During our summer vacation this year, we had the privilege to go to three unique cities: Amsterdam, Delft, and Paris. During my time in these cities, there were plenty of spaces that I entered that felt holy for one reason or another. Whether if it was “Our Lord in the Attic” church in Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank house, or finally seeing the inside of Notre Dame, it truly gave an experience that is hard to capture into words.
I would like to share something with you all that you probably already know, but it’s always good to write out. I take a lot of pride in being able to make a good worship service. I want to make the service meaningful in some way. And what better way to do that than to write a captivating, informative, and thoughtful sermon. It is the part of the service for about 10 to 15 uninterrupted minutes when I have everyone’s attention on me.
Over the last week or two, I have simply felt exhausted. Holy week certainly did not help with two separate funerals and five other services to attend to throughout the week. Combine any other personal chores, activities, or any other thing that needs doing and the week feels ever more like a train wreck. In reality, everything worked out okay and the world did not implode at any point, but the reality is that those kinds of moments in our lives when we feel the overwhelming amount of work to do,
Katharina von Bora. That is the name of the woman who Martin Luther ended up marrying during the Reformation. Ordinarily, when one thinks of the Reformation, one may end up thinking primarily about people like: Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Melancthon, King Henry the VIII, and so on. Far too often, women take the back seat in our history books and thoughts (I know they do for me). So for this newsletter, let’s explore Katharina’s life and legacy in the Reformation.
“People are impelled to pray, we must do so. Prayer is an action as well as a supplication to the Lord that he will put us in that posture which is pleasing to him.”
This small snippet of Karl Barth on what it means to pray has been on my mind quite recently. I always try to avoid in my preaching human agency or action, so as not to make it seem like human action is more important than the actions that God has taken in the world.