One of the darkest secrets of Christianity in America is that we are losing our kids. We hide it with paintball trips and Christian outings to baseball games, but it’s true. And it’s nothing new. It has been happening for more than fifty years. It is still happening right at this very moment.

Worse than that, it’s not just happening to our kids. It’s happening to our college students and senior citizens. It’s happening to newly married couples and those in mid-life crisis.

Christians are losing faith. Christians are falling away. Christians who were once on fire for the Lord are burning out.

If someone would ask me to name the two most challenging places for a preacher to preach, I think I would say that preaching at the Seminary chapel in front of my classmates and professors was tough. And then preaching in front of my home congregation was equally tough. A key challenge in both places is that those listening might not see me first as a preacher.

At the Seminary, those listening could be tempted to see only a student or a classmate (whose foibles and failings they know quite well). In my home congregation, they could see only the little boy they watched gumming Cheerios in the pews.

She was alone and afraid. She felt ostracized from the church and rejected by her family. She could not have a husband. She could not have children. Her bleeding issue defined her in society.

She is alone and afraid. She feels ostracized from the church and rejected by her family. She doesn’t want a husband. She has to find a donor in order to have children. She defines herself by her sexuality in society.

And how we react to and treat each woman defines us as Christians.

Years ago, a former Sunday School teacher in my previous congregation called me up to say, “Pastor, I want to get a divorce.” Before I could pick up my jaw from the floor, she added, “I’m not happy in my marriage and God wants me to be happy.” That is mysticism. Mysticism is putting feelings over God’s facts.

Today is Trinity Sunday. It’s a day to take a big, deep breath and confess the incomprehensible – God as one divine Being in three Divine Persons, a Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity. Or as we say, Triune. It sure is confusing, isn’t it? We were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We begin our worship in the name of the Triune God and we end our worship with the Benediction of a threefold blessing of our Trinity. We confess our faith in the Trinity in our Creeds and sing of His majesty in the songs “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Glory Be to the Father,” yet we never come any closer to wrapping our minds around this concept. Something you can’t rationalize or harmonize, you can only believe and confess.

Look, there are the bones of hands that were once creative in building castles and spaceships with Legos. Now they are creative in finding new ways to get drugs into the body. There are the bones of hands that once held Barbies. Now they are holding a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

Can these bones live?

“The Avengers: Age of Ultron” is the box office smash of the year. I went to the movies this week with my wife on a date … but also to do research.

The Avengers are an intriguing Superhero team. It is a team made up of several strong personalities and heroes with a variety of skills. In the movies, Nick Fury is the driving force behind assembling the team. He wants a group of extraordinary people to fight the battles that can’t be fought by the average person. In the comics, there is a quote from the 70’s issues which summarizes the formation and purpose of the team:

How do you deal with someone who feels their sins deeply?

I have met with young ladies who are scared because they are still in high school and now they are pregnant. She has no idea what she is going to do, how her parents are going to react, if the members in her church are going to shun her.

I have ministered to older men who have had an affair. He doesn’t know what to do. If he tells his wife, it will destroy her. If he keeps it hidden, it will eat him up inside.

You are fleeing persecution in your home country and trying to find safety for your family in a new land. The boat trip across the Mediterranean Sea is dangerous enough. But on this trip there are fifteen Muslim men who are bent on murdering Christians. This group of thugs approaches you. They ask you one simple question, “Are you a Christian?”

How do you respond?

On this Sunday where the Gospel speaks about our Good Shepherd, our first lesson containing the words of St. Peter and the second lesson containing the words of St. Paul, speak of the roles of the under-shepherd – your pastor.