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Rev. Douglas Bratt is a Minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After serving Christian Reformed churches in Iowa, Michigan and Maryland, he retired in July, 2024. He enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, reading good literature, and watching televised sports in his free time.
Doug began writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website in 2006 and started writing weekly in 2012.
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Commentary
Proper 24C
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider I am not sure why the Revised Common Lectionary’s series of passages from Jeremiah skips around the way it does (one week Jeremiah 32 but then next time around it’s back to chapter 29 and now we leap to chapter 31) but I think I can understand why the…
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Commentary
Proper 23C
“You can’t go home again” is an old adage we sometimes address to people who aren’t where they long to be. Some of those “exiles” are homesick. Others have in some way grown too much to be fully comfortable where they grew up anymore. You might say, “You can’t go home again – yet!” is…
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Commentary
Proper 20C
Some Christians have traditionally thought of God as largely having virtually no emotion beyond anger at human sin. Yet such a notion is more Greek than biblical. The living God of the Bible is quite capable of feeling a wide variety of emotions, including great grief. There is great sadness in the Old Testament text…
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Commentary
Proper 19C
I suspect that were Jeremiah 4 not on the Lectionary schedule, few preachers and teachers would be willing to tackle it. After all, among other reasons, relatively few of us like to talk about the kind of divine judgment it so graphically describes. What’s more, its grim apocalyptic imagery resists easy understanding and application. Of…
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Commentary
Proper 18C
Almost all students work with at least a little clay while they’re in school. Relatively few of us, however, resemble the sophisticated potters of Jeremiah’s day. Some scholars, after all, compare their clay to today’s steel. Potters who were Jeremiah’s contemporaries made things like bricks, lamps and toys, as well as cooking pots and even…
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Commentary
Proper 17C
Diseases that sap memory, like Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, deeply frighten some people. After all, memory connects us to those we love and even in a way to ourselves. Without memory, we largely become alone in the world. Without memory, in many ways we no longer feel like we belong anywhere. Memory, however,…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Commentary
Proper 16C
God doesn’t try to keep God’s truth to himself. God doesn’t make God’s adopted sons and daughters try to guess what God is thinking. God likes to speak. However, many of God’s experiences with speaking directly to people haven’t turned out very well. The people at Sinai, for example, just couldn’t handle it. So when…
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Commentary
Proper 14C
As this is being written, grim news fills our media. Terrorist attacks. Police shootings. Ambushes of police officers. Civil wars and attempted coups. They remind us that while the text the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday may be nearly 3,000 years old, both its context and the sins it describes are nearly as contemporary as…
Hosea 11:1-11
Commentary
Proper 13C
Few issues seem to more deeply divide North American Christians than the final fate of God’s Jewish people. Will God save them en masse so that all Jews get to experience the peace of God’s new creation? Will the Holy Spirit convert some Jews to the Christian faith before Christ returns? Will God finally grant…
Hosea 1:2-10
Commentary
Proper 12C
Few parents seem to pick their children’s first names on the basis of their meaning anymore. It appears many pick names on the basis of their popularity or family history. Israelites, however, chose their children’s names because of their meanings. So, for example, Hannah names her son Samuel because she “asked the Lord for him.”…
About Doug Bratt