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John 20:1-18
Easter Day A
In a recent article on preaching in these days of COVID-19 isolation and fear, I suggested that despite the sadness we are all feeling at not being able to gather for Easter services in 2020, we don’t want to preach downer sermons. We don’t want our own disappointment at not being able to preach to…
Acts 10:34-43
Easter Day A
In this (Old Testament?) reading, we hear not the original story about how Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified by Roman soldiers, but a retelling of that story to a Roman soldier. If you want to emphasize the fact of the resurrection in your Easter sermon, choose the Gospel readings for your text. …
Colossians 3:1-4
Easter Day A
On that glorious first Easter morning an angel shocked people by insisting that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Two thousand years later an aging apostle may no less shock Colossians 3:1-4’s proclaimers and hearers by insisting that God also raised us with Christ. After all, if it’s sometimes hard to believe that Jesus…
Matthew 21:1-11
Palm Sunday A
Liturgy of the Palms “Who is this?” Few questions are more important than this one Matthew reports the “whole city” of Jerusalem asks on the first Palm Sunday. Yet the answer to that question is even more important. The Holy Spirit inspires Matthew to answer, “This is Jesus.” But just who is this Jesus? Matthew…
Matthew 26:14-27:66
Palm Sunday A
Some years back I heard what was reported to have been among the final gasping words of the famous singer Frank Sinatra. Sinatra’s signature song was “My Way” in which he crooned that when looking back on his life, although he had a few regrets, in the end “I did it my way.” But at…
John 11:1-45
Lent 5A
Sample Sermon: “Just about Everywhere” : In one of her short stories the writer Annie Dillard has a scene in which a family is sadly gathered at a grave to commit a loved one’s body to the earth. At one point the minister intones the familiar words from I Corinthians 15, “Where, O Death, is…
Romans 8:6-11
Lent 5A
Romans 8: is there a better loved, more soaring passage in the New Testament than this one? There is much here to linger over, savor, celebrate. The Lectionary carves out only six verses but the truth is, Romans 8:1-17 form such a logical—and also lyric—unit that I would suggest reading all 17 verses, and indeed,…
John 9:1-41
Lent 4A
Sample Sermon: Now I See: It was probably the big goofy grin on his face that kept some folks from recognizing him. Oh, they’d seen him for years. But rarely had they seen him at eye level. Instead they’d long ago grown accustomed to seeing this hapless man sitting, legs akimbo, on the ground near…
Ephesians 5:8-14
Lent 4A
Few Lectionary texts begin more mysteriously than this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. “You were once darkness,” Paul reminds Ephesus’s Christians, “but now you are light in the Lord” (8). The apostle seems to assert that God’s adopted sons and daughters don’t just naturally live in spiritual darkness. We naturally are spiritual darkness. God doesn’t just summon…
John 4:5-42
Lent 3A
Across the centuries people always gather where beverages are available. Even today we sometimes call a restaurant or lounge our favorite “watering hole” because it’s the place where we go after work to unwind with our friends over a glass of wine or something. In fact, even the phrase “scuttlebutt” has similar origins from the…
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