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Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Proper 23C
When most preachers think of Jeremiah 29, they will focus on the oft-preached optimism of verses 10-14. Who hasn’t quoted those words to discouraged believers? “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” But the Lectionary doesn’t take…
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Proper 21C
After 29 chapters of gloom and doom with only an occasional glimmer of hope, we have come to Jeremiah’s Book of Consolation (chapters 30-33) in which some words of hope brighten the darkness of the present and the future. And here in this text, the words of hope become a deed of promise. It’s as…
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Proper 20C
By now your congregation is probably getting tired of sermons on Jeremiah. Truth be told, you may be as well. I mean, it’s just one message of darkness after another, sorrow upon sorrow with no hope. Why keep going when we know the Lectionary has scheduled 4 more in this litany of woe? (That’s 2…
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Proper 19C
If our last reading from Jeremiah 18:1-11 offered a note of hope (and it did with that fourfold repetition of the little word “if”), there seems to be absolutely no such note in this reading. Which makes it a very tough text to preach today. Oh, if all we do is explain what the text…
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Proper 18C
Who do you think you are? In our text for today, that question floats in the background. It’s a question that can be asked in a friendly manner, or as a challenge. In Jeremiah 18 it is asked in a challenging way. Who does God think he is? Answer- the Potter who “molds and shapes…
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Proper 17C
Last week our study of Jeremiah’s call to ministry gave us the historical setting of his work. Jeremiah prophesied during the last days of the southern Kingdom, after the northern Kingdom had been dragged away by the Assyrian armies. Now Judah was now facing the same fate at the hands of the newly emergent Babylonian…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Proper 16C
Sometimes it feels as though the Lectionary has a mild case of Alzheimer’s, because it seems to forget that we just talked about a certain text, just a few months ago. Now here it is again in the cycle of readings. That’s the case on this Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, deep in the heart of…
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Epiphany 6C
It is hard to see why this text was chosen by the Lectionary for this Sixth Sunday of Epiphany, except that its “blessed/cursed” formulary sounds much like Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, which is the Gospel reading for today (Luke 6:17-26 and see the reading from Psalm 1). But there’s nothing here about the revelation…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Epiphany 4C
As encouraging and upbeat as Nehemiah 8 was for preachers last week, Jeremiah 1 is more than a bit intimidating and negative. Nehemiah 8 depicted a preacher’s dream: a willing congregation that invited Ezra to open the Word of God, visibly demonstrated their ready hearts, listened intently to the Word and its interpretation, and responded…
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Advent 1C
Advent begins this year in burned out cities littered with dead bodies and in a devastated countryside where the deer and the antelope do not play (Jeremiah 33:4-5 and 10). After centuries of divine patience with Israel’s blatant covenant breaking, God has finally had it. This dark book of Jeremiah is God’s word of judgment…
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