Trinity Lutheran Elkhart Homilies

December 8, 2024

Advent remembers the past, celebrates it in the present, and looks to the future.  Jesus came, is present with us now, and will come again.  While we wait for Jesus to return, we would continue to celebrate the past and share that with future generations to come. 

As we close our 150th Anniversary we review and give thanks for what God has done through us and in each of us.  In addition, we take a look at time and eternity and where we go from here.  Time is a gift. We are priests who consecrate the time.  We give it back to the Lord and use it for his purposes.

November 17, 2024

It’s not about the money. It’s about the Lord. Which means its about your heart. Which means its about trust. Which means its about his faithfulness. The Lord doesn't want to be an important part of your life.  He wants to be your life.  November 10, 2024

Pastor Schallhorn reflects on Trinity Lutheran Church's 150-year history, emphasizing the importance of attitude in Christian life. He explores Jesus' Beatitudes, particularly "Blessed are the poor in spirit," highlighting how true happiness comes from recognizing our spiritual poverty and relying on God's grace. The pastor illustrates this concept through the inspiring st...

October 27, 2024

Mark 10:35-45

We all struggle with our love of money and possessions. Our love for our stuff stands in the way of a love for God and others. Which is how we fulfill the commandments. We don’t just follow the rules to get the reward of eternal life. The commandments are eternal life because they are God’s life and God is love.   The commandments are not the way to eternal life. We don’t follow the rules to get t...

This week’s reading from St. James offers a stark warning to the rich about the fleeting nature of wealth, while the Gospel contains harsh admonitions about sin, with Jesus encouraging the removal of anything that causes sin, even if that means drastic measures. Despite this challenging message, we can find hope in the first reading of the lectionary for this week, where Moses wishes for all of Go...

This sermon focuses on the theme of active faith and its transformative power in our lives. It begins by discussing how openness—both of the heart and the eyes—enables us to see ourselves and Jesus for who we truly are. The pivotal question from the Gospel, "Who do you say that I am?" leads to Peter's confession, "You are the Christ," which lies at the center of Christian...

This sermon emphasizes the importance of openness in the Christian faith, as exemplified by the word "Ephphatha," meaning "be open" in Mark 7. The call in St. James’ epistle today is for Christians to be impartial and open-hearted, recognizing the value and dignity of every person, regardless of their status. The overarching theme is that being open to others is the way of Chri...

This homily introduces our new sermon series and small group study titled "Faith and _______," inspired by the epistle of James. The series aims to ignite a deeply active faith in us as believers, focusing on different acts or virtues each week. As we begin these five weeks wading through St. James' epistle, it's important to note that he's writing about the way of heaven...

The readings today call us: Choose this day whom you will serve? This choice cannot be ala carte - picking and choosing what we want and rejecting what we don’t want. Because everything Scripture teaches connects back to Jesus. It is personal. We are choosing or rejecting him.  This is important when we look at many of the “issues” of our day around the topics of gender, marriage, and sexuality. T...

This Sunday we hit the “summit” of Jesus’ Eucharistic teaching in John 6. In graphic terms he shows us how essential his flesh and blood is so that we may: Have eternal life Be raised up on the last day Abide in him St. Teresa of Avila said: If we but paused for a moment to consider attentively what takes place in this Sacrament of the Eucharist, I am sure that the thought of Christ's love fo...

Last week we heard about our spiritual hunger - the desire to be satisfied.  But this week the reading takes hunger to the extreme - when we are starving and can’t go on. Like Elijah who comes off a spiritual high to crash to the lows of fear and despair, the Lord wants to feed us with food that will make us truly live: Jesus, the Bread of Life.

August 4, 2024

The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is the key to our lives. It teaches us to: Realize it all comes from God and give thanks. When we put it  all back in Jesus’ hands, he will multiply it.  This miracle ultimately points to the miracle of the Eucharist where Jesus takes a little bread and wine and satisfies the deepest desires of our hearts. 

Every time the Church stands at an inflection point in its history; the Lord has one request: rest a while. After intensely laboring and looking to further the mission of Christ, the Lord asks us to come and simply be with him so that he can give us repose and refresh our soul. By doing this, it helps us keep the main thing the main thing. As Trinity stands at an inflection point in the history of...

Like Jesus’ own kin, we are cursed by familiarity. We know who Jesus is with our heads, but for some reason the wonder of our hearts has been transformed into apathy. We begin to believe the devil when he asks if God really said, or if God can really handle our situations in life, or if he can really act. This only leads us to become apathetic toward our struggle against the vices and false promis...

Our Gospel tells of a woman who suffers from chronic bleeding and a father in crisis: his daughter is dying. Suffering is sometimes chronic, sometimes a crisis. But this story shows us how we get through such times. We need Jesus. We need to wait on him. And we trust that he will give more.  1. We need Jesus.  2. We need to wait on him.  3. We trust that he will give more.