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Rev. Scott E. Hoezee (Hoe-zay) is an ordained pastor in the Christian Reformed Church in North America and has served two congregations. He was the pastor of Second Christian Reformed Church in Fremont, Michigan, from 1990-1993. From 1993-2005 he was the Minister of Preaching and Administration at Calvin CRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the spring of 2005 Scott accepted the Seminary’s offer to become the first Director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching. He has also been a member of the Pastor-Theologian Program sponsored by the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was pastor-in-residence in the fall of 2000. From 2001-2011 Scott served on the editorial board of Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought and was co-editor of that journal from 2005-2011. He blogs regularly for The Reformed Journal and along with Darrell Delaney is the co-host of the Groundwork radio and podcast program.
Rev. Hoezee is married to Rosemary Apol and they have two children. He enjoys birdwatching, snorkeling, and exploring the beauties and wonders of God’s great creation.
Rev. Hoezee is the author of several books including The Riddle of Grace (1996), Flourishing in the Land (1996), Remember Creation (1998), Speaking as One: A Look at the Ecumenical Creeds (1997), Speaking of Comfort: A Look at the Heidelberg Catechism (1998), and Proclaim the Wonder: Preaching Science on Sunday (2003), Grace Through Every Generation (2007), Actuality: Real Life Stories for Sermons That Matter (2014), and Why We Listen To Sermons (2018).
Scott Hoezee has been writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website since its inception in July 2005.
Psalm 119:129-136
Commentary
Proper 12A
A Bible reader could plunk down most anywhere in the Bible’s longest psalm and read pretty much the same kind of thing. For this week the Lectionary has chosen the 17th of Psalm 119’s 22 sections. Maybe as a nod toward the sheer length of this ode to God’s Law, each section corresponds to a…
Genesis 28:10-19a
Commentary
Proper 11A
It’s a shame the RCL cuts off this story in Genesis 28 before getting to the final 3 verses. Perhaps it would be a stretch to say those verses are the kicker but for certain they tell us a great deal about this rascal Jacob who is the focus of this middle part of Genesis. …
Psalm 86:11-17
Commentary
Proper 11A
In one of her novels Anne Tyler shows a woman named Maggie attending a funeral. In the course of the service the pastor reads a psalm, and Maggie found it to be a lovely poem full of warmth and hope. This was a relief to her since ordinarily she thought of the psalms as often…
Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-13
Commentary
Proper 10A
As I write this in July 2023, it feels at times like the world is on fire. Canada certainly has been on fire for a good bit in 2023. Canadian wildfires burning thousands of miles away have been blanketing with smoke cities as far away as Washington D.C. and also in the Midwest, giving us…
Genesis 25:19-34
Commentary
Proper 10A
Since the fulfilling of God’s covenant with Abraham hinged hugely on Abraham’s having descendants, you would think that in the childbearing department things would have gone more easily. And yet in story after story we deal with some level of infertility that becomes a deep source of concern and that God eventually is said to…
Psalm 145:8-14
Commentary
Proper 9A
The Lectionary carves out for us the middle third of this psalm and so although there are multiple (albeit overall related) themes in this poem, we will focus on verse 8 and how it sets the tone for the verses before us. “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” …
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Commentary
Proper 9A
Last week we looked at the exceedingly fraught and difficult story of the binding (and near sacrifice) of Isaac in Genesis 22. We noted how maddeningly spare that narrative is. The story cries out—nearly screams out—for more details. Instead we get a crisp, bare-bones narrative that dispatches with the whole terrible story in a short…
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18
Commentary
Proper 8A
Across its 52 verses, Psalm 89 covers a lot of ground. You would not sense that from the mere 8 verses the Lectionary has carved out for this lection but if you range beyond those verses, you will see a lot going on. There is praise and thanksgiving. There is a nod to the more…
Genesis 22:1-14
Commentary
Proper 8A
A mere 21 chapters into the Bible, the Holy Spirit was brave when it inspired the authors and redactors of Genesis to include a scandalous story such as the one we get in Genesis 22. As some have noted across the ages, here is a narrative with so many fraught elements—not the least being things…
Genesis 21:8-21
Commentary
Proper 7A
Whatever else a person may think about the Bible and about the Old Testament in particular, you have to say this: it’s honest. The text does not generally shy away from presenting less-than-savory facts about even some of the most important characters in the biblical story. It’s often the proverbial “warts and all” presentation. The…
About Scott Hoezee