Second Sunday after Pentecost — June 7, 2026

What this episode covers

Immanuel Lutheran Church Second Sunday after Pentecost — June 7, 2026 On the Second Sunday after Pentecost, the congregation of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Joplin, Missouri gathered for its first combined summer service and heard a searching question from the prophet Hosea: where is your place? Pastor Christopher Ramstad preached on Hosea 5:15 — “I will return again to my place” — and the Holy Gospel of the calling of Matthew (Matthew 9:9–13), where Jesus seeks out a despised tax collector and declares, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” It is the heart of what this congregation confesses every week — Jesus Brings Life. Meet Him Here. Second Sunday after Pentecost — Worship Broadcast at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Joplin, Missouri (9:00 AM summer service) The Second Sunday after Pentecost: Where Is Your Place? “Where is your place?” Pastor Ramstad opened the sermon with that simple question. We tend to think about place in terms of location — the spot where the TV remote belongs, where the phone charges overnight, our seat in the pew. But Hosea 5:15 turns the question toward God: “I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.” Where, in our lives, is God’s place? Communion chalice and liturgy for Holy Communion at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Joplin, Missouri — where Word and Sacrament meet the congregation each Lord’s Day. Hosea was sent to the northern kingdom of Israel — Ephraim — in the days of King Jeroboam II, to announce that judgment was coming. God painted the covenant as a marriage, and His people as an unfaithful bride who had chased after other gods and other securities: golden calves, false idols, foreign alliances, kings raised up to replace the King of kings. In Hosea 6 the people say the right words: “Come, let us return to the Lord.” But God answers, “Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” Their devotion was fleeting — here one moment, gone the next. So God speaks the word that Jesus Himself would later quote: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.” The sermon pressed the question home. We do the very same thing. We grant God access to an hour on Sunday, a prayer before meals, a devotional minute or two — and then try to keep Him out of the rest: our free time, our hobbies, our finances, our careers, our relationships, the way we parent, the friends we keep. The world around us works to keep God out of identity, marriage, and even life itself. But the God who knit us together in our mother’s womb cannot be compartmentalized or contained. He comes as the Judge of the living and the dead — of all of life, not part of it. The Law of Hosea hews and slays us, calling us to repentance and to seek the Father’s face once more. “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6 (ESV) Scripture Readings for the Second Sunday after Pentecost The lectionary appointed for the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5, Series A) sets the call to repentance beside the grace that answers it. The Old Testament Reading from Hosea 5:15–6:6 sounds God’s longing for His wayward people and His desire for steadfast love rather than empty sacrifice. The Epistle from Romans 4:13–25 lifts up Abraham, who received the promise “not through the law but through the righteousness of faith,” trusting the God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” And the Holy Gospel from Matthew 9:9–13 brings us to the tax booth where Jesus calls Matthew, then sits down to eat with tax collectors and sinners — the living picture of the mercy God desires. Jesus Calls Sinners: The Calling of Matthew If Hosea shows us the Judge, the Gospel shows us the Savior. Jesus was passing through Capernaum when He saw Matthew — a tax collector, an enemy of his own people, a man working for Rome and lining his own pockets. A wanted man whom nobo