Faith Lutheran Erie

09/06/2026

Here is the sermon for September 6, 2026, on Ps. 104:1, 13-23; 1 Tim. 6:6-10, 17-19; Lk. 12:13-21, for the Stewardship of Creation:

For several years, my late husband Cyril and I used to read a psalm together every morning before breakfast. This was one of the ways that I came to know and love the book of psalms. Sometimes we would follow a daily lectionary and sometimes we would just take turns choosing one that called to us. Early on, Psalm 104 became one of my favorites and often made it into the daily rotation. How could I not like a prayer that mentioned storks and rock badgers, cedar trees and sea monsters and roaring lions, along with people going about their daily work and enjoying the fruits of the earth. Those badgers or rock badgers on the stony cliffs, by the way, are probably hyraxes, a cute, herbivorous mammal native to North Africa and the Middle East. They look kind of like marmots, but are actually most closely related to elephants and manatees. God’s creation is weird and wonderful.
Most of the psalms speak from the point of view of individual humans or the human community of believers. This psalm takes a broader perspective. Humans are part of a larger community of creatures, inhabitants of earth and sea and sky. God cares for the whole creation and takes delight in the whole creation, even the great whales and giant squids of the ocean depths that he made just for the fun of it. God provides for the needs of every single creature with food and water and safe shelter. God provides a unique place for every creature to make its home--from the mountain cliffs where the wild goats and rock badgers dwell to the intertidal zone where sea anemones catch their prey with waving tentacles, from the nests of piping plovers on the open sand to three-toed sloths who spend their entire lives in a single tree.
Every creature has its time and its place and its role in the world. Do you know what the largest living thing in the world is? It’s not a whale or a sequoia tree. It is a mushroom. Scientists have identified a colony of mushrooms in a forest in Oregon that is genetically one single organism, spread over an area of almost 4 square miles, mostly hidden underground. This humungous fungus may be over 8500 years old. Who else but God could come up with something like that? Who else but God could come up with a mechanism for trees in the forest to communicate with one another by electrical currents delivered along the mycelial fibers of underground mushrooms?
Everything is held together by the rhythms of day and night and the cycle of the seasons. Even the pattern of life and death and life again is part of the created order. God gives breath to every living thing—mayflies and ponderosa pines, hummingbirds and tortoises. And in the end, every creature returns to the dust, even as God’s Spirit continues to renews the face of the whole earth. Every creature depends completely on God and every creature gives glory to God in its own way. Human beings are just one part of this vast, interconnected web of creation. At the very least, this fact should inspire both wonder and humility.
The two New Testament readings we heard today also remind us to recall our proper place in the grand scheme of the world. Learn to be content with what God provides; no need to be anxious and greedy. Hold lightly to material possessions; you’re not going to take a single bit of it with you when you go, and besides, your children don’t want your good china or your sports memorabilia anyway. Many of us can relate to that guy in the parable. We understand about building bigger and bigger barns-- or basements or attics or storage units or garages--so we can keep all our stuff and acquire more stuff. But I’m not convinced that all our collecting and hanging on to things brings contentment. In my experience, it leads to stress and discontent, not to mention that our consumption habits can be rough on the planet. God blesses us so that we can share, not so that we can hoard. The life that really matters, the life that really is life, is not about the abundance of possessions.
Last week, our country lost yet another fine human being, the writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry. He worked a small farm in western Kentucky and never had a computer. He was a curmudgeon and a poet, a man with a vision for how to live gently and sustainably on the earth. In one of his most famous poems, he invites us to rediscover our place among the wild things of God’s good creation:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
(Wendell Berry, "The peace of wild things")

Heron and wood duck, grandchildren, stars and still waters, all part of this remarkable creation that God so dearly loves. Rest in the grace of the world, and be free. Amen.

Rev. Jean N. Kuebler, September 3, 2026

09/06/2026

15th weekend after Pentecost

09/03/2026

We offer heartfelt prayers and condolences to the family and friends of Laure Smith. Her service will be Friday, Sept. 11 at 11 a.m., with visitation at 10. There will also be visitation at Dusckas F.H. on Sept. 10 from 2-4 and 6-8.

Laure J. Smith, age 106, of Lawrence Park, residing at Brevillier Village for the past 10 years, passed away Wednesday, September 2, 2026. She was...

08/31/2026

Katie goes to church. She really likes sitting in on Monday morning Bible study. The welcome sign is for the Preschool!

08/30/2026

Here is the sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, on Mt. 16:21-28 & Rom. 12:9-21, for August 30, 2026:
Set your mind not on human things, but on the things of God. Jesus is hard on Peter because he can’t accept that the Messiah will need to suffer and die. Peter is still thinking in human terms. He can’t even wrap his head around these mysterious and difficult divine things. I feel a lot of sympathy for the man. Of course he doesn’t want his beloved friend to deliberately head to his own death. If someone I loved was talking like that, I would push back, too. On top of that, what Jesus says simply doesn’t fit with everything Peter believes about the Messiah. He is supposed to be strong, a national symbol, a new king, a warrior for liberation. He’s not supposed to be a victim or a martyr. Peter is dealing with some major cognitive dissonance here. He’s going to need some time to process all this suffering and death stuff. That last little but crucial bit about being raised on the third day probably hasn’t even sunk in. Not so long ago, Jesus had praised Peter as a rock of faith; now, he calls him a hindrance, an adversary, a stumbling block, a blockhead.
Then Jesus calls all of us disciples to follow him in this difficult, counterintuitive way of the cross. Deny ourselves? Lose our lives for Jesus’ sake? As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” This is a hard ask. Our natural instinct is for self-preservation. We enjoy our creature comforts. We believe in self-fulfillment. It’s tough to accept that true self-fulfillment might mean getting our own selves out of the way. But what if that is the way that leads to true and abundant life? Sometimes, followers of Jesus are called to literally sacrifice their lives, whether for love of the truth or love of others. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but that possibility is always going to be on the table. More often, dying to self means banishing our own wants and desires to make room for God’s will. It means not living for yourself, but living for the sake of others. It means letting go of our all-too-human preoccupations and letting our hearts and minds be filled with the things of God.
Seventeen hundred years ago, a wise monk named Abba Anthony lived alone in the desert, where he spent his time in prayer and manual labor. A brother came and asked him how he should live in order to please God. Anthony answered: Wherever you are, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do what follows the holy scriptures, and in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three teachings and you will be saved. Another time, another monk came and asked Anthony, what ought I to do? He answered: Don’t trust in your own righteousness, don’t worry about the past, and control your tongue and your stomach. I would say this is all still pretty good advice for how to lose your false self and find your truest and best life.
Personally, I love those desert fathers. But if crusty old guys in the desert don’t float your boat, I think today’s reading from Romans is really helpful. Paul explains in very concrete, down-to-earth terms what it looks like to let go of human things and seek after the things of God. It basically boils down to love one another: Hold fast to what is good. Reject what is evil. Go out of your way to honor one another. Live in hope. Hang in there when times are hard. Keep on praying. Be generous to the poor; be hospitable to strangers. Live in harmony; don’t pretend to be wiser than you are. I’m not saying any of this comes easy; these are all things we keep practicing for a lifetime. I usually do okay with rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, but blessing my enemies? Refraining from fantasies of revenge? Living peaceably with everybody? Even though all this is hard, Paul tells us to do it anyway.
That verse about heaping burning coals on the heads of your enemies can be confusing and kind of disturbing. Paul is quoting Proverbs here; in both cases, it is presented as a good thing to do. The intent is not to torture your enemy with third-degree burns. The goal is not punishment, but to inspire repentance, figuratively, to kill them with kindness. Giving burning coals to your enemy is parallel to feeding them if they’re hungry and giving them drink if they’re thirsty. The idea here is if your neighbor’s fire goes out, they come to you for help, and you scoop up some live embers from your own firepit and pack them up in a clay jar for your neighbor to take back home. It’s the equivalent of giving them some matches or letting them borrow your lighter. The bottom line is that out of love, you help anyone in need. You do this whether or not you think they are a jerk, whether or not you approve of them. You do the right thing and leave the judgment to God. You overcome evil with good.
Now, if St. Paul is still too crusty for you, and you’re still trying to figure out what it looks like to seek after the things of God, well, you could do a lot worse than looking to the example of Dolly Parton. Not necessarily the nails and the rhinestones and the blond wigs and all, although if that works for you, go for it. I mean her astonishing generosity and kindness. I’m talking about the woman who gave away over 330 million children’s books and invested in vaccine research and Appalachian disaster relief, the superstar who had the humility to laugh at herself and honor her backwoods roots, the woman who showed so much grace and refrained from judging and treated everybody like a human being. That woman sang like an angel and pretty much lived like a saint. Her love was genuine and she held fast to what is good. Truly, you could do a lot worse.
I can imagine Paul and Anthony and Dolly hanging out together at a party in heaven. I wish I could listen in on their conversation. And I would love to hear that trio sing. Amen.

Rev. Jean N. Kuebler, August 27, 2026

08/27/2026

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims its maker’s handiwork! (Ps. 19:1) You might want to stay up (or get up) to admire the lunar eclipse tonight. The weather forecast looks like mostly clear skies for tonight.

People in the Americas, Africa and Europe will have a chance to see Earth’s shadow create a near-total blood moon.

08/23/2026

Here is the sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, on Isaiah 51:1-6, for August 23, 2026:
The prophet Isaiah was speaking to people who had been forcibly displaced. They had been taken from their homes and the land that they loved to a place where they were strangers in a strange land. The things that were most sacred to them had been defaced and destroyed. The Babylonian exile was a long time ago, but whole populations are still displaced because of war or greed or political conflict or religious strife. Others are displaced by wildfire or drought or rising sea levels. People often have to give up the things and places that have given purpose and meaning to their lives. If this has not been your personal experience, I bet it’s part of your family history. We are a nation of immigrants, after all. Migration and exile are a common human story.
Isaiah’s original audience had endured profound disorientation and disappointment. They weren’t sure who they were anymore, or if they still had a future. They wondered if God had abandoned them, or if God still cared. You don’t have to be dragged into exile to feel abandonment and anxiety and confusion. You don’t have to be dragged into exile to have a crisis of faith. Ordinary grief can stir up all those feelings, whether it’s grief at the death of a loved one or the ending of a marriage or the loss of a job or a scary diagnosis. I’m thinking that Isaiah might also have a good word for us. We too are used to disappointment.
Before the Israelites could imagine their future, they had to remember where they came from. The prophet exhorts them to think back, beyond their recent trauma. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and the quarry from which you were dug. In other words, go way back. Dig deep. Remember your origins. Remember the stories that still shape who you are. In secular terms, that might mean going back to the founding documents that define who we are as Americans, going back to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, to all that stuff about unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness, by the way, does not mean doing whatever floats your boat and makes you feel good; for the founders, it meant character, virtue, the pursuit of moral excellence.
In spiritual terms, looking to the rock from which you were hewn means going back to Genesis, specifically, back to Abraham and Sarah, our ancestors in the faith. God told them to get up and go and leave everything they knew behind, remember? God promised to lead them to a new home and a future full of blessing. They didn’t know where or when or how. They just trusted and followed. God promised them descendants as numerous as the stars, even though they were well beyond childbearing years and they weren’t getting any younger. It seemed impossible, but God did what God said. Abraham and Sarah answered God’s call and trusted God’s promise.
This is God’s message for the discouraged exiles and for us: Listen for God’s call and trust God’s promise. Who you are and who you will be doesn’t depend on your accomplishments—thank goodness. It depends on who God is, and God is faithful. You are not defined by your suffering and disappointments. You are defined by God’s future. You may not be able to see it yet, but God can. Even when our lives feel like a wasteland, God is already beginning to do a new thing in our midst.
The barren places of your lives will become like a fruitful garden, God says to us. The wilderness of your broken hearts will become like a new Eden. Your songs of lament will be turned into songs of joy and gladness.
We put our trust in so many things that are not God. Families, homes, careers, relationships, market forces, governments, religious and cultural institutions. Even when these things are good and life-giving, they don’t last forever. Isaiah puts it rather bluntly: the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats. But God’s salvation will be forever, and God’s deliverance will never end. I think it is clear where we should put our ultimate trust. The prophet reminds us to place our hope in God alone. We do that by remembering our best and deepest roots, and by looking forward in faith to a future that God has already begun. God promises that our story does not end in disappointment, but in comfort and flourishing and joy. That is good news. Amen.
Rev. Jean N. Kuebler, August 20, 2026

08/23/2026

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

08/22/2026

We offer our prayers and condolences to the family and friends of John Berry, who died on Aug. 18. His funeral service will be Wednesday, August 26 at 12 noon at Faith, with visitation one hour prior.

John William Berry, age 93, of Harborcreek, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, surrounded by his loving family. He was born in...