San Juan Bautista Lutheran Church

09/13/2026

09/11/2026

Sermon in English for September 13, 2026. All rights reserved.
Forgiving Because We Are Forgiven
One of the tenets of Lutheranism is that we are all sinners. In seminary, we are told that we do not sin, and that is why we are sinners. We are told that from the very beginning, we are sinners, and that is why we sin. The fact that we ask for and receive God’s forgiveness throughout our lives should guide our conduct toward others.
No one is perfect. We all sin. Members of the Native American tribe known as the Navajo, who live in northern Arizona, are famous for the rugs they weave. But in every piece they weave, they intentionally make a mistake, because they say that no one is perfect—only God.
In the parable that Yeshua tells us in the Gospel, the debtor asked for and received forgiveness from the king for a debt that would have taken nearly twenty years’ wages to pay off. But later, he encountered a man who owed him a debt worth one month’s wages.
But instead of extending the forgiveness he had experienced from the king, the original debtor did not forgive his own debtor, and as Jesus recounts: “he had him thrown into prison until he paid the debt.” So we can understand how the king reacted: “You should have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had compassion on you.”
And here is Yeshua’s lesson for today. Just as we all receive God’s forgiveness when we sin, we must be ready to forgive those who offend us. There are people who, when they learned the Lord’s Prayer, learned to say, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
There’s a little phrase in the Lord’s Prayer that people sometimes say without giving it much thought: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
If we do not forgive someone who offends us, then God will not forgive us either. Once again, God will react as the king in the parable did: “You also should have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had compassion on you.”
At the beginning of this Mass, we went to confession, asking for God’s forgiveness. Just as God has forgiven our sins, we must be ready to forgive those who offend us. God sets the example for us, and Yeshua explains it to us through the clear example of the parable.
God gives us another example in the Old Testament. We remember Joseph, the son of Jacob. His brothers did not like him because he was their father’s favorite son. The brothers made plans to kill him, but one of them, Reuben, convinced them instead to sell him to some merchants who were on their way to Egypt.
When Jacob died, the brothers thought Joseph would act like anyone who had been wronged. But to their surprise, Joseph reacted like God. Joseph forgave them, but he expressed it in a revealing way. He said he forgave them because: “I cannot put myself in God’s place.”
The fact is, only God can judge. What remains for us is to forgive and let God do His work as judge. St. Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, tells us: “We will all have to appear before God, so that He may judge us.” That will be God’s work, not ours.
I urge you to take seriously what Jesus teaches us today. I learned this lesson in a somewhat unusual way. When my son Matthew was nine years old, I was the coach of his Little League baseball team. Well, my friend, Tony Coronado, was helping me with the team. There was only one umpire in this league, and we were convinced that the umpire was favoring the other teams. We took out one-dollar bills and waved them around to suggest that the umpire was on the take.
Well, at the start of the next school year, my school held its big open house so parents could meet their children’s teachers. Who do you think I saw walk into my classroom as the father of one of my students? Yes, the umpire. That’s where I learned not to judge anyone, because sooner or later, we run into those people, and it’s better to treat them with respect.
It’s not our job to judge. Now, forgiving doesn’t mean we have to let people keep doing bad things. Forgiving means we don’t hold a grudge against those people, but it also means we distance ourselves from them so they don’t hurt us again. God will judge the harm they’ve done to us; we don’t have to do that.
Today’s Psalm tells us: “The Lord judges with true justice.” But it also tells us: “The Lord is tender and compassionate; he is patient and full of love.” We must forgive because we ourselves have been forgiven by God. We have been in the position of the offender. We know how it feels to have made a mistake, to have repented, and to have asked God to forgive us.
So, when someone makes a mistake, we know what it’s like to ask for forgiveness, and we must be ready to extend that forgiveness to those who offend us. Not forgiving can be like drinking poison. St. Augustine, the patron saint of Tucson, advises us: Holding a grudge is like drinking a glass of poison and waiting for the other person to die.
We forgive for our own sake. Resentment is toxic. We gain nothing by holding a grudge. Forgiveness can give us a sense of peace because it brings closure to the action that caused us pain. This pain is often difficult to overcome. Feeling the peace that forgiveness brings strengthens us to face whatever the world puts in our path—whether it be health issues, employment challenges, or immigration concerns.
May we forgive as God the Father has forgiven us. We do not want God to say to us, as the king did in today’s parable: “You, too, should have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had compassion on you.” God the Father sets the example for us, and Yeshua explains it very clearly.
May we leave this Mass ready to forgive, because we ourselves have experienced the forgiveness of our sins—freely given by our heavenly Father and earned for us through the work of our brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, who bore the burden of our sins so that it might be lifted from us.
We must forgive because we are forgiven. And to celebrate this message, we will sing the same hymn we sang last Sunday, “Amazing Grace,” because it perfectly expresses the concept that God is always ready to forgive our sins. So be it! Amen.

09/03/2026

Rosario Luterano 7pm Sept 3, Entrga sus oraciones a Diosito.

08/30/2026

Sermon in English for August 30, 2026. All rights reserved.
I want to thank Anabel again for leading last week’s Mass. As you know, when a loved one passes away, we drop everything to be there for the family of the person who has gone on to the next life. My godmother’s mother in San Luis Río Colorado passed away last Thursday, and we arrived in San Luis at 1:00 a.m. on Friday.
My godmother is from Mexicali, and that’s where the services for her mother were held. This trip was no picnic. I would never recommend visiting Mexicali in August. At the burial in the cemetery, the temperature was 113 degrees—that is, 40 degrees Celsius. But this trip, which was so inconvenient that it even affected you, gave me the opportunity to reflect on just how great a sacrifice Yeshua made for us.
The Prayer of the Day told us: “We thank you for your Son, who chose the path of suffering for the sake of the world.” And in today’s Gospel reading, we heard how Jesus told his disciples that the authorities “would make him suffer greatly and would kill him, but on the third day he would rise again.” When Simon Peter heard this, he responded as a human being and said to Yeshua, “Lord, this must never happen to you!” Jesus replied firmly, “Get behind me, Satan! You see things as men see them!”
The fact is, Jesus understood the plan that God the Father had for Him—to lift the burden of our sins from us so that we could move forward without that weight on our shoulders and continue striving to be the best people we can be. Yeshua did this so that we could walk the path of life, improving the way we live without the hindrance of our past sins.
What led me to reflect on this were the remarks made by a Catholic priest at the wake. The priest said that, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we all have to go through Purgatory before entering Heaven. My first thought was that the Lord Jesus must be saying, “Then why did I let them nail me to a cross, if people have to burn in Purgatory anyway before going to Heaven?”
We are Evangelical Catholics of the Lutheran Tradition. We base our beliefs on what the Gospel of our Lord Jesus says. “Purgatory” does not appear anywhere in the Gospel. It was created by the Catholic Church. But St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Romans: “Love one another as brothers and sisters, and respect one another.” I’m not going to turn this sermon into a critique of Roman Catholics, because after all, they are our mother church.
Instead, I’ll focus on the fact that Jesus endured so much pain and died on the cross to free us from the heavy burden of our sins. If we truly repent, Yeshua takes on the weight of our sins so that we can improve our lives without the burden of our mistakes. And if He takes on the weight of our sins, there is no need to suffer any longer in Purgatory. That is the gift Jesus gives us.
Yeshua did the hard part. What remains for us, as a way to thank Him for His sacrifice on our behalf, is to live, as St. Paul writes to us: “Live in harmony with one another.” But for us, this can sometimes be difficult. Paul advises us: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” If someone does something to another person, what is the first thing many people say? “You’re going to pay for that.”
But Paul tells us: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; and if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; in this way you will put him to shame.” Then he says: “Overcome evil with good.” And this can be very difficult for us. But we must live without judging or condemning others. Jesus himself said: “The Son of Man will come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.”
So all that remains is what St. Paul says: “Rejoice in the hope (of eternal life) that you have; endure suffering with courage, and never stop praying.” By loving one another as brothers and sisters, this is how we thank our Lord Jesus for what He went through for us. Together, we await the “Communion of Saints”—that is, the gathering of the saints. We are all saints because the saints were human beings just like us, and we are all born with the capacity to be saints. We will see our loved ones, who passed on our faith to us, at this gathering.
This was the hope I shared with my family in Mexicali. Not that their loved one had to suffer, but that Yeshua himself assures us that he will return to judge the living first, and then that God the Father will raise us all from the dead. That is the faith we proclaim every Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed, and it is the hope to which we all cling as we journey through this life.
May we leave this Mass confident in the faith we profess. We ask, as the Gospel Acclamation said, that God enlighten our minds so that we may know how glorious and rich is the inheritance that God gives to His holy people. So be it! Amen.

08/19/2026

Sermon in English for August 23, 2026. All rights reserved.
Everyone’s Job
We must understand that our bodies do not belong to us; rather, they are lent to us by God, and when they stop functioning, they return to Him. We already know that our bodies are made up of different parts, each of which has a special job. But even though they perform different jobs, they are all equally important to the body’s health.
In particular, I am aware of the importance of the organ called the pancreas. This organ produces insulin for our bodies. When it functions properly, it regulates the sugar level in our bodies. If it doesn’t, sugar builds up in the blood and damages the body. That is why we, as people with diabetes, take insulin—because our pancreases no longer produce enough.
Now, the pancreas doesn’t make you smarter, faster, or stronger. But if it doesn’t work, it affects your vision, muscles, kidneys, blood circulation—almost everything. If the pancreas doesn’t do its job, the health of your entire body goes downhill. You could say that the whole body depends on the pancreas.
But it also depends on the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and maintaining balance to be able to walk. In other words, all parts of the body are equally important. If one part isn’t working, that’s when we go to the doctor. Just because a part is small doesn’t make it any less important—they’re all equally important.
The same thing happens with the church and society. If I’m not there, there’s no sermon and no communion. But if Anabel isn’t here, I don’t have the readings, and there’s no bulletin. If Miss Layra and Miss Alma aren’t here, there’s no sermon for the kids. If Annette isn’t here, Mass isn’t broadcast to people who can’t come to church, and there wouldn’t be a translation of the sermon for people who don’t speak Spanish. And if you didn’t come, well, there wouldn’t be any need to have Mass.
The point of all this is to encourage and support everyone in their work—it’s not what defines them. It’s also to reinforce the idea that no one is more important than anyone else. No one knows everything. If I don’t have electricity at home, I have to call an electrician; if my car won’t start, I have to call a mechanic. We are all equal—in the church, in society, and in the eyes of God.
The First Reading tells us of a time when the Egyptians did not appreciate the presence of the Israelites in their country. The Egyptians distrusted the Israelites but depended on them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses. Although that society depended on the labor of the Israelites, they did not treat them with respect and equality.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul encourages all members of the church in Rome, regardless of their occupations. And Paul leaves a message for the pastors. He writes: “Let no one think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Rather, let each one think of himself with moderation, according to the gifts that God has given him along with his faith.” Then he says: “Whoever has received the gift of teaching should devote himself to teaching.”
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples that they are “the rock,” and that: “On this rock I will build my church.” Perhaps when Yeshua said “church,” he was thinking of something different from what we think of when we use that word. The word “church” comes from the Greek word “ekklesia.” This word meant “assembly,” a gathering of people.
What Jesus taught the disciples formed the rock—that is, the foundation of the church. And on this foundation, Yeshua always emphasized the importance of every person with whom he came into contact. That is why Paul exhorts us to change our way of life and “come to know the will of God—that is, what is good.”
Jesus always acted for the good of others. This was the essence of his teachings. Paul says, “We are one body in Christ and are joined together as members of the same body.” Therefore, we must do our work with enthusiasm, because the Church—that is, society as a whole—benefits when we do our work.
Just as in our own bodies, we all depend on each other’s work. Let us treat every person with respect, appreciation, and dignity, because we know that while a person’s presence and work do not define who they are, they are important for the good of all. That is why it is said that all work is God’s work. May it be so. Amen.