What Possesses Me?
Joshua Hosler • September 8, 2025
Did Jesus really say we have to give up all our possessions?
2025-46
sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org
by the Rt. Rev. Phil LaBelle, Bishop of the Diocese of Olympia
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18C-Tr1), September 7, 2025
Jeremiah 18:1-11 ; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 ; Philemon 1-21 ; Luke 14:25-33
We are the light of the world, Jesus tells us. And we are salt ... and salt melts ice!
Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.
Christians must stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.
We don’t sacrifice our children to an angry god.
Do these difficult times call us to do new and different things? Well, maybe not ...
This newborn child threatens our security. What will we do?
We meet God in the holy place where the stories are kept.
Let the words wash over you, and then hold them up against your own super-specific life.
The Bible is chock full of stories of God taking drastic measures. So why this ... baby?
God took an ordinary "Fonzie-man" and guided him to become an extraordinary father.