It was a gift to be with God’s people gathered as Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska on Sunday June 28, 2026. Thank you to Pastor Amy Truhe for the invitation and to the whole congregation for the warm welcome. In being with the congregation I was invited to lead worship and preach, and I also took a moment to bring greetings from Bishop Scott Johnson and the whole Nebraska Synod, as well as to share words of gratitude for all of the ministry that Luther Memorial does, especially through being part of the larger church through Mission Share. What follows is the majority of the manuscript that I preached from, which was based on the Revised Common Lectionary readings appointed for Proper 13C, this year the 5th Sunday after Pentecost. These include: Matthew 10:40-42; Romans 6:12-23; Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18; and Jeremiah 28:5-9. This sermon was especially built off the commentary I wrote for this week for the Stewardship of Life Institute, “The Freedom to Live, Love, and Serve.” If you like to listen to the sermon or watch the worship service, you may do so via the congregation’s livestream as shared on YouTube here.

Grace and peace from God in Christ, who is with you, for you, and who loves you. Amen.

A couple months ago my youngest daughter walked across the stage and “graduated” from preschool. As is often the case at such graduations, she was asked what she wanted to do when she grows up. She said, “I want to be a rock star and a mom.” Yes, our five-year-old said that she wants to be a rock star. Hmm… A few years earlier, our oldest daughter said, in response to the same question when she graduated from preschool, “I want to be a pastor, just like my mom.” Yes, our now eight-year-old said a few years ago that she wanted to be a pastor like her mom, my wife, Pastor Allison Siburg who serves out at Salem Lutheran in Fontanelle.  

I love both answers, just like I love both of our daughters. I love them for so many reasons, not just being able to root them on while they do what they love, like we did at softball games all week. I love the freedom that they have to dream and be whoever and whatever they feel called to be. As a dad, I love this. As a pastor’s husband, I love this. As a deacon, I love this. As one of your synod staff partners in ministry, I love this. But most of all as a Child of God set free through God’s grace, I am grateful for this.

Freedom in Christ Jesus
There’s something about freedom in this week’s stories which just captivates me. Perhaps it’s the timing of the stories in our lectionary that we follow and their proximity to the upcoming 250^th anniversary of the United States’ independence this coming Saturday. Perhaps it’s the hope that comes this time of year with longer days to wonder, imagine, and enjoy God’s creation. Perhaps it’s the rhythm of this time of year where we can all take a few moments to breathe or spend the day outside. (Well, maybe not when there’s a heat index forecasted for today pushing 110 degrees, but I digress.) Either way, the Apostle Paul’s words to the Romans that we heard read a few moments ago have grabbed hold of my imagination.

Paul writes, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”[1] This isn’t the exact passage we might hear on Reformation Sunday, but it’s the same Good News. This Word and news is freeing. To be given God’s grace as a gift, is to receive true freedom. We are freed to live, love, and serve. We are freed from fears, worries about being or doing enough, concerns about being right enough, or righteous enough. We are freed by this promise of God in Christ. And as we are, we are forever changed through this live-giving freedom and are set loose to respond as stewards and disciples of God’s love for these good gifts of freedom found in Christ through all that God entrusts into our care.

The stewardship question in light of this freedom, is what will we do? How will we respond? How will we live, love, and serve, knowing that we have been made free through Christ Jesus?

This conception of freedom isn’t necessarily the same one that might be held in wider society. It’s certainly not entirely the one that is often held up as an ideal in politics or identities of nationality. This freedom through Christ isn’t always about the individual. It’s actually a freedom and commandment to be in relationship with our neighbors. We are invited into relationship. We are invited beyond ourselves and set free from that which may knowingly or unknowingly hold us bound in this life.

Paul surmises, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[2] This freedom is a gift we could never earn or deserve. It’s only a gift which God in Christ can and does give. We are invited into this free gift of freedom through grace, and this invitation invites a response.

We are Freed. So What?
This is where stewardship and discipleship come in. We are freed! If that’s the end of the conversation or story, we’re missing something. We are freed! But so what? What is so good about this? What is so life-changing? How will our lives be changed because we have been freed in Christ? How do our lives change because Christ Jesus sets us free? These questions demand a response. They invite us to not only respond to this gift of freedom, but more so to God who gives it as a free gift through grace. So, what shall our response be?

Jesus points to a few possibilities in our short but powerful gospel story today. Jesus teaches, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”[3] We are invited to embody welcome, knowing that when welcoming our neighbor we are welcoming God. God shows up through our neighbor, just as God shows up through you and me. We are freed in Christ to bear such a counter-cultural reality of welcome, inclusion, and belonging. Jesus also teaches that, “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”[4] Jesus invites us to provide a “cup of cold water” to those who might be thirsty and in need of God’s love.

To provide a cup of water is to be of service, but to provide a cup of cold water particularly as Jesus describes it in the context, he does, is to go the extra mile.[5] To go deeper for the cold water farther down in the well which took some effort in Jesus’ day. Or today, for us to at least get some fresh water with some ice, perhaps. Or to go and meet and serve alongside our siblings in Mescalero, New Mexico, this week, as many in your congregation are; as well as how all of you are collecting sugar for your siblings in need through the San Andres food pantry. All that you do and all these possibilities that Jesus points to for our response are acts of love and service. They are acts of life, providing the basics needed for abundant life to take hold and be made real. They are signs of meeting our neighbor’s needs and coming alongside them- as part of God’s kin-dom building work of love and life-giving freedom breaking into the world.

This isn’t all our response could nor should be. The psalmist today also provides the words for  our response. The psalmist sings, “I will sing of your steadfast love…I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.”[6] Part of our response as stewards is to live, love, and serve. Another part of our response is to give thanks and praise to God who is the one who gives the gift and promises of freedom, life, and love. When we remember this, we start to grow a little more as disciples. We also might just be a bit more grateful and genuine in our response, because we may not so likely take it for granted. It is a gift that God alone can and does give. And this gift of freedom, life, and love, changes everything.

Now What? How Shall We Live?
Now what? How shall we live? Martin Luther writes about this very question in his The Freedom of a Christian. In that 1520 treatise, the Reformer is famous for writing that, “The Christian individual is a completely free lord of all, subject to none. The Christian individual is a completely dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”[7] Let me repeat that. “The Christian individual is a completely free lord of all, subject to none. The Christian individual is a completely dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” It’s a paradox and tension. Something we Lutherans love. Law and gospel. The Kingdom of God is now and not yet. We are simultaneously saint and sinner. We are free, subject to none. We are servant, subject to all. Now that is not the message most people might hear or think about when thinking about freedom in the world, is it?

But when we think about freedom from this lens, from a lens of stewardship and discipleship, we are invited to live and serve differently. To go deeper and be more intentional. Martin Luther sensed this as the resulting ideas of identity, vocation, and purpose come through our freedom as Christians. If Christ makes us free, we are free indeed. But to what end? To the end of being in relationship with our neighbors, to care for and love them, because they, like us, are created in God’s own image, and they, like us, are God’s own beloved.

This perspective challenges much of the world around us. So to take it on, to live it out, means to consciously make a choice to be a bit different. To see freedom as a call to serve. Not with exceptions, or with a thought that we serve when we can. But that we serve by coming alongside any and everyone who might come near. That we open ourselves up to truly see and know our neighbors all around, and to not just come near, but to grow into relationship together so that we might truly accompany each other. That’s what freedom means in Christ Jesus. That’s what it looks like to share a cup of cold water. That’s what it looks like when a five-year old believes they are freed to do whatever they dream or feel called to do- whether it be a rockstar, a mom, a pastor, or anything and everything in between. We are invited to be bearers and sharers of this freedom.

People of God, you are set free to live and serve the Lord. You are made free through the free gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ. And you are called and sent to embody that freedom through living, loving, and serving today, here and now. Do so in hope and joy, trusting deeply that God in Christ is with you, for you, and loves you. Always. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Citations and References:
[1] Romans 6:14, NRSVue.
[2] Romans 6:13, NRSVue.
[3] Matthew 10:40, NRSVue.
[4] Matthew 10:42, NRSvue.
[5] As described by Rev. Dr. Martin Otto-Zimmann in “Stewardship Broken Open,” an Emmaus stewardship workshop offered through the Nebraska Synod on 25 June 2026.
[6] Psalm 89:1, NRSVue.
[7] As provided in The Freedom of a Christian 1520: The Annotated Luther Study Edition, translated by Timothy J. Wengert, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016), 10, available here: https://www.elca500.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Freedom-of-a-Christian_final-proof_3.17.20201.pdf.