The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost fell on September 6. It was our first Sunday back on the fall schedule. Through the summer we worship once, at 9:00. Now there are two services again, 8:00 and 10:30. The Christian Education Hour meets between them at 9:15. Pastor Christopher Ramstad said at both services that it felt good to be back at the normal hour. Then he admitted that finishing Bible class right before the late service leaves him thinking about lunch.
This was a first Sunday, which at Immanuel means Communion. We commune on the first and third Sundays of the month. The liturgy was Divine Service, Setting One. We sang it out of the red hymnal in the pew racks, the Lutheran Service Book. If you have never been here, the short version is simple. Most of the service is sung. The page numbers are announced. Nobody minds if you follow a beat behind. There is more detail on our What to Expect page, and every service is on our live stream.
The readings and the hymns
The appointed readings ran along one line all morning. Ezekiel is made a watchman and told that silence has a cost. Paul, in Romans 13, works through what we owe the people we live among. He names one debt that is never paid off: owe no one anything, except to love each other. Then twenty verses of Matthew 18, which is a long Gospel to read standing up.
The hymns did the same work. We opened with Children of the Heavenly Father, LSB 725, which is a hymn about being carried rather than climbing. Chief of Sinners Though I Be, LSB 611, came just before the sermon. At the distribution we sang Baptismal Waters Cover Me and God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It, LSB 616 and 594, and then Thy Strong Word, LSB 578. We went out on Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, LSB 686.
The Hymn of the Day, sung just before the sermon, puts it in six lines:
Chief of sinners though I be,
LSB 611, stanza 4
Christ is all in all to me;
All my wants to Him are known,
All my sorrows are His own.
He sustains the hidden life
Safe with Him from earthly strife.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” — the sermon on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Ramstad started in the school parking lot. He and DCE Jason Glaskey both volunteered for the new afternoon pickup pattern before finding out it came with a uniform: a bright yellow vest, a wide sun hat, and an orange stick that lights up and flashes. The hat, he pointed out, is the same one Bobby Banana wore at Vacation Bible School. September in Joplin has been near a hundred degrees, and he described the heat coming up through the soles of his shoes. One car has started rolling down its window to hand out a jug of water, a plastic cup, and fruit snacks. The whole point of standing out there, he said, is keeping the students safe.
Keeping is the oldest question in Scripture. God asks Cain where his brother is, and Cain answers with a question of his own. Am I my brother’s keeper? The offerings had been brought, one accepted and one not, and it had not sat well. Cain rose up against his brother, which is the way Scripture describes a man putting himself in the higher position. Matthew 18 is twenty verses long, and Pastor Ramstad said plainly that it could make four decent sermons. He wanted to pull one thread through all of it instead. The thread was humility.
The disciples ask who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and it is worth noticing that the question is theirs. They argue about it on the road. They ask for the seats at his right and his left. Did they expect him to name one of them? Instead Jesus calls over a small child, and the Greek means small, a child who cannot do anything yet and depends on his parents to live. That is the picture of greatness we were given. You are the helpless one Jesus came for, and you depend on his forgiveness and his perfection rather than your own. He showed them what he meant with a towel around his waist and his hands on their feet, and by eating with tax collectors when nobody else would.
Whoever causes one of these little ones to sin would be better off with a millstone around his neck and the sea underneath him. Sin is dangerous, all of it, and the sinful self is very good at whispering that our own is the exception. Pastor Ramstad asked why a particular sin holds on, and answered it: because it makes you feel powerful, in control, like the greatest person in the room. He let the question sit there about what that costs the person next to you.
There are a hundred sheep in the picture Jesus draws. Pastor Ramstad has been to the county fair recently and seen pens of five or six sheep that cannot get along, all of them shoving toward the front. Now picture a hundred. Who in that pen notices the one that is gone? The shepherd does. He leaves the ninety-nine on the mountain, finds the one, and comes home rejoicing. Then Pastor Ramstad turned it on us: instead of being our brother’s keeper, sometimes we keep our brother out. We are glad to welcome someone back as soon as they get their life in order, or trim off the one sin that happens to bother us.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”
Matthew 18:15 (ESV)
Go to him alone first. Note what Jesus does not say, Pastor Ramstad added: go ambush him. If that fails, bring one or two, and not people you have already recruited to your side. Bring someone neutral who wants the thing repaired. Then the church, and its pastors, who are trained to tell Law from Gospel to a stubborn heart. And if he still will not listen, treat him as a gentile and a tax collector, which sounds like the end until you ask how Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors. Matthew wrote this Gospel. Matthew was a tax collector. Forgiveness comes from a low position, not a high one, which is why it flows from the cross before it flows from us. When the body of Christ works the way Jesus describes, Pastor Ramstad said, it is as though he speaks right over the top of us: my hands, my feet, my voice speaking forgiveness, my heart wanting the lost ones home. In Jesus, you are your brother’s keeper.
The children’s message
DCE Jason Glaskey brought a trophy up front, a big one, heavy enough that he needed help holding it. It was for the greatest person in the room. So who gets it? The children nominated candidates and so did the congregation, with some encouragement. Mom and dad, because they take care of you every day. The pastor, because he is the best dressed man in the building and he brings us Jesus every week. Mrs. Lingenfelder, for the organ. The tallest person. The richest person. Mrs. Glaskey, for being the smartest. At the early service Cameron and Cody held the cup while their baby sister Morgan sat nearby, and at 10:30 one girl made an honest case for herself before Kyrie said Jesus.
Nobody won the trophy. That was the point. The greatest in the kingdom is the one who is like a small child, and a baby has not won a race or made any money or told anybody about Jesus. She lies there and is loved. Matthew 18:4 says whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and Psalm 32, which we had already read together that morning, says blessed is the one whose sins are forgiven. We do not win the prize here. It is handed to us, because the one who already won everything gives his gifts away.
After the service
Confirmation starts this week. Classes meet Wednesdays at 5:00 in the Fellowship Hall. They are for sixth through eighth graders. Any high schooler who has not been confirmed yet is welcome too. The new member class meets Thursday nights at 6:30. It is not too late to join, and long-time members are welcome to sit in for a night.
Two things are coming that put the church and the school in the same room. VIP Day at Martin Luther School is Friday, September 18. Most students have a grandparent nearby. Some do not. The school would gladly match a member with a child for the morning. The Better Together Breakfast is Sunday, September 20, in the gym. Sunday School and Bible classes pause that day. The Martin Luther School students sing at the 10:30 service.
Further out, the church picnic is Sunday, October 11, at Landreth Park. Worship moves outdoors that morning at 10:00. There are no services in the sanctuary that day.
There was also a call for youth meal sponsors. Someone signed up between the two services, which is about the best outcome a Sunday announcement can have. Lutheran Women in Mission is collecting Thrivent clean water kits. One kit supplies clean water for thirty-six people for a year.
Adult Bible class is in Exodus 8, in the middle of the plagues. The middle and high school class over in the youth building is in Exodus too. They are already through the Red Sea and headed for the mountain. Pastor Ramstad noted, with some amusement, that this puts the adults behind. Everything on the fall calendar is on our events calendar.
Read it again this week
The three readings, in the English Standard Version we read and print:
- Ezekiel 33:7–9 — the watchman, and what it costs to say nothing.
- Romans 13:1–10 — what we owe the people around us, ending in the one debt that stays open.
- Matthew 18:1–20 — the child, the millstone, the lost sheep, and the brother you go to alone.
Three questions from Sunday’s sermon:
- Cain asked whether he was his brother’s keeper in order to get out of an answer. Where do you use the same question that way?
- Pastor Ramstad asked why a particular sin keeps its grip, and said it is because the sin makes you feel like the greatest person in the room. What does that cost the person next to you?
- Who is the one sheep out of the hundred that you have in mind? What would it take for you to go alone, first, and not bring an audience?
From the catechism: Luther’s explanation of the Eighth Commandment is the shortest summary of Matthew 18 anyone has written. We are not to betray or slander our neighbor, but to defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way. Luther’s Small Catechism is free to read online.
Last week was the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, the last 9:00 service of the summer. For another Sunday where Jesus said something that sounded harsh and turned out to be mercy, see the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. Earlier services are in the sermon archive.
In the service — Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 6, 2026
| Liturgy | Divine Service, Setting One (Lutheran Service Book), with Holy Communion |
| First Reading | Ezekiel 33:7–9 |
| Epistle | Romans 13:1–10 |
| Holy Gospel | Matthew 18:1–20 |
| Psalm | Psalm 32 |
| Hymn of Invocation | LSB 725 — Children of the Heavenly Father |
| Hymn of the Day | LSB 611 — Chief of Sinners Though I Be |
| Distribution Hymns | LSB 616 — Baptismal Waters Cover Me; LSB 594 — God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It; LSB 578 — Thy Strong Word |
| Hymn to Depart | LSB 686 — Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing |
| Creed | Nicene |
| Preacher | Rev. Christopher Ramstad |
| Children’s Message | DCE Jason Glaskey |
| Also in the service | Confession and Absolution; the Prayer of the Church; the return to the 8:00 and 10:30 schedule |
Questions about worship at Immanuel
What is Divine Service, Setting One?
It is one of five musical settings of the Divine Service in the Lutheran Service Book. The words follow the same historic order every week. The music changes. Setting One is the first of them, and it is sung.
Do I need to know when to stand or what to say?
No. The page numbers are announced and the words are printed and on the screens. Standing and sitting are marked in the book. Following a step behind is normal, and nobody is watching.
What time are services at Immanuel?
From September through May we worship at 8:00 and 10:30. The Christian Education Hour meets between them at 9:15. In the summer there is one service, at 9:00, with classes at 10:15.
When is Communion?
The first and third Sundays of the month, at every service. Immanuel belongs to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. We commune together with those who share our confession of the faith. If you are visiting and would like to commune, please speak with Pastor Ramstad before the service. He is glad to talk.
What is the Christian Education Hour?
It is the hour between services when everyone studies. Adults meet in the Fellowship Hall, children have Sunday School, and the middle and high school students meet in the youth building. The adult and youth classes are both in Exodus right now.
What does a watchman have to do with any of this?
Ezekiel is told that if he sees danger and says nothing, the silence is on him. That is the same responsibility Jesus hands his disciples in Matthew 18. You are given something to say to the person next to you.
About Immanuel Lutheran Church
Immanuel Lutheran Church is a congregation of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod at 2616 S Connecticut Ave, Joplin, Missouri. We worship at 8:00 and 10:30 from September through May, with the Christian Education Hour at 9:15. We are also the home of Martin Luther School, serving children from age three through eighth grade. Jesus Brings Life. Meet Him Here.