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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 85:8-13
Commentary
Proper 10B
To be honest, Psalm 85 is a little all over the place. The first four verses reflect a time when God forgave Israel for some transgressions and restored them. But then the next set of verses seems to indicate Israel went backwards, sinned again, and so found itself under the wrath of God again. And…
Mark 6:1-13
Commentary
Proper 9B
This lection from Mark 6 provides a curious set of contrasts as well as a wonderful irony. First, we twice read the word “amazed” here: first in verse 2 and then again in verse 6. Jesus is doing what he’s been doing ever since Mark 1 and 2 when he began his public ministry of…
Psalm 123
Commentary
Proper 9B
If the entirety of this short psalm were embedded inside a larger psalm, then at least verse 2 is the kind of verse I would expect the Lectionary to leapfrog over. As I have noted often in these sermon commentaries here on the Center for Excellence in Preaching, the Lectionary likes to skip over words…
Mark 5:21-43
Commentary
Proper 8B
Jesus was someone people wanted to touch and be touched by. But in the case of Jesus, such touches were about far more than the people’s desire to make contact with somebody famous. Jesus’ touch was said to have healing powers. As we can see in this story, some had concluded that Jesus was a…
Psalm 30
Commentary
Proper 8B
Psalm 30 is almost singularly upbeat in its incessant exaltations of God. But the discerning reader and preacher will notice that underneath all this praising there has been a history of pain. References are made to having gone down to the depths, to sinking into the pit, to enemies eager to gloat over the psalmist’s…
Mark 4:35-41
Commentary
Proper 7B
For fishermen ostensibly accustomed to being out on the water—presumably in all kinds of weather—the disciples sure panicked over the weather often enough in the gospels. The only calm one in all those storms-at-sea situations was the land-lubber carpenter from Nazareth. So also here in Mark 4: with just a word, Jesus, who had not…
Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
Commentary
Proper 7B
The Lectionary assigns Psalm 107 now and again—the most recent time was just earlier this year in March—but chops it up somewhat differently each time. It never assigns the whole psalm, even though thematically it all hangs together. Because if you read the entire psalm, you will discover it is a curious historical retrospective on…
Mark 4:26-34
Commentary
Proper 6B
Like the message they convey, so also the two parables in this part of Mark 4 are mighty small. This is no Parable of the Prodigal Son that takes up the better part of a whole chapter. Jesus manages to convey something about the smallness of the kingdom via two stories that are themselves pretty…
Psalm 92:1-4,12-15
Commentary
Proper 6B
What’s in verses 5-11? This lection from Psalm 92 is one of many RCL texts that clearly skips a certain section of a passage, forcing the curious Bible student to wonder why a chunk gets leapfrogged over. Psalm 92 is hardly too long for a single reading or sermon. Yet the Lectionary deletes almost exactly…
Mark 3:20-35
Commentary
Proper 5B
“You can’t see the forest for the trees.” The idea behind this saying is that sometimes we become so wrapped up in one thing that we lose sight of the larger picture. Sometimes this can be humorous. So on a TV show you may see a man who is obsessed with getting his tie knotted…
About Scott Hoezee