Mount Carmelcast: Recent Episodes
Mount Carmel Lutheran Church
Podcasts from Mount Carmel Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation in northeast Minneapolis. Our podcast will feature weekly sermons from our Sunday worship services, and will also include occasional recordings from Adult Forum sessions and other content. All are welcome to join us in person at 9:30 a.m. Sunday mornings.
This week, Pr. John uses the reading from Mark 10 to help us recognize the ways we are spiritually blind.
This week, Pastor John points out all of the acts of healing that Jesus performed in the book or Mark, and what those acts mean to us.
In his sermon this week, Pastor John asks us to be more aware of those who are "unclean" in our eyes, and points out that God through Jesus works to help them, just as we should.
In this week's sermon, Pr. John reminds us that while rules and laws are practical, it is God's grace that brings us life, and we should be grateful for that.
This week we begin the season of Advent with a prophecy from Jeremiah during a very dark time in Judah’s history.
The prophecy is about a branch from the family tree of David that will one day execute justice and righteousness. This is interpreted by Christians to point to Jesus.
The need for a savior, for the promise that justice and righteousness will win in this discouraging world is the good news we await at Christmas!
This week, Pr. John tells us the story of the confrontation on Mount Carmel between the prophets of Baal and Elijah to help us understand why it matters what god you believe in.
This week, Pr. John reminds us of the importance of putting God at the center of our lives, and that when He is at the center, his purposes and agendas are at the center and command our attention.
This week, Pastor John tells us that stories like Ruth's serve to remind us that God wants us to broaden our definition of family and see everyone as our family.
This week, Pr. John reminds us that the Ten Commandments, like all scripture, is meant to transform us to help us find our own story.
This week, Pr. John asks how often you ask for help from God to use your voice, and tells us how Moses asked God to help him use his.
In his sermon this week, Pr. John shows us how in Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles a with a mystery man--God--to a draw, but God's message was that how we treat our brother, sister, or neighbors is important and is God's business.
In today's reading from Genesis, Sarah laughs to herself when God promises she and Abraham a son. Pr. John points out that their cynicism about their future is misplaced because "for God all things are possible."
This week, Pr. John helps explain how community, making a difference, and experiencing a relationship with a higher power are the cornerstones of the story in Genesis 2.
This week, our Director of Faith Formation, Nick Ralston, preaches on Luke 12:49-56, which is a challenging passage because of the fire Jesus tells his disciples he brought to the earth. Is the fire literal, figurative, or something else?
In this week's reading from Luke 12, a successful farmer is declared a fool by Jesus because he lives only for himself. This, Pr. John points out, is functional atheism, and we need to fight it in our own lives.
Most of us feel ill-equipped to pray, but Jesus gave us a prayer to use, and that also shows us a framework to use for our prayers.
This week, guest preacher Rev. Craig Pederson tells us that in the story of Mary and Martha, we learn that Jesus will always be with us.
We are called by God to be neighbors and love those around us, instead of just having neighbors.
Pr. John dwells in the words of Luke 10 and offers his thoughts and questions regarding the passage.
During this Independence Day week, during which we celebrate our freedom as Americans, Pr. John asks us what we do with the freedom given to us as children of God.
This week, Pr. John talks about how we become occupied and are often complicit with our oppressors as our true selves get buried. But God's promise is that these occupations will be broken by God's Holy Spirit when we trust in him.
Pastor John's sermon this week reminds us to recognize and celebrate the gifts we've been given by God and how they are an invitation to be a part of God's community.
Pastor Brice Eichlersmith is the guest preacher this week. He preached on Romans 8. There is no text for his sermon.
We have been given a gift: sin cannot destroy us because is no longer reigns over us thanks to Christ. We live in a different world now, one of grace and love. And because of that, we celebrate our baptism every month.
In a broken and divided world of privilege, despair, and self-righteousness, we all have our burdens, whether we recognize them or not. But God has promised to take on our burdens for us to give us a life filled with purpose and free of guilt, shame, loneliness, and despair.
In Paul's letter to the Romans, he says he is not ashamed of the gospel. But are people today ashamed of the gospel?
In the book of Acts, Luke talks about the growing Christian church after Jesus' ascension. Pr. John highlights one story of Paul and Barnabas who risked all to tell the world that God came down to us in the form of Christ.
This week, guest preacher Pr. Peter Strommen explains how the reading from Acts 10 challenges us by telling us that our faith in Jesus should be based in Christ's love of everyone--"them"--and not just "us."
This week, guest preacher Rev. Bee Vang from Amazing Grace Ministry in Fridley, MN, spoke about Jesus' commissioning of the disciples to bear witness and how that translates to our lives.
For his Easter Sermon, Pastor John talks about the resurrection story and how it asks us to find God in our daily lives.
For Palm Sunday, we focused on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. While many lauded him king, others asked, “Who is this?” In his sermon, Pr. John says Jesus is indeed king, but not in the ways many expected.
This week, Pr. John explores the parable of the sheep and the goats and asks if, in the final judgment, it really comes down to how much we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoners. How does this fit with the Lutheran belief that we are saved by faith and not works?
Pastor John delivers a "state of the congregation" which points out that while it feels like the Christian Church is in the wilderness right now, there are opportunities that we need to be open to in order to grow and serve our community.
This week, guest preacher Pr. Rollie Martinson explores Jesus’ parable about the wedding banquet and how the host responds to the guests, and wonders what happens if you plan a wedding banquet and no one bothers to come?
In his sermon this week, Pr. John asks us to consider why we may think we're more deserving of things than anyone else, especially when it comes to God's generosity to his children.
This week, Pastor John reminds us that forgiveness is not a free pass, but has a cost and we need to practice giving it as well.
Pastor John tells us this week that the story of the transfiguration teaches us that the world is sacramental, alive with the presence and gifts of god. And that we should use our faith practices to listen and look for God's presence among us through Christ.
This week, our Director of Faith Formation, Nick Ralston talks about the miracle of food--both when Jesus and his disciples fed over 5,000 people, and the miracle that is the work of people try to eliminate hunger.
This week, Pr. John explains that the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that prayer is not about bending God’s will to ours. It is about learning to trust in God’s will and align our self with what God is up to.
Pr. John's sermon uses Matthew 7 to tell us how we are called to love others, and to not pass judgement on them because we need to judge ourselves first.
This week, Pr. John talks about prayer, and how it's a personal and relational conversation with Abba--our dad, our father.
Pr. John's sermon this week is on the beatitudes and how they describe God's kingdom, and its differences from the real world.
This week, guest preacher Pr. Tim Strommen tells us that in our walk with Jesus and our life with God, we need to know that as humans we will get off track and fail sometimes. But we need to know that maintaining faith practices and being in community will help us stay as faithful followers.
This week, Pastor John talks about why New Year's resolutions are hard to keep--because humans are in bondage to sin and our own mortality--and how God meets you in those darker places and never abandons you.
Pastor John talks about the contrast in Matthew's telling of Jesus' birth story and how it is opposite from the peaceful story of a baby born in a manger, and focuses on the politics of the time.
In his Christmas Eve sermon, Pastor John talks about the meaning and imagery of light at this time of year, from the hymn "Silent Night," to candles and lights shining in the darkness, to our lives being filled with the light of Jesus.
This week, Pastor John asks whether you are vertically inclined or vertically challenged--that is, whether you have an openness to recognize that God comes down vertically right into our lives.
Advent is a time of waiting, and in today's lesson from Isaiah 42--the "servant song"--we discover that the waiting is better characterized as longing for God's promise to be fulfilled: "it will be done." Jesus' arrival guaranteed God's promise and also gave us a servant who has come to be on this journey through life with us.
This week, Pastor John preached on the story of Esther and asks if we are where we are in our lives for a reason, just like Queen Esther was when she was called on by Mordecai to make a difference.
This week, our guest preacher Pr. Peter Strommen preaches on Habakkuk and how today's readings started with a lament and Habakkuk took them and chose to learn to trust God.
This week, Pr. John talks to us about callings--and how we need to be open to hear our calling from God like Jeremiah did in the Bible.
In this Thanksgiving week, Pr. John uses the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I to talk about the need for thanksgiving--for God transforming our broken human culture and bending it toward justice.
Guest preacher Rev. Steve Robertson explains the parallels between Micah's time--in the 8th century BCE--and our times, and tells us how the problems we have faced during the midterm elections are similar to those facing the people of Judah 28 centuries ago and how we need to hold our leaders accountable to resolve those issues.
Pastor John's sermon this week helps us understand 3 key takeaways from the story of Naaman's healing from Leprosy.
On Reformation Sunday, Pr. John's sermon talks about the freedom we celebrate through knowing the person of Jesus Christ.
This week, our guest preacher, Pr. Rollie Martinson, talks about people wanting to be good but how sometimes the bad, the wrong, and the ugly appears in our own lives.
Pr. John's sermon draws from the reading from Joshua in which the Isrealites determine their path forward by looking at their past and choosing to continue to follow God.
In his sermon this week, guest preacher Nick Ralston talks about the purpose of the commandments, and how understanding them helps us become inheritors of Christ's covenant.
Just as the Israelites needed to keep still and have faith in God to find their way to escape Pharaoh's armies, we need to keep still, trust in the Lord, and move forward.
In this week's sermon, Pr. John tells that God is present in our everyday lives and everyday activities, because those are our callings to God's world.
Pastor John talks about how God's promises to Abraham fostered Abraham's faith, and how Abraham's faith in God can be a guide to us.
We celebrated Rally Day outside today, and Pr. John talks about the story of Noah and the flood, and shows that while God devastated his creation, he still committed himself to our broken, corrupt, and sinful world.
In the third sermon of the three part series on stewardship and generosity, Pr. Dave Olson tells us it's our calling to be a blessing to others and share the gifts we have been blessed with.
Zaccheus. Scrooge. An unnamed rich man who questions Jesus. All have a degree of curiosity about Jesus, life, and their fellow humans. And that curiosity leads to big changes. Pr. John continues our three-part series on Stewardship & Generosity.
In the first of a three-part series, we learn that Luther said that what you put your trust in is your master and god. Pastor John asks what do you love and trust the most: God, money, success or something else?
In the last sermon in the four-part series on the Book of Ruth, Pr. John gets to the heart of the story and unpacks it's whole purpose: to illustrate God's redemption of us.
In the third of our four-part series on the book of Ruth, Pr. John talks about what the biblical version of carpe diem looks like.
Rev. Brice Eichlersmith is the guest preacher this week for the second part in our four-part series on the Book of Ruth.
Pastor John concludes the sermon series on 1 John by talking about agape love--unconditional love for everyone.
In this week's sermon by Pr. John, we are urged by the writer of I John not to trust every spirit that comes our way, but to “test the spirits, to see whether it is of God or not.
- Pastor John's sermon says the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
In the first sermon in our 1 John series, Pr John talks about being Christ's, Christs (no apostrophe), the mutual conversation and consolation of the saints, and faith practices to build community with each other around Christ.
Pr. John preaches the fourth part of our Ten Commandments series and focuses on two commandments that talk about love and asks if love really is all you need?
Guest Pastor Peter Strommen preaches on more of the commandments in part three of our four part series.
In the second part of the four-part series on the Ten Commandments, Pr. John reminds us that you and I are not the measure of all things: God is.
Pastor John preaches in the first of our four-part series on the Ten Commandments, and tells us that the Ten Commandments are not a test.
For his Pentacost sermon, Pastor John talks about feeling the winds of the holy spirit to join with God to make the world a better place.
Guest Preacher Grace Corbin talks about how we need to abide in God and care for his creation.
Pastor John talks about Jesus from Philippians 2:1-13, and how despite being in the form of God, Jesus did not abuse the privilege. Rather, he acted as a servant to those around him.
Pastor John talks about the battle of wits the apostle Paul has with Athenians in debating God.
Pastor John continues our Eco-Faith series talking about the need for all of us to be good stewards of God's creation.
This week we start a 3 week series on eco-faith, and our guest preacher Emilie Bouvier talks about Environmental Justice.
Pastor John talks about the apostle John's account of the passion and how it represents John's view that Jesus is the true king.
Pastor John talks about how we humans exercise power when God is at the center of our lives versus how we exercise power when he is not.
Pastor Craig Pederson is our guest preacher this week, coming to us from the ELCA Minneapolis Synod. In his sermon, he asks "what is truth?"
Pastor John discusses the role of power and violence in our reading (John 18:12-27) and in today's headlines, but also highlights how love can overcome that violence.
This week, Pastor John delivers a short sermon as the Children's Message, talking about foot washing and how it shows others that we love them. Then, during the sermon, we offered foot and hand washing to the congregation.
Pastor John's sermon on the story of the blind man who Jesus restores sight to in John 9.
A sermon by Hope Dieringer on the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.
Pastor Tim Strommen asks "So, if God wants to accomplish a purpose in us, what IS GODS’ PURPOSE?"
In a sermon on Matthew 6:19-34, Pr. John continues talking about gratitude and abundance, but points out that you cannot serve two masters: God and wealth.
What would it look like if we actually loved our neighbors - the ones in this neighborhood?
Pastor John's sermon asks this: Did you know we are all called to be co-creators with God of a more trustworthy world?