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Luke 7:11-17
Proper 5C
The incident in Nain recorded in Luke 7:11-17 is like one of many gospel snapshots we find in the four gospels. At the end of the fourth gospel, the Evangelist John flatly stated that Jesus did far more than anyone had ever written down. It seems that sometimes the evangelists threw in this or that…
Galatians 1:11-24
Proper 5C
It’s not easy to preach on a text that in some ways resembles a person’s resume. Most of the verses in this Year C Lectionary reading are taken up with a brief autobiographical sketch of what happened to Paul and where he traveled in the period after Jesus confronted him on the Damascus Road. Let’s…
Luke 7:1-10
Proper 4C
The deeper you get into this brief story, the better the anonymous (and never-seen) centurion looks. First we hear this Roman higher-up has a sick servant, and just this far into the story you could read that as meaning that this man has a piece of property who is not performing well. To certain upper…
Galatians 1:1-12
Proper 4C
Good thing the Galatian Christians did not have access to Paul’s other letters. Because if they could read something like what we now call Philippians or Ephesians or almost any of the other dozen letters from Paul we have in the New Testament, surely they would be tempted to sing that song from Sesame Street:…
John 16:12-15
Trinity Sunday C
Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus talk as much about the Holy Spirit as here in John 16. Indeed, as Frederick Dale Bruner notes, the Spirit receives, at best, modest treatment and attention in the Synoptic Gospels. But then, that seems to be true of the New Testament generally. It seems that the people who…
Romans 5:1-5
Trinity Sunday C
We forget it most of the time when we read Romans but the fact is that Paul was writing to a group of Christians for whom hope was no doubt in short supply. They lived in the heart of Roman darkness, right under the nose of the Caesar himself. They lived in an empire in…
John 14:8-17 (25-27)
Pentecost C
This is our Pentecost text, of course, but the setting in John 14 takes us back to that last night before Jesus died. What that means is that even though this text ends up talking about peace and of Jesus telling the disciples “do not be afraid” (Jn. 14:27), let’s just state the merely obvious…
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost C
What’s the best way to celebrate a birthday? How should one celebrate the birthday of important people or institutions? In fact, how should we celebrate what some have called the “birthday of the Church” that is Pentecost? When we celebrate our sons’ birthdays, we sometimes recall stories of their birth. Of how one was born…
Romans 8:14-17
Pentecost C
“She’s a free spirit” we sometimes say of a certain person. “He exudes a spirit of kindness” we might say of someone else. Or “She has a fiercely independent spirit about her.” And what we mean in every situation is that most people “breathe” or exude a certain ambiance, a certain energy or vibe or…
John 17:20-26
Easter 7C
One of the most creative preachers I know who always manages to approach texts in a very fresh way is Debbie Blue. For this text, she reminds us that biblically “glory doesn’t shine, it bleeds.” You can hear that sermon by clicking on this link. What does Jesus mean by all his talk here about…
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