October 4, 2026
Dear friends in Christ grace and peace to you. The message for this week comes from
Isaiah 5:1-7.
In a recent synod meeting I attended some in pastoral roles were talking about how exhausted they were having to deal with conflict within their congregations. They were exhausted from trying to preach the gospel while struggling with the notion that no one was hearing what they were saying.
As I read this text from Isaiah for this week my thoughts went to the unrest around the world including our own nation. We in pastoral roles hear and feel the anxiety for the world and our won nation in our flocks. We continue to preach the good news of the gospel. We try to show that God is good and that God is love. The text for this week points to the goodness that God intended when he created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it. But since the days of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden we as humans created in God’s own likeness have strayed away from what God wants us to be. God didn’t intend for us to be critical of one another. God didn’t intend for us to be so greedy and smug. God didn’t intend for us to harm each other with words and weapons of destruction. God intended us to live in harmony with each other. It’s why Jesus gave us the greatest commandment: Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’(Matthew 22:37-39).
It’s why God sent his one and only Son to live among us and to teach us the way to live. And where did that get God? We killed the messenger. Out of love for us God gave his Son as a sacrifice for our sinfulness. I don’t know what the answer is for us as a people to get back on track with God, but I do know that God is still in control. The Apostle Paul gives us these words of hope in his second letter to the Corinthians: So we have no reason to despair. Despite the fact that our outer humanity is falling apart and decaying, our inner humanity is breathing in new life every day. You see, the short-lived pains of this life are creating for us an eternal glory that does not compare to anything we know here. So we do not set our sights on the things we can see with our eyes. All of that is fleeting; it will eventually fade away. Instead, we focus on the things we cannot see, which live on and on. 2Corinthians 4:16-18.
So let us take the greatest commandment to heart and live as Jesus taught us. Let us remain faithful to Jesus and trust in his everlasting word of truth and the hope of our salvation for those who believe in him and the resurrection.
Michael Isaacson
September 27, 2026
Dear friends in Christ grace and peace to you. The message for this week comes from
Matthew 21:23-32.
If you hadn’t noticed we are in the midst of an election cycle. If you hadn’t noticed that – well you likely have your head buried in the sand because we are bombarded constantly of late by political ads. We get them daily in the mail. We get them every few minutes on the radio or TV. Most of these ads aren’t even close to the truth. But what they seek is to tell us what we want to hear.
As we read the parable Jesus poses about the two sons we need to set the scene. This event happened at the beginning of Holy Week. Jesus, just the day before had ridden into Jerusalem on the back of a stolen donkey to the adoring praise of the crowds, he had driven the moneychangers out of the temple in a rage. In other words, he had spent the weekend causing holy trouble and as you might imagine, those in power, the religious leaders were furious. And so they ask him, who does he think he is? And so they set out to catch him in trap with his own words. But Jesus instead poses his own trap. Jesus tells this parable about the two sons whose father asked them to go work in vineyards. One said he wouldn’t but later decided for some reason that he should do as his father asked and went to work. The other said he would go to work but didn’t. Jesus’ question: “Which of the two did as his father asked?” One son told his father what he wanted to hear and the other did what his father asked of him. So, which of the two did what their father wanted? If we look at our own faith journeys, which of the two sons would we be? Do we say what we think Jesus wants to hear or do we do what we know Jesus wants us to do? Jesus warns that those whom we despise, those whom we look down on will likely see the kingdom of heaven while we will not and the answer why is clear, verse 32.
This gospel text might make us squirm just a bit; but it is intended to I think. We are meant to be uncomfortable, to be confronted and to ask which son am I. Am I the one who talks the talk? Or am I the one who says the wrong thing but finally sees the light, repents and does what he is asked to do anyhow?
What Jesus was driving at I think is that the religious groups stop their empty words. Jesus reminds us of the same today. We need to speak the truth. We need to stop saying what others including ourselves want to hear in order to justify ourselves. Jesus reminds us in this text that when we come clean, when we acknowledge that we are wrong that we have sinned and are truly sorry of that; we will be forgiven and the possibility of eternity in heaven is real for us. The question put before us is this: which of the two sons are we? Do we talk the talk or do we walk the talk?
May the peace of God be with all of you as you contemplate the questions before us.
Michael Isaacson
