Prepare Ye

--> This is my manuscript for the Reformation Sunday services. The actual sermon was pretty much like this.   Today we commemorate the Reformation of the church. We remember it’s beginning from October 31, 1517, when Father Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, nailed his 95 Thesis to the front door of the Wittenberg Castle Cathedral. Copies of those theses have been included in your bulletins, as well as attached to the doors of our church. I didn’t think it was a good idea to put them on the doors at St. Mary’s. If you read through Luther’s 95 Thesis, you will see that they have to do with the forgiveness of sins, and abuses he believed the priests in Germany were taking in requiring penance and selling indulgences, granting forgiveness for sins that you had not yet committed or purchasing the forgiveness of sins of those who have died. Luther was concerned that the act of forgiving sins was focused too much on the priest granting people forgiveness, and what the person d

And here is the sermon I wish I would have given. From the Sarcastic Lutheran .

This is the manuscript I wrote for my sermon for Sunday, October 9, on Matthew's Parable of the Wedding Banquet and the Underdressed Guest, but also touching on the other lessons for the day ( Isaiah ,  Psalm 23 , and Phillipians 4. ) The final product resembled this, but I cut parts of the opening. On my computer, my screen saver is called “Best Pics.” It is a random slideshow of around 200 pictures that I have selected. Most of the pictures are from my time at Seminary, because I got a digital camera from the people I worked with as a going away gift. (Which says something – but that’s a different topic.) Now, I have a really good camera on my cell phone, so I can take picture almost anytime. In the slideshow, there are pictures of me at various events and locations, and pictures that I took. I’ve scanned in some pictures that were taken by cameras with actual film. Some people have their collection of pictures displayed on the walls and tables of their homes, or tucked a