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Luke 10.38-42
Proper 11C
As soon as I read this week’s text, I remembered the last person who was described as sitting at the feet of Jesus: the Gerasene man after the demons were exorcised (Luke 8.26-37). If there is a place to be that is good, it is at God’s feet. At his feet, we are people who…
Colossians 1:15-28
Proper 11C
My maternal grandfather had to drop out of school after completing the sixth grade in order to help his widowed mother provide for his ten siblings. Yet while his formal education was limited, my Grandpa Steenbergen remained a lifelong learner. His almost insatiable appetite for learning made him a voracious reader. One of the books…
Luke 10:25-37
Proper 10C
The story of the Good Samaritan is so ubiquitous that most of the world, Christian or not, knows it: we’ve used the title to describe people who put themselves in harm’s way or help out strangers in need. So how do we preach a text that is so familiar and is already being used in…
Colossians 1:1-14
Proper 10C
This is a fruitful season of the year in the world’s northern hemisphere. So my wife and I thoroughly enjoy watching freshly picked fruit and vegetables appear at our local farmstand. While most of our local strawberry plants have finished bearing fruit for the season, we’re now enjoying delicious peaches that have been harvested from…
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
Proper 9C
This Sunday brings us to the end of the Revised Common Lectionary’s very brief tour of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia. The epistle’s tone is among the strictest if not harshest of all the Pauline letters. Yet the apostle ends it with verse 18’s “The grace [charis*] of our Lord Jesus Christ be…
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Proper 9C
These words are utterly familiar and yet so few of us (myself included) actually take up the fullness of the call that Jesus gives to the seventy in this passage. Do we even take it up in part? Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem and he commissions pairs of his followers to go out…
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Proper 8C
Our three sons are taller than my relatively tall wife and me. They range in height from about 6’2 to 6’6. So it can be challenging for us to walk with them. When our sons are walking with purpose, they walk far faster than my wife and I do. They, in fact, must often slow…
Luke 9:51-62
Proper 8C
These two discipleship scenarios are an interesting pair. On the one hand, the first scene depicts matters post-decision to follow Jesus. In the other, we have a series of stumbling blocks to saying yes. Going a little deeper than connecting them as discipleship stories, these two scenarios say something about how we are disciples of…
Galatians 3:23-29
Proper 7C
Some advertisements thrive on presenting various “before-and-after” scenarios. Diet pills and plans like to place side by side pictures of people who were overweight before they went on their regimen but looked healthier after they completed it. Remodelers and others also employ pictures of kitchens before and after they did their work in order to…
Luke 8.26-39
Proper 7C
There is no doubt that this is a difficult passage to preach. Very few of us will feel like we have real world, modern experience with demon possession—and some of us might not even believe it’s a real thing in this age. For those of us who look to match trouble and grace in the…
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