Movies for Preaching
The Mission (1986)
Written by Robert Bolt, Cinematography by Chris Menges, Music by Ennio Morricone, Starring Jeremy Irons, Robert De Niro, and Ray McAnally. 125 mins. Rated PG. There, finally, at the top of the spectacular Iguaza Falls, after days of treacherous, barefoot climbing up and up water-slick sides of rock and mud, arrives Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De…
Reading for Preaching
The Collected Sermons of William H. Willimon
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
Additional content related to Conversion
John 1:29-42
Our text this week is yet another transition story between John and Jesus. This time, John “pushes his disciples out of the nest” by urging them to follow Jesus, the Lamb of God. We are to understand that John has already baptized Jesus, since he’s seen the sign God told him about: the Holy Spirit…
Acts 10:34-43
Nearly all people, including Christians, have not just favorite people, but also favorite kinds of people. That helps shrink the leap for at least some Christians to the assumption that God too doesn’t just have favorite people, but also favorite kinds of people. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson challenges that assumption. As a result, it may…
Luke 19:1-10
Both Zacchaeus and Jesus are depicted as seeking in this story. In fact, seeking, or seeing, is a central and repeated theme in the passage. Zacchaeus wants to see, Jesus is seeking, the crowd sees. We readers are even pulled into the story through seeing: Luke starts with giving us details about Zacchaeus, but does…
Philemon 1:1-21
A colleague recently told me that he sometimes feels like members of his church think of him as a UPS package that’s all wrapped up and labelled. Ironically, however, those members don’t agree on what his label says. My colleague says they variously think of him as too liberal or conservative, lenient or intolerant, modern…
Acts 16:16-34
It was certainly an interesting day! In this story we get a little occult, an exorcism, some political intrigue, an earthquake, and in the end the exuberant joy of the gospel! Your average Lord’s day it was not. As Luke narrates it for us in Acts 16, Paul and Silas’ experiences in the city of…
Acts 9:1-6 (7-20)
Acts 9 is one of those stories that has proven to have a pretty wide reach. Mention the phrases “Damascus road experience” or “scales falling from your eyes” to most anyone—even to people who are not regular churchgoers—and they’ll know what you mean for the most part. And to the minds of some of those…
Acts 10:34-43
Comments, Observations, and Questions When you are a devout person who wants nothing more than to serve God, then there are few shocks to the system quite as great as spiritual shocks. Just ask the apostle Peter. He knows all about this kind of thing. Because unlike some of our religious customs and taboos today—the…
Acts 8:14-17
Familiarity may, as the old cliche goes, breed contempt. But sometimes it also breeds a kind of blindness. I’ve written a sermon commentary on Acts 8:14-17. I’ve preached on it multiple times. My familiarity with it hasn’t yet dimmed my fascination with one of the Scriptures’ most mysterious and intriguing stories. However, my relative familiarity…
Acts 2:1-21
We have come to the conclusion of our fifty day celebration of Easter. It is fascinating to me that our exit from Dr. Luke’s account of the spread of Easter faith is the on ramp to that whole story. With this Pentecost story, we loop back to where it all began. Even as Luke tells…
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
As I said last week in my comments on Acts 5, during the season of Easter the Lectionary switches from its customary focus on the Old Testament in the first reading, in order to follow the effects of Easter on the early church in the book of Acts. It is an ingenious way to show…
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
In all three years of the Lectionary cycle, Psalm 80 is seen as an Advent Psalm, probably because of the central prayer in verse 2; “come and save us.” In years A and C, it is the last Psalm of Advent. This year, it is the first Psalm of Advent. Its use here in the…
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Was there ever a time in the history of the church when some did not accuse Christians and pastors of bad motives? Was there always the sneaking suspicion on the part of some that preachers are just slick hucksters, charlatans who use smooth talking and seductive rhetoric as a way to line their own pockets? …
Acts 17:22-31
How do Acts 17’s preachers, teachers and those who listen to us share our faith with those who know little or nothing about what it means to be a Christian? How do God’s adopted sons and daughters speak the gospel to people for whom words like “grace” and even “sin” may sound like so much…
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Peter’s first Pentecost sermon’s aftermath at least suggests that preaching and teaching the Scriptures is a bit like brandishing a lethally sharp sword. Since it can cut very deeply, its handlers want to be both very careful and prepared to help stop any bleeding our proclamation may cause. Reading the lesson the Lectionary appoints this…
Acts 10:34-43
I sometimes wonder if Peter almost choked on the words: “I now know that God does not show favoritism…” In fact, with one biblical scholar, I sometimes wonder how he ever justified this to himself, much less Jerusalem’s church, as he does later. After all, Jews like Peter had always recognized that God might show…
Luke 12:49-56
Whoa! What a passage. We practically need asbestos gloves or very thick oven mitts just to pick these verses up. This thing is white hot! What prompted this from our Lord? It’s maybe difficult to know but from the looks of the passage, it appears that just possibly there were some who were trying to…
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Sample Sermon: One of the finer films from the 1980s is Bruce Beresford’s Tender Mercies. The film chronicles the story of Mac Sledge, a one-time country-western singing star whose life later dissolved into a fog of alcohol and shiftlessness. Divorced from his wife and estranged from his only daughter, Mac staggers through life until one…
Acts 2:1-21
What’s the best way to celebrate a birthday? How should one celebrate the birthday of important people or institutions? In fact, how should we celebrate what some have called the “birthday of the Church” that is Pentecost? When we celebrate our sons’ birthdays, we sometimes recall stories of their birth. Of how one was born…
Acts 16:16-34
TANSTAAFL is an acronym for the old adage, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” reportedly coined by Robert Heinlein. Quite simply, it means even if something appears to be free, there’s always some kind of catch. So your friendly neighborhood lobbyist (or pastor) may buy you lunch or dinner. However, she’s probably…
Acts 9:1-6,(7-20)
The Lord is willing to do almost whatever it takes to get people’s attention. So we save both God and ourselves a lot of time and energy if we just pay attention to the Lord right away. C.S. Lewis was among the most famous Christian authors of the twentieth century. He, however, initially paid virtually…
Acts 15:1-21
I’m going to start with the obvious observation that talking about circumcision is not simply an abstract theological conversation. The core of the discussion might be theological principles that are rooted in the biblical story, but the consequences of it are painfully practical. In the case of people new to the faith, being informed that…
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Comments and Observations How fitting that the season of Epiphany ends with a celebration of Christ’s Transfiguration, that bright and shining moment near the end of his ministry when his true glory burst through the veil of his humility! And what a fitting text this reading from II Corinthians 4 is! It fits so perfectly…
Preaching Connection: Conversion