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John 15:1-8
Easter 5B
Comments and Observations 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…
John 10:11-18
Easter 4B
Comments and Observations: Today we don’t have shepherds 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…
John 20:19-31
Easter 2B
Comments and Observations: 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…
John 12:20-33
Lent 5B
Comments and Observations “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 many pulpits, often on a small brass plate visible…
John 3:14-21
Lent 4B
Comments and Observations 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…
John 2:13-22
Lent 3B
Comments, Observations, and Questions We are impressed very often by all the wrong things. In John 2 everyone was impressed with the physical Temple. It had been undergoing construction for over four decades already and was not even finished. It reminds me of the Ken Follett novel The Pillars of the Earth that narrates the…
John 1:43-51
Epiphany 2B
Sample Sermon Note: I happened to make a new sermon on this text recently and preached it at a church in my area on January 4 and so for this week I am taking a break from the usual notes on the text to show how on this occasion I assembled those same notes into…
Born Again
Sermon on John 3 by Samuel Wells at Duke University Chapel on February 17, 2008.
I See Blind People
Sermon on John 9 by Laura Truax at LaSalle Street Church in Chicago on March 6, 2005. Used by permission of the author.
Seeing is Believing
Sermon for Easter on John 20 by William Willimon at Duke University Chapel on April 11, 2004. Used by permission of Duke Chapel and the author.
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