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John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
Pentecost B
Well before Jesus ever preached his first sermon, there was John the Baptist. Long before Jesus ever uttered a parable or healed a blind person, there was John. John had come to prepare the way for his cousin Jesus. And when John preached about this great and coming One, he talked a lot about the…
John 17:6-19
Easter 7B
“You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.” That is a saying of my former colleague Ron Nydam. And he’s right. Worse yet, we all know that you cannot insure the happiness of your children, either. And that truth is married to another undeniable fact and that is this: the wider world in which we…
John 15:9-17
Easter 6B
Every week the sermon proclaims the Gospel. Yes, there is always a small-t preaching text (Psalm 23, John 15) on which the sermon is based. That’s the text projected onto the screen or printed in the church bulletin. But that text is always also in service of getting at the big-T Text that just is…
John 15:1-8
Easter 5B
When I was a pastor, I felt a sense of personal hurt whenever members transferred to other congregations, particularly when such transfers had nothing to do with a job relocation or a geographic move, as is sometimes the case. It was made worse by the fact that lots of such people never say good-bye, never…
John 10:11-18
Easter 4B
Today we don’t have shepherds much in the wider society. Today we have managers. But shepherds and managers are not the same. Whenever Jesus uses the pastoral image of a shepherd for himself, the point is nearly always the same: as the good shepherd of his sheep, he will risk his life and even temporarily…
John 20:19-31
Easter 2B
Doubting Thomas. Don’t you hate it when you make one mistake and it defines you from then on out?! One little mistake and Thomas becomes a morality lesson, a byword, a counter-example of anything we’d ever want to be. In truth, however, there is more than a little of Thomas in all of us. When…
John 12:20-33
Lent 5B
“Sir, we would see Jesus.” With all due apologies to the many pastors out there who need to be addressed as “Ma’am” and not “Sir,” those of us who preach in various churches have seen those words—lifted up out of John 12:21—emblazoned on pulpits, often on a small brass plate visible to the preacher alone. …
John 3:14-21
Lent 4B
John 3:16 may be the most famous Bible verse in the world but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to understand. As Frederick Dale Bruner points out in his commentary on The Gospel of John, this entire chapter is fraught with mystery. The story takes place at night, the meeting seems to be done somewhat in…
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