Movies for Preaching
Heaven (2002)
Directed by Tom Tykwer. Written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krysztof Piesiewicz. Music by Arvo Pärt. Starring Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, and Remo Girone. 97 mins. Rated R. For all of their importance in living, there are very few confession sequences in films, at least good ones. The best known, perhaps, is implicit. George Bailey in…
A Man Called Ove (2015) – 2
Written and Directed by Hannes Holm (based on novel by Fredrik Bachman). Starring Rolf Lassgård, Filip Berg, Bahar Paris, and Ida Engvoll. 116 minutes. Rated PG-13. Ove is 59 years old and, well, as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Life has smacked him hard, really hard, over and over, and…
The Godfather: Part III (1990) – 1
The Godfather: Part III (1990). Written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia, and Sofia Coppola. 162 mins. Rated R. CONFESSION The first and last and only time we ever see Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in a church is at the end of…
Reading for Preaching
Mere Christianity, in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
“Christianity and Literature” in Christian Reflections
“Repenting”
“The Current Crisis in Remorse”
“The Growing Role of Emotion in Jury Verdicts”
Additional content related to Confession
Mark 8:27-38
This week’s text is a masterclass in understanding confession and repentance in the grandest sense possible. When it comes down to what we confess with our mouths, what do we believe in our hearts and minds? And what consequences does it have in our lives? Jesus asks his disciples what they’ve heard other people believe…
1 John 1:1-2:2
The concept of “daylight savings time” is a rather strange one. After all, the label suggests to some people that by moving our clocks one hour ahead people can somehow “save” daylight. But, course, no human being can add even one more second of light to our days. When we move our clocks ahead, we…
Psalm 51:1-12
For the fifth Sunday in Lent, the Year B Lectionary serves up a quintessential Lenten-type psalm in the well-known words of Psalm 51. In preaching classes I always say to my students to not make too big of a deal over any superscriptions that accompany some psalms. In this case it is the superscription that…
John 3:14-21
What would Lent be without at least one Sunday focused on confession and repentance? This is that Sunday. We plop right into a conversation in verse 14, though it’s pretty much Jesus talking from here on out to Nicodemus. Even more disorienting, we start with this reference to an Old Testament story from Numbers 21….
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Psalm 107:2 invites people to tell their stories. Ironically no sooner does that begin to happen in this poem and the Lectionary has us stop reading to jump over a lot of the stories that get told! Truth is, Psalm 107 is semi-repetitive but it is structured that way to make a point about the…
Psalm 19
A friend of mine is a professional physicist and astronomer and I have always enjoyed talking with her about astronomy as I have long been an amateur astronomy aficionado. If we are blessed enough to experience it, there is nothing quite so breathtaking as being far away from any sources of light pollution so as…
Psalm 25:1-10
If the Lectionary decided for whatever the reason to not recommend all of Psalm 25, they could have at least extended this to verse 11. Since this is the reading for the First Sunday in Lent, you’d think the one verse of this psalm that is a straight up confession of sin would make the…
Lent 2B: Quite Openly
It is a familiar story in the gospel of Mark. Jesus and the disciples at Caesarea Philippi. That question from Jesus; “who do you say that I am?” Peter’s confession; that’s what the tradition calls Peter’s response to Jesus. The always puzzling Messianic secret; Jesus sternly ordering the disciples not to tell who he was….
Psalm 85:1-3, 8-13
This week’s Psalm selection for the Second Sunday in Advent is in some ways very similar to last week’s selection of Psalm 80. In both psalms there are pleas for revival and restoration, for a relenting of divine anger over sin so that restoration could come to both land and people. Insofar as Advent has…
Psalm 26:1-8
Most Bible scholars have serious doubts about the authorship attributions in the psalms. Certainly we know the superscriptions were added much later and are not considered canonical (like ones that claims a certain psalm stemmed from a time when David was fleeing Saul and such). And even all the psalms that are said to be…
Psalm 95
Growing up in a tradition that had once upon a time been founded on Psalm singing only in church, I sang lots of psalms in my boyhood church even long, long after my Reformed tradition had added also hymns to our standard Psalter Hymnal songbook. Even as a young boy, though, I was struck by…
Psalm 32:1-7
Most of his friends had been hanged. But despite his central role in helping to construct Adolf Hitler’s Nazi nightmare, Albert Speer somehow managed to receive from the Nuremberg trials only a 20-year sentence at the Spandau Prison in Berlin. Not long after arriving in Spandau, Speer met with the prison chaplain. To the chaplain’s…
Psalm 51:1-10
Every once in a while in a movie or on a TV show—and often used for comedic effect—there will be a character whose self-esteem is so low and so fragile that those who know this person are loathe ever to criticize him. If you point out even one little mistake to Larry, Larry will immediately…
Psalm 32
Most of his friends had been hanged. But despite his central role in helping to construct Adolf Hitler’s Nazi nightmare, Albert Speer somehow managed to receive from the Nuremberg trials only a twenty-year sentence at the Spandau Prison in Berlin. Not long after arriving in Spandau, Speer met with the prison chaplain. To the chaplain’s…
Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)
It was the year King Uzziah died. Or, it was the year President Kennedy died. Or it was the year 9/11 rattled the world to its core. Or it was the year the COVID pandemic began. It was the year when things fell apart, when foundations were shaken, when the markets crumbled, when all that…
Psalm 123
If the entirety of this short psalm were embedded inside a larger psalm, then at least verse 2 is the kind of verse I would expect the Lectionary to leapfrog over. As I have noted often in these sermon commentaries here on the Center for Excellence in Preaching, the Lectionary likes to skip over words…
Isaiah 6:1-8
Using this prophetic text for Trinity Sunday will take a bit of exegetical ingenuity. You will have to use strong New Testament glasses to find the Trinity here. But, on the other hand, this is a perfect text for the transition from the celebration of the Great Feasts of the church year to Ordinary Time,…
Psalm 17:1-9
Those of you who read the Psalm sermon commentaries here on CEP know that I frequently observe that different psalms fit different seasons of life. And so we always have to nuance upbeat songs of praise with the downbeat psalms of lament such that no one in the church gets the impression that true believers…
Psalm 32:1-7
Most of his friends had been hanged. But despite his central role in helping to construct Adolf Hitler’s Nazi nightmare, Albert Speer somehow managed to receive from the Nuremberg trials only a 20-year sentence at the Spandau Prison in Berlin. Not long after arriving in Spandau, Speer met with the prison chaplain. To the chaplain’s…
Psalm 32
Most of his friends had been hanged. But despite his central role in helping to construct Adolf Hitler’s Nazi nightmare, Albert Speer somehow managed to receive from the Nuremberg trials only a twenty-year sentence at the Spandau Prison in Berlin. Not long after arriving in Spandau, Speer met with the prison chaplain. To the chaplain’s…
Psalm 51:1-12
Years ago a British psychologist who worked inside Britain’s penal system described the startlingly loopy ways by which criminals attempt to sneak out from under their own crimes. He opened his article by reminding readers that in his pseudo-suicide note years ago, O.J. Simpson had the audacity to write, “Sometimes I feel like a battered…
Psalm 32:1-7
Psalm 32 is one of the seven penitential Psalms in the Psalter. Not surprisingly, the Revised Common Lectionary sees it as a perfect fit for the season of Lent. Indeed, I wrote on Psalm 32 just a few months ago for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (cf. the entry for Feb. 29 in the Sermon…
Psalm 51:1-10
Psalm 51 will probably provoke very different reactions in most congregations. Some will be bored and skeptical because it is so familiar, and “familiarity breeds contempt.” Been there, done that, doesn’t work. Some will be scornful and dismissive because it is so out of fashion. Nobody thinks like this about sin and guilt anymore; it’s…
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
God doesn’t usually whisk presidents, pastors, church leaders and other workers up to the heavenly realm upon their retirement. Nor do their successors generally actually pick up their articles of clothing. Yet it’s appropriate to reflect on this Sunday’s appointed text anyway. God, after all, remains deeply interested in human leadership and its transitions. 2…
Psalm 32
On this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we’re a little past mid-point on our journey to the cross, and Psalm 32 gives us an opportunity for a mid-course correction. It is very easy to make light of Lent by giving up something that doesn’t really matter or by playing at spiritual disciplines. Psalm 32 reminds us…
Mark 4:1-20
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Why does the same message produce different returns? Consider the chapter before our text. Mark 3 is chock-full with Jesus-resisters. Pharisees tag-team with Herodians. Evil spirits blab the Messianic secret. Jerusalem’s doctrinal deputies censure Jesus as Satanic. Judas is introduced as the betrayer. Even Jesus’ own family–including Mary meek…
Isaiah 6:1-8
Comments, Observations, and Questions It was the year King Uzziah died. Or, it was the year President Kennedy died. Or it was the year 9/11 rattled the world to its core. It was the year when things fell apart, when foundations were shaken, when the markets crumbled, when all that had once been familiar now…
Psalm 51:1-12
Comments and Questions Psalm 51 is what Old Testament scholar James Mays calls a “liturgy of the broken heart.” Like so many of the psalms, it’s the prayer of someone who is in deep trouble. Here, however, the psalmist doesn’t complain to God about God or other people. He admits he alone has caused the…
Preaching Connection: Confession