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Philippians 3:4b-14
Proper 22A
What happens to your life after you encounter something so shocking, it both retrospectively and prospectively changes everything you ever knew or thought you knew? In some ways, Paul’s words in Philippians 3 are an extended answer to such a question. As Paul begins this third chapter, it quickly becomes apparent that like so many…
Matthew 21:23-32
Proper 21A
A while back I heard an old Jewish witticism in which someone asks his rabbi, “Why do rabbis always answer a question with another question?” to which the rabbi replied, “Why shouldn’t a rabbi answer a question with another question?” So also in Matthew 21: Jesus side-steps the question of the Pharisees as to the…
Philippians 2:1-13
Proper 21A
I have heard a certain story several times, each time involving different people so I have no idea if it ever really happened to anyone or not. But one version of it that I heard was from the old “Tonight Show” starring Johnny Carson. The famous singer Frank Sinatra was a guest and in the…
Matthew 20:1-16
Proper 20A
Sometimes the good sermon is the one that gets under people’s skins and bothers them. Sometimes we preachers even want this, which is why it can be disappointing in its own way some weeks to have people at the church door say “I really enjoyed that sermon, pastor!” You want to reply “I was hoping…
Philippians 1:21-30
Proper 20A
They say a death sentence has a way of focusing the mind, and certainly the Apostle Paul could attest to this. He is in prison as he writes to the Philippians and even though he just went out of his way to assure the Philippians both that he was doing fine and that even the…
Matthew 18:21-35
Proper 19A
Matthew 18 reminds us of a core Christian conviction: Forgiveness is something we live, something we embody, every moment. But that only stands to reason. After all, the very foundation on which our identity as Christians is built is nothing less than the death and resurrection of Jesus and the flood of gracious forgiveness which…
Romans 14:1-12
Proper 19A
As we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, inevitably any number of people have been asking whether the issues half-a-millennium ago are still relevant today. Some even wonder if there has not been enough reform in the Catholic Church to warrant and undoing of all that Martin Luther kicked off back on All Hallowed’s…
Matthew 18:15-20
Proper 18A
In some segments of the Christian church, “Matthew 18” has become rather like “Miranda Rights.” As anyone who has ever watched police dramas on TV know, when arresting a suspect for any reason, the arresting officer is supposed to “read him his rights,” which is a set series of statements that most of us have…
Romans 13:8-14
Proper 18A
“Nothing good happens after midnight” the old bromide says, and you sense it’s a sentiment with which the Apostle Paul would agree. As Paul continues in what is sometimes called the “application section” of Romans, he addresses yet again the question of how we now need to behave and live given our having become all…
Matthew 16:21-28
Proper 17A
“In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time.” That is a hymn lyric that many Christians know. But the notion of the cross towering over various temporal “wrecks” gained new poignancy when we saw on the news—and for those of us who went to Lower Manhattan in the months after…
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