.  Of Christ.  Not any particular pastor.  I’m thankful I get to stay for a while.  God only knows how long.  But God will never leave you.  Jesus Christ will never leave you.  Never forget that.  

Like Matthew, you’ve been called to be a disciple of Jesus.  To follow Him.  That will take you through Good Friday and the cross, to be sure.  But where do you end up when you follow in His train?  The resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.      

   

The Holy Trinity

 Video of Service

The Holy Trinity (A)

May 31, 2026

Text: Matt. 28:16-20

“I bind unto myself today The strong name of the Trinity By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three” (LSB 604:1).  Perhaps you recognize that as the magnificent hymnic versification of St. Patrick’s Breastplate, one of my all-time favorite pieces of writing.  We aren’t singing the hymn today.  Although the Beer & Bible crowd knows it.  It’s a complex hymn.  Learn it, if you can.  But, at least, think about what it means.  Picture this.  The great St. Patrick, a real Church Father, stands before the pagan hordes of Ireland.  He wants to preach to them, and they want to kill him for it.  And he says this: “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.”  That’s what it means, “I bind unto myself today the strong Name of the Trinity.”  And now… come and get me.  Let what happens, happen.  I am safe in God.  “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21; ESV).  I will preach.  Though, there stand the hordes.  And if I live, I live.  And if I die… I live.

You know, you face a similarly perilous situation every day of your life.  Maybe not murderous pagans (although…).  Paul says, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).  That is to say, the evil angels are against us.  So, Dr. Luther bids us, every morning as we arise, and every evening as we lay down to go to sleep, to say, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit,” and then repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and commend ourselves to God’s keeping.  To bind unto ourselves today the strong Name of the Trinity.  It is a shield.  A shelter of protection.  And before it, the demons shudder.  And run.

The Name.  We are baptized in the Name… the One Name of our One God who is Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… a mystery, not for our comprehension, but for our wonder and praise.  And faith.  And confession.  That is, we believe it… and confess it… even if we don’t understand it.  

Why does God give us His Name?  I would like to highlight at least three reasons: First, to mark us as those who belong to Him.  Second, that we may call upon Him “in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”  And third, in order that it give us access to His saving presence.  

God writes His Name on us in Baptism.  The Name as Jesus reveals it in all its fulness… its full Tri-Unity… Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Why do you write your name on a thing?  Because it belongs to you, and you don’t want to lose it.  Especially if that thing is precious to you.  In a manner of speaking, husbands even do this for their wives, and parents for their children.  The family name (And, by the way, taking on a husband’s last name isn’t the evil patriarchy, for crying out loud.  It’s love and union!).  In Holy Baptism, we receive a share in the Christian Family Name.  God has given us a share in His Name!  Think how profound that is.  We are often tempted to think we don’t belong.  That we are not loved or valued as we should be.  Quite the contrary.  God (the Almighty God of the whole universe) has emblazoned His Name on you because you belong to Him, and are precious in His sight.  He does not ever want to lose you.  You are His blood-bought, beloved child.  And so, there is always a place for you… just for you, where you belong… in His House, and in His Family (the Church), because you belong to Him.

And as His child, when you are hurting, or in peril, or in need, you may now cry out His Name.  “Father, help me!”  “Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy” (note the Trinitarian form of the Kyrie).  “Jesus, save me.”  “Come, Holy Spirit.”  “O, my gracious God, I am heartbroken, or weak, or sick.  Or covered in the filth of my own sin.  I need You.  Here it is.  All my schlop.”  And just plop the thing down, whatever the burden may be, for your God, who loves you, to deal with as He knows best.  He’s given you His Name for that.  And for praise and thanksgiving.  “Thank God!”  “Praise the Lord!”  “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.”  And even to bless people.  “God bless you,” we say.  Or, “God be with you” (don’t tell the secularists, but that is actually what “goodbye” means… “God be with ye.”  You can’t get away from God).  Notice how pithy these prayers are.  So that we may be in constant conversation with God.  This is what Paul means when He tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).  You hear some bad news, or a siren in the distance, or see something terrible, or know of someone who is hurting: “Lord, have mercy.”  You run into a remarkable piece of good fortune, and you know it isn’t fortune at all, but God blessing you: “Thank You, Lord.”  

And you can engage in that constant conversation… prayer, and the expectation of an answer… because God’s Name gives you access to His continual presence with you.  And your continual presence with Him.  He is not a God far-off.  He is near.  With you.  See, in Baptism, you are immersed in His Name.  The preposition is important there.  “In.”  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19; emphasis added).  The Name.  You’re in it.  You live in it.  You speak in it.  You act in it, in your vocations and your station in life.  You are sent out in it, to be the agents of His Kingdom, always insulated, shielded, bound up in His Name.  Which is to say, His presence.  When you call His Name, there He is.  

As St. Patrick, in his breastplate, unpacks what it means to bind unto himself the Name, particularly as that Name is manifest in Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, he unleashes this sublime… hymn, frankly, to the Lord’s saving presence.  Listen to this: “Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.”  See… totally and completely surrounded by Christ against the onslaughts of every enemy.  Even the enemy within, the Old Adam, because Christ is in me.  That is the reality in Baptism, and the binding to myself today the strong Name of the Trinity.  And with Christ, then, every good gift that comes through Him.  All His saving acts.  As St. Patrick sings: “I arise today Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.”  And on and on in that vein.  That’s what you have when you bind unto yourself the Name.  The Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity.

So, there you stand, each day, before the snarling hordes of hell, and the traitorous Judas of the flesh within, and what are you going to do?  The Name.  You’re going to speak it: “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit,” maybe even marking it with the sign of the holy cross over your blood-bought body.  And then… come and get me.  Let what happens, happen.  I am safe in God.  “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  I will live, and speak, and act as a Name-bearer of God, though, there stand the hordes.  And if I live, I live.  And if I die, I live.  Because Jesus lives, and He reigns, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit.  One God.  Three Persons.  Now, and forever.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.   

The Day of Pentecost

 Video of Service

The Day of Pentecost (A)

May 24, 2026

Text: John 7:37-39

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:38; ESV).  

Water and the Spirit.  We’re not surprised by that.  Where do we find the Spirit at Creation?  Hovering over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2).  Brooding over the waters.  Giving form to the waters.  Ordering the waters.  

And what is a central feature of the Paradise He creates, but a great river that divided and became four rivers, to water the earth.  And the tree of life, and all the trees, there, in the midst of the garden.  And what did sin do, but bar man from the river, and the tree.

And so, when Jesus says that whoever believes in Him, out of His heart will flow rivers of living water, and St. John tells us He said that about the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed were to receive, we understand that what is going on here is nothing less than the reversal of the banishment, the restoration of Eden, the undoing of the fall, and the reconciliation of God’s edenic fellowship with man.  Which is to say, with us.

That’s what happened when the Lord Jesus’ was pierced, and out His heart flowed a river of living water, and the blood of our redemption.  And now, whoever believes in Him… not only does that living water flow to him, and engulf him, and heal him, but out of his heart… your heart… flow the same rivers of living water.  The Spirit.  So that God’s gifts, and the Spirit Himself, flow through you, and on out into the world.  

It’s what Ezekiel prophesied (Ez. 47).  Do you remember?  Ezekiel saw a vision.  The Temple of God.  Well, what is the Temple?  Jesus is the Temple.  Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.  He was speaking about the Temple of His Body.  Ezekiel saw the Temple, and from the threshold of the Temple, what?  Water, emanating.  And the angel brought Ezekiel around to the south side of the Temple where the water was only a trickle.  Small.  Insignificant.  Just enough for a sprinkle or two.  Or three.  And the angel led Ezekiel another thousand cubits eastward, and now, a surprise.  The water was ankle deep.  Another thousand cubits, the angel led him, and would you believe… knee deep.  More to this trickle of water than first meets the eye!  Another thousand cubits, and now the water was waist deep.  Another thousand, and the water had become a great river.  Impassible.  

Trees were planted on either side of the river, and that confirms our initial suspicion.  Eden.  Right?  And here is, perhaps, the most beautiful thing about it.  Eden is flowing forth and overtaking creation.  As the river flows out into the world, what happens?  What does it do?  Whatever the river touches, it heals.  It makes salt water fresh.  Even the Arabah… the Dead Sea!  And wherever the river goes, it teems with life.  Swarms of every living creature.  It even sounds like Genesis 1.  The river, filled with fish (I will make you fishers of men, Jesus tells His disciples).  The river, watering the trees.  Filled with fruit.  Fresh fruit every month.  Food aplenty.  And leaves that do not wither.  In fact, the leaves are for healing.

That’s the Spirit.  The River.  Flowing from Jesus’ heart, and from every heart that believes in Him.  Flowing as the Gospel is preached, taught, confessed.  Flowing and engulfing.  Overtaking.  Transforming.  Healing.  Enlivening.

Notice, though (and this is important)... whatever the River does not touch, is not healed.  The swamps and marshes, separated from the River, are left for salt.  That is, there is no life apart from this River, the Spirit of God.  That is why you come to Church, hear the Word, and receive the Sacrament.  Because that is how the River flows to you, and into you, and engulfs you, to heal you, and give you life.  When you separate yourself from the River… from Him, you become stagnant, and dead.  

But in Him, healing and life.  Always.  Our Lord Jesus has brought this about by His death for us, and by His resurrection from the dead.  

Water and the Spirit.  We saw it again today.  Little Natalie Jane.  Just a little water.  A mere trickle.  Enough for a sprinkle or three.  Doesn’t look like much to us.  But faith knows what happened.  That little sprinkle of water is, in fact, the mighty River that flows from the pierced side of our crucified Lord.  From the Temple of God.  The Spirit engulfed her.  Her own personal Pentecost.  Gave her faith in Jesus.  Made her a blood-bought child of our heavenly Father.  Whatever the River touches, it heals and enlivens.  Wherever the Spirit flows, He brings wholeness and life.  We must keep her in touch with the River, so that from her own heart will flow rivers of living water, as Jesus here promises.

And that is what is happening with our new members today, too.  They are about to come forward and make their good confession.  They will speak their faith in Jesus, and we will receive them in love.  That confession is the River flowing forth.  And it blesses us.  We are healed and enlivened as we hear it.  And they are healed and enlivened as their confession is joined to ours.  The River flows.  

And it’s going somewhere…  We have a destination.  Just like rivers making their way to the ocean, this River, the Spirit, is carrying us along to a fulness beyond our imagination.  From the last chapter of the Bible (Rev. 22:1-5; ESV): “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.  The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.  And night will be no more.  They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

Water and the Spirit.  See where He carries you.  In fact, this is better than Eden.  Where the Holy Spirit flows, there is nothing less than a whole new creation.  That includes you.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.