Letters On The Page

Divine Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer   16 th  Sunday after Pentecost   Amos 6:1-7       1 Timothy 6:6-19       Luke 16:19-31  O Lord, your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.  A defining characteristic of Jesus’ parables is that they have a certain anonymity about them. There are no names attached to the people in Jesus’ teaching stories. Nor are there specific geographical identifiers. This kind of teaching by story allows for a universal appeal.   For example, Last Sunday we heard about the dishonest business manager. No name, no location, nothing specific. The same with the parables about the woman who lost a silver coin in her house and then the shepherd who pursued the one lost sheep. Yet, even if one is not a businessperson, a woman or a shepherd, becau...

S eptember 24, 2025             15 th  Sunday after Pentecost Collect of the Day : O Lord, keep Your Church with Your perpetual mercy; and because of our frailty we cannot but fall, keep us ever by Your help from all things hurtful and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen .   The Epistle for this Wednesday of the 15 th  Sunday after Pentecost is from Galatians, the 5 th  chapter.        (Galatians 5:16-24) 16  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  17  For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.  18  But if yo...

Video of Divine Service 15 th  Sunday after Pentecost Amos 8:4-7   1 Timothy 2:1-15      Luke 16:1-15   O Lord, your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.    As far as the Gospels reveal, Jesus did not have much in the way of money or possessions. He did have a home in Capernaum, but there is no scripture that describes what his housing or property situation was truly like. The working assumption of most of us is that it wasn’t much. It would be what a non-married carpenter, or day laborer, could afford in those days. Scripture does tell us that during his three-year ministry, He relied on the generosity and hospitality of others for food and lodging. He was not a man of independent material means.    Given his status, it is noteworthy that Jesus talks regularly about money, the accumula...

Wednesday of the 14 th  Sunday after Pentecost   Collect: O Lord, keep Your Church with Your perpetual mercy; and because of our frailty we cannot but fall, keep us ever by Your help from all things hurtful and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen .    The Epistle for the Wednesday of the 14 th  Sunday after Pentecost is from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the fifth chapter. ( Galatians 5:16-24) 16  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  17  For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.  18  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  19  Now the ...

Video of Divine Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer 14 th  Sunday after Pentecost  Ezekiel 34:11-24       1 Timothy 1:5-17       Luke 15:1-10 O Lord, your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.  One of the pleasures of following the three-year lectionary like we do is that in the long season of Pentecost we get to march sequentially through the gospels. While we receive what Jesus says as addressed to us personally each time he speaks, we are told by the narrator that Jesus is actually addressing the concerns  or  the false doctrines of a particular individual or group. Jesus does not have just one message that he repeats over and over again. He has lots of messages that ultimately lead us into faith in Him as our Savior who takes up the cross for us.  For example, the last two...

September 10, 2025                         Wednesday of 13 th  Sunday after Pentecost Collect of the Day : Almighty and merciful God, by Your gift alone Your faithful people render true and laudable service. Help us steadfastly to live in this life according to Your promises and finally attain Your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ, Your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen . The Epistle is from Romans, the tenth chapter.                              Romans 10:9-17 9  because, if   you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and   believe in your heart   that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.   10  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confes...

This is an alarming turn of events. Found on Cal Newport's website.   https://calnewport.com/on-the-reverse-flynn-effect/ On the Reverse Flynn Effect September 8, 2025 Last fall, a Norwegian psychology professor named Lars Dehli was asked to give a lecture on intelligence. It had been a while since he had taught the topic, so he looked forward to revisiting it. As he explained in  ​an essay​  about the experience, he decided to start the lecture by discussing the so-called Flynn Effect—the well-known phenomenon, first observed by James Flynn, whereby measured IQ scores have been steadily increasing since World War II. “It’s always fun to tell students that their generation is the smartest people who have ever lived,” Dehli wrote. But as he gathered data to build an up-to-date chart, he was “very surprised” by what he discovered: “IQ has actually started to fall.” Dehli was not the first person to notice this decline. In recent years, a growing number of researchers have b...

Video of Divine Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost Deuteronomy 30:15-20        Philemon 1:21            Luke 14:25-35   O Lord, your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.    While the scribes, lawyers, and pharisees don’t appreciate Jesus’ ministry among them, the rest of the population can’t get enough of him. Since Luke 9:51, Jesus has been on the long, slow, journey toward Jerusalem. Large groups of people continue to follow Him. They listen intently to what he says. All along the way, Jesus is catechizing, instructing, his disciples about life in the kingdom of God. Like parents and teachers in every time and place, Jesus regularly repeats himself to hammer his instructions into the catechumen’s minds and hearts so that...