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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.
Mark 1:9-15
Commentary
Lent 1B
Lent begins in the wilderness. And it’s not a terribly safe place to be all things being equal. Some years ago after a seminar I was attending in Tucson, Arizona, wrapped up around the noon hour, my wife and I decided to check out a nearby National Park. We took a big bottle of water…
Psalm 25:1-10
Commentary
Lent 1B
Samuel Johnson is reported to have once said something to the effect that we need more often to be reminded than instructed. And perhaps the RCL thinks so too since Psalm 25 was assigned a few months ago near the end of September. Probably what I wrote then—most of which is the content of this…
Mark 9:2-9
Commentary
Epiphany 6B
“This is my Son, whom I love. Look at him. Isn’t this display something! I mean, just get a load of this light show!” That’s what I’d expect God the Father to say. But he doesn’t. Why not? Isn’t it about the light show? We have seen such visual spectacles. They typically happen every year…
Psalm 50:1-6
Commentary
Epiphany 6B
Read just the first six verses of Psalm 50—as the Lectionary would have us do apparently—and it all looks grand. It is a powerful summation of the almighty power of Israel’s God. The imagery is majestic and even fierce. God sallies forth from Mount Zion cloaked in splendor with tempests and fires and bright flashes…
Mark 1:29-39
Commentary
Epiphany 5B
Usually we are far too casual about God’s kingdom. “Your kingdom come, your will be done” we say each time we intone the Lord’s Prayer, but when we finish our prayer and open our eyes, we do not see any such kingdom. It is difficult for us to conceive of a kingdom that is not…
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
Commentary
Epiphany 5B
Psalm 147 is a favorite of the Revised Common Lectionary. It seems to crop up at least once in each liturgical year and this is now the second time it has occurred in the still-new Year B cycle. This was the psalm—albeit with a slightly different configuration of verses—just one month ago on January 3. …
Mark 1:21-28
Commentary
Epiphany 4B
It was the Sabbath and so, naturally, the Jews of Capernaum went to the synagogue. Some of them went sleepily, others went with a great weariness following a busy week of work. Still others trekked over in a rather irritable mood for who knows why–maybe it had been no more than that they were out…
Psalm 111
Commentary
Epiphany 4B
Psalm 111 is a shook-up bottle of champagne when the cork flies off: it is effervescent, effusive, and thus it is delightfully over the top in most every way. It’s one of those poems that tempts one to plant tongue firmly in cheek to ask the psalmist, “Don’t hold back: tell us what you really…
Mark 1:14-20
Commentary
Epiphany 3B
If Mark were a Broadway play, then the first 13 verses are like the overture. As we come to verse 14, the curtain is about to go up on the drama and when it does we see . . . Galilee. We’re not in a bigger city like Jerusalem or Sepphoris or Rome. Nope, little…
Psalm 62:5-12
Commentary
Epiphany 3B
Just why the Lectionary begins this short psalm in verse 5 is something of a mystery. First of all, the first verse sounds the leitmotif of this brief poem. Secondly, if you don’t see the context of WHY the psalmist needs to find his rest in God alone—because the psalmist is being attacked and ridiculed…
About Scott Hoezee