It was a joy to be with First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska on Sunday October 19, 2025. Thank you to Pastor Patrick Sipes for the invitation and to the whole congregation for the warm welcome. In being with the congregation I was invited to join an hour long forum conversation before worship with a Fellowship Hall full of people with great stories to share, laughs abundant, and great joy, passion, and energy with deeply faithful and honest questions and wonderings. Within worship, I was invited to assist with portions of the liturgy, to share words of greeting from Bishop Scott Johnson and the whole Nebraska Synod as well as words of gratitude for all of the ministry that the congregation does and is a part of through its mission share and as part o the larger ELCA, and to preach on stewardship and the lessons appointed for the day. Following worship, there was even a great feast of a potluck which more than filled me up as shortly after I hit the road for more synod events in Kearney. Thank you all for a wonderful day together, and for all of the meaningful ministry that you do and make possible! What follows is the majority of the manuscript of the sermon I preached from, based on Luke 18:1-8; Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; and 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5. (To watch or listen to the worship service and/or sermon, you can do so here: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MgzpsT5De/)
Grace and peace from God in Christ, who is with you, for you, and who loves you. Amen.
What a sight to witness. As I look out at all of you, I see the smiles and hopes, dreams, and questions of a congregation full of followers and disciples of Jesus, and stewards of God’s abundant love. It is a gift to be with you all today. And especially on this day, as together we will bless the quilts and kits that your hands and hearts as a congregation have assembled. They will be sent where they are needed sharing God’s loving embrace with your neighbors near and far. They are visible signs of the embodiment of your stewardship. One grounded in prayer. Full of persistence. Made possible through your very presence and gifts of time and talents, and made real through the promises of life, love, and grace that God alone provides for all of God’s beloved. I am thinking about these quilts and kits, and your stewardship, as I think about today’s stories we just heard read.
Diving into the stories this week
Jesus continues on his way to Jerusalem in our story this week. In the Gospel of Luke, he’s just a chapter and a half away from entering the Holy City on what we now call Palm Sunday. His eyes are squarely set on the events of Holy Week to come. But he is still using every last minute to teach, preach, and point to the Kingdom of God. And so he does what he so often does. He tells them another parable. Perhaps he tells this one because knowing what lies ahead, he knows that prayer and persistence are and will be critical in facing the hard trials to come. So Jesus explains about “their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”[1]
Jesus tells a story about a widow and an unjust judge. The widow is persistent. She keeps showing up. She is demanding justice and that things be made right. Jesus says, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”[2] This is a story about the importance of prayer and persistence. The widow will seemingly stop at nothing, and to Jesus’ point, won’t God do that and really, more? Won’t God show up with, for, through, and in God’s beloved?
Perhaps it’s that wondering that leads Jesus to end the parable with a question. “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”[3] This is an earnest question that Jesus has, especially given how close he is to entering into Jerusalem. It’s an earnest question now too, as so many of our neighbors like the widow in this parable are crying out for justice, to be seen, to be known, to be shown love, mercy, and welcome. Amid the times and feelings of uncertainty and brokenness, we are reminded of who we are- God’s beloved. In relationship with God and neighbor. In relationship through prayer, and persistence. In relationship through the very presence of showing up with and for one another. In relationship formed out of the promises we know in baptism, where God claims you and names you once and for all as beloved Child of God. This matters for us as disciples and stewards.
These themes are also present in our other stories. In our first lesson, we remember the story of Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob was persistent. He did not give up. He did not hide or run away. He would not relent until being blessed.[4] His persistence would lead to him being given a new name, Israel, “for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”[5] Jacob was persistent, and because of that he gained a limp because of his hip, but more importantly he was blessed and given a new name. Because of his persistence, God showed up and acted.
This same persistence is mentioned in our second lesson. We as God’s people are to be, “equipped for every good work.”[6] What we do matters. Not for our sakes necessarily, but for our neighbors. We are equipped to share the Good News, to serve our neighbors and meet them where they are at, and to love as God loves us. We do this with persistence as the writer of 2nd Timothy commends, “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.”[7] As stewards and disciples, we do all that we do first and foremost because we are Children of God. So we are called to live our lives and vocations, our ministry that we each do in our daily lives, fully.[8] To pray without ceasing. To be persistent. To be present with and for each other. To be grounded in God’s promises.
God does what God alone can and will do. Bringing life out of death. Turning mourning into dancing. Bringing help as God’s people call for it, and opening eyes, hearts, hands, and minds to respond to the needs of our neighbors whom God calls us and creates us to be in relationship with. The psalmist echoes this theme. “I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”[9] And like for the widow in the gospel story, or Jacob in our first lesson, we are reminded of who God is and what God will do. “The Lord will watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time forth forevermore.”[10] Prayer. Persistence. Presence. Promise.
Stewardship- what does this mean?
These four p’s are also four marks of stewardship. Our stewardship and discipleship is grounded and guided in prayer. It’s persistent, because it’s daily. It’s part of our identity and response as a Child of God. It’s present, because it’s how we show up in daily life. And it’s our way of responding to God’s promises for you and for me. Stewardship is our response. It’s our response to God’s love and gifts for us. It’s our response to our neighbor in need. God does, what God alone can do, for you and for me. We cannot earn God’s gifts of life and love. God does that work through the events of the cross, of Holy Week and Easter. God does that work over and over again through the water and word of baptism. But we are invited to joyfully and gratefully respond for what God has done, will do and promises to do, and this is a gift and opportunity.
Think of it as with prayer and persistence taking hold of the abundant life that God alone provides and offers to us even if we might be reluctant to receive it. We have the gift, call, and command to live out the life and identity we all share as a disciple and steward. But rest assured, this won’t always be easy. It will have its fill of challenges, and it’s costly. There’s a cross at its center after all. We know where the gospel story is leading. But we also know, because of this, that this life as disciples and stewards is deeply meaningful and full of purpose. It’s a life of service grounded in love and lived out in response to the promises of our God who comes near and is with us and loves us, always.
This is what stewardship looks like. Where we recall the words of the psalmist at the beginning of Psalm 24, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”[11] The earth is God’s. And all who are part of the earth, are God’s too. Everything is God’s. You are God’s own. I am God’s own. And all that we have, and all that we are, is God’s also. Everything that makes you the unique person and beloved Child of God that you are, is God’s. Your time, talent, treasure, assets, possessions, and finances of all kinds. Your life, health, body, heart, soul, and mind. Your passions, strengths, vocations, gifts, relationships, ideas, dreams, stories, imaginations, and even your questions. All that is yours, is really God’s. And all of creation and the earth itself that surrounds us, and which God entrusts into our care in the beginning of Genesis, is God’s too. All of this and more, is God’s. And God chooses to entrust some of it into our care.
God does this because God loves you and God wants life to go well for you. God does this, because God does new things, and invites us each to be part of it. God does this too because God wants life to be meaning and purpose filled. So God invites you to follow and to use what God entrusts to meet your neighbor’s needs in some ways in daily life- here, now, today. Knowing that when we do this, we don’t do it alone. We do it with our God with whom there is always enough, and really more than enough. With our God who can take a few fish and a couple loaves of bread, and feed thousands. With our God who can share a simple commandment to “love one another,” and in so doing, change the world forever. With our God who shows that abundance is real, and scarcity is not.
Your Stewardship is your joyful response- through your prayer, persistence and presence
So, First Evangelical Lutheran Church, what might this mean for you? Your stewardship is your joyful response as individuals and a congregation of God’s beloved people. It’s your response to God’s love and promises by living life deeply in prayer, with persistence and presence. It’s the why that undergirds all of the nearly 180 quilts and kits we are about to bless that are so beautiful in front of and all around us this morning. That’s incredible! Thank you! It’s also the message behind your guiding mission as a congregation as you “proclaim the Way of Christ through our values and passions that sustain ourselves and our communities.” Those values and passions that you hold, come from God who has entrusted you with them. Your stewardship is made real through all that you do as God’s people here in North Platte.
Through the way you engage in prayer practices that ground you, and equip the saints through Sunday School, vacation bible school, and confirmation. Through learner’s corner opportunities and creative things like a “Please Touch Nativity.”[12] Through worshiping together as God’s people, grounded in the promises of God’s love given and shed for you. Through serving and feeding your hungry neighbors in partnership with the Episcopal Church of our Savior and through hosting pancake feeds and harvest dinners. Through hosting the Foster Care Closet of Nebraska as you did this past Friday, meeting the needs of at least 55 youth. Through your circles and men’s group, “Brood of Vipers,” and through all of the ways you do God’s work really with your hands. And of course, through all of the other ways that you show up for and with your neighbors in daily life at school, work, and play, and through being a part of the larger church too as the Nebraska Synod and ELCA. All of this and more is how I know and see God’s love is very much being made real through you- through your prayers, persistence, and presence, all grounded and guided by God’s love and promises.
Thank you for being the faithful disciples and generous stewards of God’s love that you are. But please keep going. Be in prayer always. Be persistent like Jacob and the widow. Be present with and for your neighbors, meeting them where they are at. Do all of this while trusting that God’s promises of love and life are true. That God is for you and for me, for one and for all. Because God is with you, for you, and loves you. Always. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Citations and References:
[1] Luke 18:1, NRSVue.
[2] Luke 18:6-8, NRSVue.
[3] Luke 18:8, NRSVue.
[4] Genesis 32:26.
[5] Genesis 32:28, NRSVue.
[6] 2 Timothy 3:17, NRSVue.
[7] 2 Timothy 4:2, NRSVue.
[8] “As for you… carry out your ministry fully,” as in 2 Timothy 4:5, NRSVue.
[9] Psalm 121:1-2.
[10] Psalm 121:8.
[11] Psalm 24:1, NRSVue.
[12] All of this and more was found via the congregation’s website and October 2025 newsletter as available here: https://www.firstlutherannp.org/
Timothy Siburg 