Pastor Mack's Ramblings

It has been almost three weeks since I returned from a trip to India, a trip that changed me in ways I might never know.  As I have sat these last few weeks to write about my experience, I have been stuck. I have been stuck with balancing the joy that India brought me and the deep fear of what is happening in our country. How can I find the words to capture the beauty of India while my heart is breaking? How can I find the words to describe the intricate details of monuments that were done entirely by hand but told a beautiful story? How can I find the words to explain how the swastika is sacred in India? Instead of being used as a symbol of hate, it is a symbol of good fortune and prosperity and a symbol that was present everywhere, from things old to new.  I went to India with an open mind, I had very few expectations, and for the most part, I saw this trip as part of my role as a communicator. I went to India to hear the story of the church and bring that back, and yes I he...

Below is a message I gave at the 2024 Transgender Day of Remembrance hosted by the Western Iowa Synod of the ELCA.  Beloved child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.  Those are the words that are said at someone’s baptism, they are the words that claim us as God’s own child, marked with the cross of Christ, marked with the love of Jesus lived out in his life, death, and resurrection. They are the words that invite us to trust in the Holy Spirit to lead us in places we haven’t even begun to imagine yet, they are the words that hold us in moments of darkness and despair.    These words have followed me throughout my life, they held me close as I have grieved the death of friends and family. These are the words that have supported me as I battled the insecurities of adolescence. These are the words I turned to many years ago when I began questioning who I was created to be, questioning did God make a mistake with ...

Below is a sermon I preached at opening worship at the tAble, a pre-event to the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering. It was based on Psalm 139 which grounded our time together as we explored how we are created to be wHoly.  Grace, peace, and mercy be to you from God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.  Wow. The day is finally here, the day we have been waiting for, working for, praying for, is finally here. We are gathered here, in this space, with each other because we all share something in common, we are all created to be wholy. We are created to be authentic, created to be free, created to be one, created to be claimed by our Creator as beloved.  Over these next few days, we will take time to explore what it means to be created. What it means to be loved by a God who took such care in creating us that we are not only named but that we are claimed as beloved. Exploring what it means to be created means we will get a chance to explore who we are, who our neighbors are, w...

  Below is the sermon I preached on October 8, 2023, at Bethany Lutheran Church in Crystal Lake, IL. The Gospel for the day was Matthew 21:33-46, you can read it here .  To watch a video recording of the entire service, you can watch it via Bethany's Facebook page or here . My sermon starts around 7:20.  A note, there might be grammatical errors or missing words, I don't edit the sermons I preach and often do not read word for word.  ---------------- Grace, peace, and mercy be to you from God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.  Rejection.  The dismissing or refusing of a proposal, idea, etc.  Simply put, rejection is being told no, having a door closed, and an opportunity taken away from you. Rejection is something that we face daily, as humans we have the choice to go after what we want, to strive to do better, and to attempt to make the world as we know it a better place.  When we strive to be better than we are right now, we face the p...

  Sermon preached on  Matthew 21:23-32  at First Lutheran Church in DeKalb, IL Grace, peace, and mercy be to you from God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.  When I moved to Nebraska for college, one of the first things I focused on was finding a church home. I went to a Lutheran school and was active in campus ministry, but I wanted something deeper, I wanted something that got me out of bed on Sunday mornings and allowed me to get off campus and involved in the wider community.  The church I landed at, gave me a home, supported me through college and seminary, and even gave me my first experience of working in the church as their Director of Christian Education. It is where I preached my first sermon and assisted in my first funeral, it was a place that is still dear to my heart even after all these years.  One of the things about the physical building, which is like many of the Lutheran Churches out there, that I remember the most is something I...

Sermon preached on Matthew 14:13-21 at First Lutheran Church in DeKalb, IL Grace, peace, and mercy be to you from God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, amen.     Often I have found that the texts that are most familiar, the texts that are found in all four gospels, the texts that are the nuggets we heard growing up in Sunday School, the ones that are in the media, are the hardest texts to preach on. I think that they are the hardest ones because they are so widely known which means that people have opinions on them, they are the ones that have been taught over and over, and it is almost as if we can’t see any deeper than what it is right in front of you.  Take today’s gospel for example, we have probably all heard the feeding of the 5000 a dozen or more times. It is found in each of our four gospels, each providing slightly different information, and different details but at its core, the story stays the same. Jesus has the masses on a hillside, it is getting near di...