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Romans 8:12-25
Proper 11A
I have an acquaintance who not long after she graduated from college had to destroy all of her credit cards. She did so because she’d become so deeply indebted to the company that had eagerly given her those cards that she’d put herself in financial danger. My acquaintance had literally become a debtor. Few financially…
Romans 8:1-11
Proper 10A
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson brings to mind a ceramic plate that I received for serving on the Calvin University’s Board of Trustees’ Student Life Committee. Its multi-layered motto of Calvin’s Student Life ministry surrounds a lovely image of the symbol of the Spirit that is a dove whose wings are outstretched. The plate reads “Learning…
Romans 7:15-25a
Proper 9A
Both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington reportedly quoted Edwin Sandys’ insistence, “Honesty is the best policy.” Yet this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson may make its proclaimers wonder if honesty is really the best policy. Some of Jesus’ followers like to quote Scriptural passages such as Psalm 38:18 as insisting confession is “good for the soul.” Yet…
Romans 6:12-23
Proper 8A
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson invites Jesus’ friends to think of both sin and salvation in perhaps fresh ways. In it, after all, Paul reminds Rome’s Christians that sin is not, as some Christians assume, just an activity. Sin is also a power. What’s more, as the apostle shows in Romans 6, salvation is not just…
Romans 6:1b-11
Proper 7A
There are enormous stakes involved in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. It, after all, deals with matters of life and death. But not just life and death in the conventional sense. Paul also speaks of life and death at their deepest levels. He names and describes the life that leads to death, as well as the…
Romans 5:1-8
Proper 6A
At the beginning of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson Paul carries forward the theme with which he ended last Sunday’s Lesson: Jesus’ followers’ “justification” (4:23). In verses 1-2a the apostle writes, “Since we have been justified [dikaiothentes*] through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [prosagogen]…
Romans 4:13-25
Proper 5A
In his May 21. 2026 blog on the Yale University Press blog, the philosopher James K.A. Smith wrote: “We are awash in knowledge and overwhelmed by a flood of information … Yet because our society is organized as an information economy, we are also vexed by mis- and dis-information. “In an age of AI slop…
Romans 8:6-11
Lent 5A
Parts of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson are somewhat mysterious. Preachers who feel the Spirit prompting us to proclaim its gospel aren’t helped by the fact that by beginning with verse 6 rather than verse 5, this Lesson begins in what seems like the middle of not just a paragraph, but also a thought. Preachers can…
Romans 5:1-11
Lent 3A
Some of Jesus’ friends, including preachers, are so familiar with Paul’s professions in verses 6 and 8 that they’ve lost some of their power to startle us. “When we were still powerless [asthenon*],” the apostle marvels there, “Christ died [apethanen] for the ungodly [asebon].” “While we were still sinners [hamartolon],” he adds in verse 8,…
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
Lent 1A
There are no “only children” in God’s adopted family. Since, as Paul insists in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, Abraham is our father, we don’t just have a second (and third — in God) father. We also have countless siblings with whom we now and in the future will share an enormous inheritance. So preachers might…
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