Amandus J. Derr, Interim Senior Pastor
Isaiah 35:5-8; Psalm 124; 2 Timothy 4:5-11; Saint Luke 1:1-4; 24:44-53
In nomine Jesu!
We live in a vastly different world than the one we inhabited in 1987, when the ELCA’s Constituting Convention designated the Sunday closest to October 18 as the Day of Saint Luke the Physician and ask congregations to include prayer, anointing and the laying on of hands and anointing for healing in our liturgies on that day. HIV/AIDS, and all who were broken was the issue then. Today virtually everything and everyone is broken; every environment – this fragile planet, our fractured world, our increasingly fragile nation, too many bodies, our very souls. We’ve begun to think that there’s nothing we can do. We’ve begun to feel paralyzed. In this context, Luke’s message of Jesus as not merely a healer of the sick, but as the mender of every form of brokenness; and of Christ’s Church as not merely a community of wholeness-seekers, but a community of wholeness-makers, in more needed than ever. Continue reading →