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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.
Matthew 22:1-14
Commentary
Proper 23A
In a seminar on Matthew’s gospel, Tom Long pointed out that in Matthew, it’s never a good thing to be addressed as “friend.” Every time someone is called a friend in Matthew, what follows is not pleasant! Jesus himself was referred to as a “friend” by the religious authorities in Matthew 11 but it was…
Psalm 23
Commentary
Proper 23A
This is now at least the third time Psalm 23 has popped up in the Year A Lectionary and across also calendar 2020. The first time was during Lent and the second time a couple weeks after Easter. The first time was before we knew the world was going to get turned upside-down due to…
Matthew 21:33-46
Commentary
Proper 22A
******BOOM******* That’s probably not a word (or a sound effect) you associate with the parables of Jesus. But it’s more apt than you might think. Eugene Peterson famously said that parables are narrative time bombs. These are stealthy stories that steal into people’s hearts, confusing them initially, throwing them off balance for a while. After…
Psalm 80:7-15
Commentary
Proper 22A
“The Lord make his face to shine upon you . . .” That’s a line from the great Aaronic Benediction originally given to Israel in Numbers 6 and it is a line with which many Christians are exceedingly familiar on account of having heard it at the end of a church service so many times. …
Matthew 21:23-32
Commentary
Proper 21A
A while back I heard an old Jewish witticism in which someone asks his rabbi, “Why do rabbis always answer a question with another question?” to which the rabbi replied, “Why shouldn’t a rabbi answer a question with another question?” So also in Matthew 21: Jesus side-steps the question of the Pharisees as to the…
Psalm 25:1-9
Commentary
Proper 21A
Samuel Johnson is reported to having once said something to the effect that we need more often to be reminded than instructed. Intuitively probably most of us have a pretty solid sense of what he meant. It’s not that I don’t know the basics of knife safety when I am slicing and dicing vegetables in…
Matthew 20:1-16
Commentary
Proper 20A
Fred Craddock once observed that there are two kinds of sermons that are difficult to hear: bad sermons and good sermons. I think we know what he means on the latter. Because sometimes the good sermon is the one that gets under people’s skin and bothers them. Sometimes we preachers even want this, which is…
Psalm 145:1-8
Commentary
Proper 20A
Yogi Berra is the one who famously coined the phrase “It’s déjà vu all over again” but of late it is the Revised Common Lectionary that seems to be making us live that out. As I looked at the Psalm selection for the Year A Proper 20 or the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, I knew…
Matthew 18:21-35
Commentary
Proper 19A
Matthew 18 reminds us of a core Christian conviction: Forgiveness is something we live, something we embody, every moment. But that only stands to reason. After all, the very foundation on which our identity as Christians is built is nothing less than the death and resurrection of Jesus and the flood of gracious forgiveness which…
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Commentary
Proper 19A
It is difficult to carve up Psalm 103, though the Lectionary does its best to try doing so anyway. There really is no reason to not preach on the entire Psalm, and that is pretty much the direction my commentary will go as well. What impresses you most of all about this well-known and lyric…
About Scott Hoezee