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Hosea 11:1-11
Proper 13C
Marcion was the first to do it, but surely not the last. In the middle of the second century after Christ, Marcion taught that the God of the Old Testament was different than the Father of Jesus Christ. The God of the Old Testament was angry, violent, judgmental, and not worth following if you were…
Psalm 138
Proper 12C
Psalm 138 has features shared by many psalms of praise. There are vows to praise God. There are references to the poet’s motivations for praising God. There is the ardent hope that eventually all the earth and all the kings and peoples of the earth will learn to praise Israel’s God as well. Like most…
Hosea 1:2-10
Proper 12C
How on earth can you preach this strange and sordid text? Well, ask yourself this question. How do you get someone to stop doing something dangerous when they simply won’t listen to you? The other day my youngest grandson, a daring dynamo of perpetual motion, had entered a goofy phase and was riding one of…
Psalm 15
Proper 11C
Perhaps you have seen variations on this but people sometimes joke about the over-the-top list of qualifications you can sometimes see in church advertisements for a new pastor. “We are seeking a pastor with deep biblical knowledge, superb communications skills, a well-tuned pastoral heart, an ability to relate well to the youth and someone who…
Amos 8:1-12
Proper 11C
A delightfully humorous Lutheran pastor in Arizona has trained his congregation how to respond to his annual stewardship sermon. When he announces that sermon, they say in loud unison what all congregants think when they hear that it is stewardship Sunday. “Oh no!” That will undoubtedly be your congregation’s response when you tell them that…
Psalm 25:1-10
Proper 10C
In his book years ago The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom lamented the decline of true education in this nation’s colleges and universities. Bloom decried the way many professors had dispensed with the traditional canons of literature in favor of whatever was trendy and vogue. He mourned the fact that critical thinking and…
Amos 7:7-17
Proper 10C
Your average preacher will not choose this testy passage from Amos to preach on today. Amos is not a book to read if you are in need of easy encouragement. I cannot imagine the perpetually smiling Joel Osteen preaching on this text. Maybe you cannot imagine yourself doing that either. I mean, what can this…
Psalm 66:1-9
Proper 9C
A bit cheeky. A goodly dose of chutzpah. A tad forward. You have to admire the psalmists who on many occasions are not the least bit adverse to ordering the whole world to praise the God of Israel. Make no mistake: all those “Praise the Lord” lines in so many of the psalms are in…
2 Kings 5:1-14
Proper 9C
This story has more interesting characters than a novel by Charles Dickens—stormin’ Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, this brave little girl kidnapped from Israel and enslaved, the clueless King of Israel, the greedy Gehazi, and, of course, the unflappable prophet Elisha. It’s a seemingly straightforward story about a little girl, a muddy river, and…
Psalm 16
Proper 8C
Psalm 16 presents the words of a person whose life appears to be going swimmingly. Everything is working for this poet. These look to be the words of a winner, of a person who was born sunny-side up as a confirmed optimist. And I suspect we’ve all met people like this. I also suspect that…
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