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…
Reading for Preaching
The Four Loves
No Future Without Forgiveness
Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn of the Millenium
No Future Without Forgiveness
Crime and Punishment
“Being Mugged”
Additional content related to Forgiveness
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
What makes someone resent repentance? That’s really the crux of the matter for the older brother, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s that the older brother doesn’t care about his younger brother’s repentance, but that he resents his father’s compassion. Jesus tells three stories about something lost being found and how being found is always worth…
Joshua 5:9-12
Emerging from the Wilderness The book of Joshua begins with a season of transition among God’s people. Their leader, Moses has just died. Joshua has been installed as their new leader. His job will be to direct the people into the promised land. They cross the Jordan and are now ready to enter the land. …
Psalm 32
According to the old saying, “Confession is good for the soul.” The psalmist who penned Psalm 32 would agree but would also add that not confessing is bad for soul and body. The psalmist here famously declares that for that season of his life when he refused to own up to and acknowledge the sins…
Psalm 63:1-8
Even in the middle of the Season of Lent, the Lectionary would just as soon as have us turn a blind eye to anything having to do with punishments for sin and evil. That has to be why they lop off the final few verses of Psalm 63. True, there may be some due hesitation…
Psalm 130
Psalm 130 may be called a song of “ascents” but it begins with a descent into the depths of despair and desperation. Traditionally this poem has been tagged with the Latin phrase de profundis as those are the first two words of this psalm in the Latin Vulgate translation of the original Hebrew. But what…
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…
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Comments, Observations and Questions: Hearing “New Covenant” with the Ears of Ancient Israel The Israelites are in exile. The consequences of their disobedience and failure to keep their side of the bargain haunt them everyday — in the foreign language, customs, foods and, most grievously, religions of Babylon. So Jeremiah, who is often called the…
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…
Matthew 18:21-35
Having just been told that their community will be one known for its willingness to stand by people who are repenting and in need of reconciliation, Peter now asks Jesus how personal this work shall extend. Peter’s question makes me feel more confident that the “against you” in verse 15 (which we talked about last…
Psalm 119:33-40
The Lectionary now and again plunks down into some seemingly random segment in the sprawling Hebrew acrostic that just is Psalm 119. This week’s Year A lection lands us in the fifth section in which every Hebrew word in the first line of these 8 verses begins with the Hebrew letter ה or He, the…
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…
John 20:19-31
Comments, Questions and Observations Often, the focus of this week’s Easter Lectionary is on Thomas. His “doubt” is rather relatable, and it seems to be what Jesus reflects directly upon when he declares a beatitude about belief. (It really is too bad for Thomas that he wasn’t there that Easter evening with the other disciples….
Psalm 63:1-8
When a psalm is as relatively brief as Psalm 63 and yet you notice that the Lectionary would have you stop reading—and presumably stop preaching—three verses shy of the actual conclusion of the poem, one might be justified in wondering what’s up. What is in those last few verses? Why the full stop before this…
Exodus 34:29-35
To understand the end of Exodus 34, you need to catch up on two things: the immediate context of this chapter in Exodus and also what happened in the first 9 verses of this 34th chapter, the final effect of which you can read in the Lectionary selection of verses 29-35. First of all, then,…
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Easter in the Western Church can come as early as the third Sunday in March and as late as the last Sunday in April. Falling as it does on April 17 this year, Easter’s late date means an extra-long season after Epiphany and that in turns means getting to some RCL texts we don’t see…
Malachi 3:1-4
Have you ever read a classic book you’d never before read only to run across a line you knew by heart? “Oh,” you might say, “I didn’t know this is where that saying came from!” For instance, John Donne’s works are peppered with lines that have assumed a life of their own. People who don’t…
Hebrews 4:12-16
Even adults are, in some ways, masters of hiding. We generally no longer hide in closets or behind furniture as we did when we played “Hide and Seek” as children. Yet we still manage to keep a lot of things hidden from each other – and, sometimes, even ourselves. So those who proclaim Hebrews 4…
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Talk about dramatic understatement! The presence of the Lord had been absent throughout the whole chapter of 2 Samuel 11 until the very end. But that’s only on the surface. Most everything David did here was “while no one else was looking,” but we know…
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Maybe the Consultation on Common Texts that puts together the Revised Common Lectionary thinks that Advent is no time to think about God’s anger over sin. Because by carving verses 3-7 out of this lection from Psalm 85, we once again edit the Almighty. It’s OK to start with the first 2 verses and lyric…
Psalm 70
In his at-times searing memoir A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis at one point reflects on Jesus’ invitation “Knock and the door will be opened unto you.” But in his grief and in his seeking of answers as to why his wife had died of cancer, Lewis claimed that he had in fact not just knocked…
Philippians 3:4b-14
“Are you becoming perfect?” is the perhaps strange way Carole Noren, to whom I owe many ideas for this Commentary, begins a sermon on Philippians 3. It is, however, also an appropriate question, in light of the amount of attention the New Testament pays to the issue of perfection. While Christians may sense that the…
Matthew 18:21-35
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…
Matthew 18:15-20
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 knows, 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…
Psalm 26:1-8
For the 1999 edition of the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, illustrator Barry Moser sketched two portraits of David. The first is of the young David, the “getting ready to slay Goliath” David. He’s young, brash. The eyes say it all. He has his whole life ahead of him and he’s confident it’s going to be…
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
The “Parable of the Weeds” is part of a cluster of parables that has to do with God’s kingdom (and the Year A Lectionary is dealing with these various parables one at a time). It is also one of several that has to do with seeds and agriculture. Over and again Jesus’ point is that…
John 20:19-23
My friend the Bible teacher/commentator Dale Bruner is a wonderful teacher of biblical stories. He is largely retired now but years ago part of Dale’s teachings usually included some dramatic re-enactments of the story at hand. He always elicited a chuckle from the class at this point in John 20 when he reaches a certain…
Romans 1:1-7
God saves God’s adopted children by grace alone that we can only receive with our faith in Jesus Christ. However, God always calls those whom God loves to express that faith with our obedience. Someone once said, “Make a good beginning and you’re half the way to winning.” Certainly, then, Paul seems halfway to winning…
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…
Jeremiah 31:27-34
We’ve come a long way in our 9 week journey through Jeremiah (and Lamentations), from the past of his call to the distant future of the New Covenant. Last week, we heard God tell Israel how to live in Exile during the 70 years they would be in Babylon. Now we are taken to the…
Hosea 1:2-10
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…
John 21:1-19
In a recent interview with Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, Union Seminary President Serene Jones makes it plain that she does not believe Jesus physically rose again from the dead. She claimed this in part because “the gospels are all over the place” about the resurrection and she cited the fact that Mark…
Isaiah 65:17-25
Every preacher knows what a challenge it is to preach on Easter. On the one hand, it is the epicenter of the Gospel, the event that makes or breaks the claims of Jesus, as Paul says in I Corinthians 15. So, how can we mere mortals do justice to such a world changing moment in…
Psalm 126
For a Lenten selection, this psalm is pretty sunny-side up and cheerful. Maybe as Lent is coming to a close, we are supposed to see in this poem the promise of restoration beyond the cross toward which we are journeying this season. This is, after all, one of the “Songs of Ascent” in the Book…
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 63:1-8
When a psalm is as relatively brief as Psalm 63 and yet you notice that the Lectionary would have you stop reading—and presumably stop preaching—three verses shy of the actual conclusion of the poem, one might be justified in wondering what’s up. What is in those last few verses? Why the full stop before this…
Exodus 34:29-35
Fittingly, the season of Epiphany ends with Transfiguration Sunday. With the possible exception of his resurrection, Christ’s Transfiguration was the most spectacular exhibition of his glory in his life. Indeed, the Transfiguration was arguably even more glorious than the Resurrection, because Jesus resurrected body did not have about it the unmistakable glory of his transfigured…
Zephaniah 3:14-20
As I read Zephaniah, the memory of a bumper sticker came back to me. It said, “Jesus is coming soon, and is he ever ticked!” (It actually used a more vulgar term that gave the sticker more punch, but you get the point.) That is exactly the mood of most of Zephaniah. Indeed, if our…
Hebrews 9:24-28 [10:11-18]
Digging Into the Text: I imagine that by this time, you preachers out there might be getting a little burned out with Hebrews and its priests and sacrifices and temples, and worried the congregation may feel the same way. Some commentators think that Hebrews is not so much an epistle in the usual sense, but…
Psalm 1
Digging into the Text: Psalm 1 didn’t just happen to be placed at the beginning of the book of Psalms. After all, Psalms is perhaps the most obviously and carefully edited of all the books of the Bible. It’s the forward to the book, the opening inscription, the epigram on the first page. Which means…
Psalm 130
One of the strangest books I’ve ever read is The Trial/Das Urteil by the German author Franz Kafka. The book’s opening line starkly says, “Someone must have slandered Josef K. because even though he had done nothing bad, one morning he was suddenly arrested.” The police show up at his apartment before breakfast one day…
Psalm 106:1-6, 9-13
Back in the day, a radio commentator named Paul Harvey became famous for the way he reported the news. He would remind his listeners of a well-known news item and then he would tell “the rest of the story,” the other side of the story that everyone thought they knew. That’s exactly what we have…
Matthew 18:21-35
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…
Matthew 18:15-20
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 12:9-21
Some years back some more of Richard Nixon’s infamous White House tapes were released, this time revealing no less than the evangelist Billy Graham being complicit with some virulently anti-Semitic rhetoric. Not only were Rev. Graham’s remarks at variance with his public approach to Jewish-Christian dialogue but they were more significantly so very, very un-Christian….
Genesis 45:1-15
God always makes the dreams God gives God’s adopted sons and daughters come true. Sometimes, however, it takes so long for that to happen that it seems that the dream, if not the dreamers, dies. As Genesis 45 opens, God has partially fulfilled Joseph’s dreams by putting him in charge of both Egypt and his…
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
The “Parable of the Weeds” is part of a cluster of parables that has to do with God’s kingdom (and the Year A Lectionary is dealing with these various parables one at a time). It is also one of several that has to do with seeds and agriculture. Over and again Jesus’ point is that…
Psalm 130
As we continue our Lenten journey up to Mt. Calvary, the Lectionary puts a perfect Psalm before us on this Fifth Sunday of Lent. We’re getting close to our destination, but here the path takes a severe dip, sort of like a saddle on a mountain just before the summit. This Song of Ascents takes…
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…
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider I am not sure why the Revised Common Lectionary’s series of passages from Jeremiah skips around the way it does (one week Jeremiah 32 but then next time around it’s back to chapter 29 and now we leap to chapter 31) but I think I can understand why the…
Luke 17:5-10
You get the feeling that even the people who put together various Bible translations don’t know what in the world to make of—or therefore what in the world to do with—the first part of Luke 17. The NRSV chose as its sub-heading “Some Sayings of Jesus.” The NIV opted for something that looks like the…
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Perhaps the single most striking feature of these closing verses of 1 Timothy is the glorious doxology that fairly erupts from Paul right in the middle of his advice related to riches and money and such. It’s as though Paul’s spirit had suddenly soared into the throne room of Almighty God himself and what Paul…
1 Timothy 1:12-17
In the first century—and really for a large chunk of the church’s history—most everything a given person knew had to be memorized and carried around in one’s head. There were no published materials, no pamphlets or tracts or catechisms. Not surprisingly, then, by the time the Pastoral Epistles were written it is clear that the…
Psalm 103:1-8
In the dog days of August, in the heart of Ordinary Time, Psalm 103 is an immensely helpful self-initiated reminder not to forget all that God does for us, which is, simply, everything. That’s probably why my teachers back at Denver Christian Elementary School made me memorize these very verses at the ripe old age…
Luke 7:36-8:3
It’s such an interesting story, made the more curious by the Lectionary’s decision to extend the reading into the first 3 verses of Luke 8 where we encounter a brief list of the women who joined Jesus’ entourage of disciples and who even somehow bankrolled the ministry. Of course, that is just the capper to…
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…
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
If in a sermon for seminary any of my students did to the Old Testament what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 10, I would probably tell the student to start over or fail. Paul seems to be playing a bit fast and loose, a bit midrash and allegory where some key stories from Ancient Israel…
Psalm 63:1-8
I have always been moved and challenged by Luke’s description of Christ’s decisive turn to the cross in Luke 9:51. “At the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” An older translation put it more graphically; “Jesus set his face to go up to Jerusalem.” I…
Exodus 34:29-35
To understand the end of Exodus 34, you need to catch up on two things: the immediate context of this chapter in Exodus and also what happened in the first 9 verses of this 34th chapter, the final effect of which you can read in the Lectionary selection of verses 29-35. First of all, then,…
2 Kings 6
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider. What do we do with the people we can’t stand? The co-worker who daily makes you look stupid. The classmate who gets the glory for your hard work. The brother-in-law who always has to get his way. Pick up a pop magazine in any grocery checkout lane and you’ll…
1 Peter 4:1-11
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider: Both new Christians and suffering Christians wonder “what kind of life have I gotten into?” In the first half of chapter 4 (our text), Peter addresses the worldview issues of the new believer; in the second half, the worry issues of the suffering one. These former pagans learn this…
Numbers 14
Where does one begin with this story? Do you focus on how an entire people betray their faithfulness Saviour? Do you try to skip over how angry God is about their betrayal? Do you draw upon Moses’ request for Yahweh to forgive as the spot of hope in an otherwise very sad story? For that…
Malachi 4
Comments and Observations: In his book, The End of Memory, Miroslav Volf gives us a glimpse into the torment he endured while serving in the Yugoslavian army under the (erroneous) suspicion of being a traitor. Because he was a Christian who was married to an American, the communist army suspected him of treason. His time…
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Comments, Observations, and Questions I used to watch a TV show that was quite compelling and enjoyable but it did have one feature to it that I did not much like: on some episodes the show’s characters would find themselves sunk very deep down into dreadfully complex circumstances. The episode would devote something like 92%…
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: Forgiveness