Movies for Preaching
Star Wars: Episode VI–The Return of the Jedi (1983) – 2
Star Wars: Episode VI–The Return of the Jedi (1983). Written by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Directed by Richard Marquand. Starring Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and James Earl Jones. PG. 131 mins. Rotten Tomatoes: 80%. Nobody guessed it, and I mean nobody: exactly who was the Jedi that was to return? Princess Leia…
Star Wars: Episode VI–The Return of the Jedi (1983) – 1
Star Wars: Episode VI–The Return of the Jedi (1983). Written by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Directed by Richard Marquand. Starring Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and James Earl Jones. PG. 131 mins. Rotten Tomatoes: 80%. If the self-sacrificial death and redemption of Darth Vader comes as a surprise in the last moments of…
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
Three Colors: Blue (1993). Written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Music by Zbigniew Preisner. Starring Juliette Binoche, Florence Pernel, and Charlotte Véry. 98 mins. Rating: R. Rotten Tomatoes: 98%; Metacritic: 85%. Suddenly, she’s a widow and also childless. Just about all the bad that can happen to someone falls upon…
Wide Awake (1998) – 1
Wide Awake (1998). Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Joseph Cross, Rosie O’Donnell, and Robert Loggia. Rated PG. 88 mins. Rotten Tomatoes 67%. The question of what actual love looks like has plagued humankind since, well, the beginning, whether that be Adam and Eve left to themselves in a garden or some humanoid…
Wonder Woman (2017)
Wonder Woman (2017). Directed by Patty Jenkins. Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, and Robin Wright. 141 mins. Rated PG-13. Wonder Who? The wonder of Wonder Woman is that, indeed, the film is a wonder, the best commix-inspired flick since the original Superman all the way back in 1978, some four decades later and countless…
The Tree of Life (2011) – 1
Written and directed by Terrence Malick. 139 mins. PG-13. Starring Jessica Chastain, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken. Hugely successful architect, Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) slogs through his life in a trough of despair. Through the center of his soul runs a crevasse cut by contention with his harsh father and, even more so, lasting…
The Color of Paradise (1999)
Written and directed by Majid Majidi. Starring Hossein Mahjoub, Mohsen Ramezani, and Salmeh Feyzi. 90 mins. Rated PG. Hashem is not an easy fellow to like. In the lush mountains of Iran, a realm of streams, birds, meadows, and storms, he sees and relishes none of it, unlike his young blind son. A widower mired…
Reading for Preaching
Mere Christianity, in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
Mere Christianity, in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
The Four Loves
The Four Loves
The Four Loves
Religious Affections
Help My Unbelief
“Abraham’s Continuing Journey” in The Collected Sermons of William Sloan Coffin: The Riverside Years, vol. 1
The Collected Sermons of William H. Willimon
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Damage
Of Human Bondage
Of Human Bondage
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“Pure Love,” in The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays
“Sermons on the Song of Songs (36:3)” in Lane, Tony, “A 12th Century Man for All Seasons The Life and Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux,”
Additional content related to Love
Philippians 1:3-11
As was the case last week and is the case throughout Advent, this week’s Revised Common Lectionary Epistolary Lesson seems to pay only minimal attention to that to which many of Jesus’ friends pay so much attention during December. Philippians 1 devotes little attention to Christ’s first and second comings. I previously suggested that this…
Mark 12:28-34
Prior to our lectionary text, Jesus has been engaging in debates with the temple leaders—most recently with the Sadducees about the resurrection. Now, Mark says, a scribe who’s been listening in decides to ask Jesus his own question. However, unlike the leaders who have gone before him, this scribe isn’t trying to debate, catch Jesus…
James 2:1-10 (11-13), 14-17
“Faith without works is dead.” In a world where so many things divide Christians, nearly all sides unite to claim this famous verse for themselves. Both “progressives” and “traditionalists” cling tenaciously to this profession. While some see it as a call to a strict(er) obedience to God in response to God’s grace, others focus on…
Ephesians 3:14-21
As I’ve said before, there is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time, and that is surely the case with this text. This is an extraordinary prayer for Ordinary Time. Paul has just described the church’s calling in cosmic terms. The unity of Gentile and Jew in the church is intended by God to make known the…
Ephesians 1:3-14
It’s ironic and sad that predestination is such a contentious issue among some of Jesus’ friends. We sense, after all, that God graciously intends it to be a source of comfort for rather than division among Christians. Thankfully, then, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers preachers a chance to let the Spirit help us unpack this…
Psalm 85:8-13
It could be pretty easy, one supposes, to glide over the concluding verses of Psalm 85 and not take much notice of what they are actually conveying. This is just how the psalms go, we might think. The kind of language being employed at the end is nothing terribly unusual. This is poetry and poetry…
John 15:9-17
A couple of weeks ago Jesus compared being the Good Shepherd with how a hired hand works: the Good Shepherd is committed to the core, the hired hand high tails it when trouble comes. Now, in the second half of his discourse on being the True Vine, Jesus describes his disciples as friends rather than…
1 John 5:1-6
One of the first Christian songs I ever learned was “Trust and Obey.” Its chorus still echoes in my memory: “Trust and obey/, for there’s no other way/ To be happy in Jesus/ than to trust and obey.” This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson strongly suggests that the song’s link between trusting and obeying would please the…
1 John 4:7-21
The New Testament uses some form of the Greek word agape (“love”) more than 140 times to describe both God and humans’ actions. But in few places does the Spirit inspire its writers to link God’s love to God’s people’s love more closely than in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. God’s dearly beloved people can hardly…
John 12:20-33
Comments, Questions, and Observations There are many familiar themes in this week’s passage: losing one’s life in order to gain it, following Jesus, Jesus speaking about his impending death, and the way that his salvation work expands to all the nations. At the start of Lent, we heard the Father boom down with a message…
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Anyone who has ever tried to cross a Lego- or toy-strewn room in the dark should have received hazardous duty pay. After all, relatively few pains match the discomfort created by stepping on a small toy. So what are such “stumbling blocks’” worst enemy? Any kind of light that leads to awareness and caution. Paul…
Mark 1:4-11
If you were following the Gospel lectionary texts in December, then the first four verses of our text today will be familiar because they were also in the passage for the second Sunday of Advent. In my commentary for that week, one of the things I focused on was the fact that God decided that…
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…
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
In the northern hemisphere the days are becoming noticeably shorter. If the Lord tarries, where I live, for example, there will be nearly 13 minutes less daylight on this coming Sunday than there were just last Sunday. That contributes to the sense that this is a dark time of the year. That darkness, however, helps…
Matthew 22:34-46
Comments, Questions, and Observations We are still in the temple, still dealing with the temple leaders engaging Jesus in the hopes of trapping or discrediting him. Last week we read about the Pharisees sending their disciples to question Jesus, and in-between those verses and this week’s text, the Sadducees took a round in the inquisition….
Psalm 103: (1-7), 8-13
In past sermon commentaries here on the CEP website I have relayed the anecdote involving the author John Donne. A friend of mine who taught English once lent an acquaintance a book of collected writings by John Donne. When the person returned the book, my friend asked him what he thought of Donne’s work. “He’s…
Romans 13:8-14
Once again the RCL’s editors did preachers and our hearers no favors when they omitted some Scripture, in this case, Romans 13:1-7, from an Epistolary Lesson. After all, in severing this Sunday’s Lesson’s verse 8 from verses 1-7, they stripped away its theological and literary context. So preachers might seriously consider including Romans 13:1-7 in…
Romans 12:9-21
It’s important to note that near this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s beginning, Paul says not, “Hate who is evil,” but, instead, “Hate what is evil” (9). That summons’ close proximity to his description of love as “sincere” suggests that sincere love includes a counter-cultural perspective on and reaction to both evil and evildoers. North American culture…
Romans 12:1-8
The Spirit’s work doesn’t just change Jesus’ followers’ view of God. It also transforms the way God’s dearly beloved people think of our neighbor. The Spirit transforms Christians from those who seek only our own interests into people who the Spirit equips to also seek the well-being of the people around us. Quite simply, the…
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21
The RCL had us in the heart of Psalm 145 a scant month ago for its July 9, 2023, psalm lection. Why we are looping back to some of these same verses so soon is not clear. In any event, I refer you to that sermon commentary and will not here repeat everything I said…
Romans 8:26-39
Few biblical passages offer a greater wealth of preaching material than Romans 8:26-39. Several earlier commentaries on this site examined some of its most glittering treasures – in 2017, Scott Hoezee’s, and in 2020, mine. However, preachers whom the Spirit leads toward one of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s other glorious themes might focus on verses…
Psalm 100
It will never happen of course but sometimes one could wish that for certain absolutely key vocabulary words in Hebrew or Greek, all Bible translations in English (or in any language) could agree on one translation of that word that would get used consistently every time it occurs. That way readers of the translation would…
Romans 5:1-8
In the space of just two verses (2b, 3a) Paul twice says that Christians “rejoice” (kauchometha). Few Christians are likely surprised by the first cause of our rejoicing that the apostle identifies in this text. Many of Jesus’ friends, however, may be startled by our rejoicing’s second cause. So those who proclaim not just this…
Acts 2:42-47
Every once in a while when surveying the sometimes messy, untidy nature of church life, someone will say to me “If only the church today could be more like the Early Church in Acts.” My typical, semi-cheeky retort to this is usually, “Have you read The Book of Acts? We already are like the church…
1 Peter 1:17-23
No one has, to my knowledge, ever produced a television series or movie entitled, “Strangers.” We prefer our shows to have titles like, “Friends.” So Peter’s first letter’s repeated references to “strangers” may seem to have no place in either our longings our culture. After all, few people want to be strangers. Most of us…
John 11:1-45
Comments, Questions, and Observations The word “love” is used only three times to describe Jesus’s feelings for the siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, but it permeates the entire narrative. Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus to let him know that their shared beloved, Lazarus, is ill to the point of death. Jesus tells…
John 3:1-17
The fact that perhaps the most well-known bible verse, John 3.16, is part of this philosophical and ontological mind-bending conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus never ceases to fascinate me. Nicodemus is a leader of his faith community and he comes to speak with Jesus in the quiet and solitude of the night. I’m not sure…
Isaiah 42:1-9
Throughout the “Servant Songs” in this part of Isaiah, despite the focus on the Servant, there is no question who is really in charge and calling all the shots. The Servant has work to do and will achieve that work to a stunning degree of effectiveness. Nothing short of the bringing of justice to all…
Luke 15:1-10
Taking his cue from the setting given to us in verses 1-3, Justo González says these parables are less for the lost than they are for the “never lost”—those who foolishly think they have no need for the Physician of heaven. Our lectionary passage starts with the grumbling Pharisees. What are they grumbling about? Jesus…
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
“Just tell me what I have to do, Pastor!” I suspect that nearly all of us have heard variations on this theme. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson seems to offer help in answering such questions. That may, in fact, be a reason why proclaimers’ attention is often most quickly drawn to its ethical pronouncements. Hebrews 13…
Psalm 103:1-8
There are some pieces of music, certain poems, some scenes in movies that are so lyric, so moving, so flat out beautiful that it doesn’t matter how often you hear it, read it, or see it: it gets you every time. Psalm 103 is like that. I usually balk a bit when the Lectionary slices…
Hosea 11:1-11
When trying to teach seminary students some techniques for effective Bible reading, Hosea 11 is a chapter I often assign. I ask students to ponder the text and to then make a recording for me of what they would deem to be an effective interpretive reading. I am often floored by how bloodless some such…
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
It comes up repeatedly in our conversations with our Jewish friends and acquaintances. “How can you live without God’s law to guide your life?” The observant Jews we know and love can’t imagine living without the structure Torah gives them. “Doesn’t it lead to some kind of anarchy?” is one form of the questions they…
Psalm 16
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…
John 17:20-26
Though Jesus prayed this prayer before his crucifixion and resurrection, as part of the season of Easter this passage continues to shape our understanding of the Resurrection New Life that God invites us to live. This is especially true because Christ’s prayer is for his people across time and space—and not just the disciples who…
John 13:31-35
God glories in every act of love. We know this already about God’s own acts, but we might forget how it applies to our acts of love as well. The opening of the lectionary passage immediately follows the reveal of Judas—who is entered by Satan—as Jesus’ betrayer (it’s Judas who is referred to as leaving…
Luke 6:27-38
Last week, I began the argument that Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain (Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount), is an invitation to understanding one’s identity as a disciple based on connection with Jesus. In verses 17-26, Jesus talks about being blessed when we are transformed—and thereby have our life situations transformed—by this connection,…
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1 Corinthians 13 is among the loveliest and most lyrical chapters in all of the Scriptures. It virtually sings in praise of love. Its truths are also, through the work of the Spirit, timeless. All of that and more, however, makes it easy to forget that Paul grounds this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson in the first…
Psalm 36:5-10
One of my Christmas gifts to my wife was a cookbook on making bread written by Paul Hollywood, one of the judges on the much-loved Great British Baking Show. When I put a picture of the book’s cover on Facebook along with a picture of my wife’s first and fantastic looking loaf, a couple people…
John 1:(1-9) 10-18
There is overwhelming emphasis in this passage on how things “from above” are received here on earth. In the advent season, we remembered that we are actively waiting to receive the gift of the Word in full, and that God is actively at work to bring about his Kingdom on earth. In John’s prologue, it’s…
Colossians 3:12-17
Commentators use a variety of terms to describe this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s set of ethical commands. Leonard Klein calls it a “haustafel, a table of duties for those in various estates.” Elsewhere I have called it “the Christian’s wardrobe.” Yet no matter how its proclaimers label Colossians 3’s set of invitations to Christ-likeness, there can…
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson speaks about waiting during an Advent season that’s largely devoted to waiting. However, it addresses the kind of waiting that runs largely counter to our culture (and at least some of the Church’s) waiting. 1 Thessalonians 3 doesn’t describe, after all, how to wait for our celebration of Christ’s first coming….
John 18:33-37
It is the last Sunday in the liturgical year and the lectionary marks it as Christ the King Sunday by bringing us deep into the Passion week narrative to Jesus’ encounter with Pilate. It can be a little jarring to just jump here from the teaching ministry in Mark, but a liturgical focus on Christ…
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25
The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to mitigate it have changed the way at least some Christians have met or are currently “meeting together” (25). Restrictions have forced at least some of us to meet together remotely rather than in the same building. Restrictions have also forced some Christians to worship somewhat differently even when they…
Mark 12:28-34
The text’s message this week is simple. It’s the all-encompassing nature of the application that gets overwhelming. Did you know, for instance, that there are 613 commandments in the Pentateuch? Summarizing and prioritizing, as Jesus does here, was a normal practice among the rabbis and scribes of Judaism, not to mention that it’s a helpful…
Mark 9:38-50
It seems that the deflecting from discomfort that we saw last week is continuing this week. Though it may not seem like it at a first read through, Mark has placed this set of sayings here for a reason. Instead of the usual suspect, Peter, it’s John who speaks up this time. It could be…
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
My friend whom I’ll call Wayne is struggling to submit to God (4:7) right now. In fact, that struggle has produced a fairly deep crisis of faith in him. Yet to Wayne’s credit, he’s honest enough to share that struggle with me as well as seek my help in becoming more submissive to God. Wayne…
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
This is arguably the most important text in the books of Samuel, indeed, in what scholars call the Deuteronomistic history from the Pentateuch through Chronicles. So, although I’ve written on it just 7 months ago at the height of Advent, I will attempt to offer some fresh preaching ideas for this Eighth Sunday of Ordinary…
Psalm 85:8-13
To be honest, Psalm 85 is a little all over the place. The first four verses reflect a time when God forgave Israel for some transgressions and restored them. But then the next set of verses seems to indicate Israel went backwards, sinned again, and so found itself under the wrath of God again. And…
2 Samuel 1:1,17-27
This is a strange and tough text to preach on, until you look at it through the lens of our contemporary situation, particularly in America. One of the hard realities of this past year was “the presence of [our] enemies,” as David put it in his most famous Psalm. Let me put this text in…
John 17:6-19
“You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.” That is a saying of my former colleague Ron Nydam. And he’s right. Worse yet, we all know that you cannot insure the happiness of your children, either. And that truth is married to another undeniable fact and that is this: the wider world in which we…
John 15:9-17
Every week the sermon proclaims the Gospel. Or at least in some fashion it should. Every week. Every sermon. Yes, there is always a small-t preaching text (Psalm 23, John 15) on which the sermon is based. That’s the text projected onto the screen or printed in the church bulletin. But that text is always…
1 John 5:1-6
My colleague Judith Jones suggests that the community to which John writes his first letter was facing a crisis. Some former members of the community were denying Jesus was actually the Messiah, God’s flesh and blood, fully human, fully divine Son. So John’s letters’ readers seemed to struggle with whom they should believe, how they…
1 John 4:7-21
Contrary to the Beatles’ sung claims, all we “need” isn’t “love.” But the full-orbed, whole person love to which this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson summons Jesus’ followers will go a very long way to meeting all sorts of “needs.” Jesus’ friends might call John’s first letter his “love letter.” That emphasis is, in fact, a theme…
1 John 3:16-24
“Love” is a word everyone knows and everyone understands. Or so we think. But if that is so, why is it that when we are called to preach on “love,” it can feel so daunting? Maybe it’s because we use the same word for so many things. It would not be unusual, for instance, to…
Numbers 21:4-9
In our Lenten journey this year, the RCL has been focusing on the theme of God’s covenant—with Noah and all creation, with Abraham and his descendants, with Israel at Sinai, and next week with the world as promised through Jeremiah’s words to the Exiles. In our reading for today, we have a vivid picture of…
Mark 1:29-39
Usually we are far too casual about God’s kingdom. “Your kingdom come, your will be done” we say each time we intone the Lord’s Prayer, but when we finish our prayer and open our eyes, we do not see any such kingdom. It is difficult for us to conceive of a kingdom that is not…
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 4:1-9
Few of us will be sad to watch the year of our Lord 2020 draw to a close at the end of December. It has been, after all, to say the least, a most stressful year. COVID-19 has wreaked almost unimaginable havoc on countless lives, jobs and institutions. North Americans are struggling with racial injustice…
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
It is difficult to carve up Psalm 103, though the Lectionary does its best to try doing so anyway. There really is no reason to not preach on the entire Psalm, and that is pretty much the direction my commentary will go as well. What impresses you most of all about this well-known and lyric…
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…
Romans 13:8-14
I’ve always assumed the best work gets done under the pressure of a looming deadline. So I seldom felt the urgency of getting to work on school projects until very shortly before they were due. While I was attending seminary, for example, I waited until the last moment to write a major exegetical paper. I…
Romans 12:9-21
When my family travelled in Asia we saw nearly countless products that were imitation brands. One of our favorites was “Poma” (not Puma) athletic shoes. Those knock-offs, in fact, looked quite a bit like the real thing. But they were actually low-quality counterfeits. When he invites his readers to “love” in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson,…
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Probably most of us have benefitted from mnemonic devices at some point. We might remember the primary colors in the visible light spectrum by remembering the name Roy G. Biv (which in turns gives us Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet). A strange one used by my junior high science teacher has nevertheless…
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Eliza Griswold’s The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam chronicles her travels along the 10th parallel. In it she notes that many Muslims and Christians live and work close to each other along that parallel. Peter wouldn’t surprise either Christians or Muslims in those areas when he says, “Your enemy…
1 Peter 2:2-10
We can almost see them – an ordinary group of early Christians, somewhere in the early Mediterranean world. They’re likely worshipping in someone’s house. Their teacher reads to them this morning’s text, taken from what we call Peter’s first letter. These newly baptized believers’ teacher begins by telling them that they resemble what verse 2…
Micah 6:1-8
In the midst of the glory of Epiphany we encounter this sobering and bracing text about God’s lawsuit against his sinful people. How is this an Epiphany text? The only connection I could find lies in that little word “showed” in verse 8. After the whole court proceeding laid out in verses 1-7, God reveals…
Jeremiah 31:7-14
So, Christmas is finally over, I mean really over. The visitors have all gone home, the tree has been put back in the box, the decorations are down in the basement, and the gifts, well, the gifts have been celebrated, enjoyed, used, broken, returned, or forgotten. But the Lectionary says, “Not so fast. Let’s keep…
Romans 15:4-13
I didn’t have much money when I was in college. So I tried to drive as far on a tank of gas as I could. As a result, I ran out of gas in the middle of the night twice … in the space of less than a month. Each time I called my relatively…
Romans 13:11-14
While few people have labeled procrastination a “deadly sin,” our text at least suggests that one form of it may be the deadliest sin of all. That’s a sobering assertion for someone like me who is naturally one of the worst procrastinators that I know. At least some of us are tempted to procrastinate in…
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
I think that a really helpful way to frame a sermon on the lectionary text for today, including if you choose to cover the verses that the lection skips over, is our covenant relationship with God. A covenant is an agreement between two parties where each makes promises about how they will be to and…
Philemon 1:1-21
What a gift this little letter from Paul is to the church! Though all of Paul’s letters in the New Testament are about practical matters of life and faith, and though all of his guidance, advice, teachings and admonitions are rooted in a deeply Christological theology, none of the other letters quite show Paul’s personal…
Psalm 103:1-8
There are some pieces of music, certain poems, some scenes in movies that are so lyric, so moving, so flat out beautiful that it doesn’t matter how often you hear it, read it, or see it: it gets you every time. Psalm 103 is like that. I usually balk a bit when the Lectionary slices…
Isaiah 5:1-7
This will be a hard text to preach in many settings. I’ve tried to imagine preaching it in my last congregation, a congregation of privilege located in a neighborhood of disadvantaged people. My church had a number of ministries in that neighborhood, because we understood our responsibility for the poor. A significant number of our…
Psalm 16
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…
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
This week’s national celebrations in North America give Canadians and Americans opportunities to think about freedom. July 1 is, after all, the Canada Day that at least some people think of as Canada’s birthday. July 4 is the day on which Americans celebrate the anniversary of their declaration of independence from Great Britain. So one…
John 14:23-29
Jesus kept saying it, kept repeating it that night: Let not your hearts be troubled. But it’s difficult to imagine a more troubling context in which to try to say such a thing! Jesus kept talking about peace, but all hell was about to break loose on Jesus and on his band of followers. In…
Psalm 23
Presidential funerals always draw a huge television audience. We saw that recently with the funeral services for George H.W. Bush. We have seen it for Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon. But when you watch such services, you need not have the funeral program in your hands to guess that probably at some point…
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Call it the little Psalm that could. Call it the Psalm of stealth and surprise. Call it the Psalm that fits the Gospel bill. Why? Because out of all the 150 psalms in the Hebrew Psalter, many people have their favorites but those favorites—most anybody’s “Top 10 Greatest Hits of the Psalter” list—would likely not…
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Some biblical texts deal with rather ordinary things such stealing, eating and even caring for animals. Other texts, however, open readers’ eyes to far bigger issues. While Paul talks much about daily concerns early in his first letter to the Corinthians, he closes it by talking about bigger concerns. As Daniel J. Price to whose…
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
“From now on,” Paul insists to the Corinthians in this Sunday’s RCL Epistolary Lesson, “we regard no one from a worldly point of view (16)”. Yet whenever I hear him say that, I want to ask, “Really?! Do we really no longer view people from a worldly point of view? After all, how quick aren’t…
Luke 6:27-38
If you are a preacher who likes to highlight the fact that Jesus was always friendliest toward the very same “sinners” that were shunned by the religious authorities of his day, then it can be a little disconcerting to hear Jesus in this passage use the word “sinners” in what sounds like a pejorative way. …
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
In the more than twenty years that I’ve ministered with and to the church I currently serve, I’ve never preached on 1 Corinthians 13. Now I remember why. Not only is it so lovely that it nearly defies description. It’s also like a figurative lit stick of dynamite. So I take comfort in the assertion…
Colossians 3:12-17
Some people who proclaim Colossians 3 this week are old enough to remember a kind of worship battle that largely preceded today’s battles over music. Some of those battles were fought over appropriate clothing for wearing to worship. During the 1960’s and 70’s my dad always wore a suit and tie and my mom wore…
Luke 1:39-45 (46-56)
We like musicals. Back in the day Hollywood turned out a great many films in this genre, though in recent years the movie musical has been pretty well restricted to Disney films like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. A recent exception was the exceptional La La Land that somehow managed to capture the power,…
Mark 12:28-34
Digging into the Text: The first thing I noticed about this text is that this is that while all the other encounters Jesus has with the Scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, are adversarial, this one is positive. This particular Scribe had been listening to Jesus discuss theology with the Jewish leaders, and he was…
Ruth 1:1-18
As we near the end of Ordinary Time the lectionary lessons begin to lean into Advent with a focus on three faithful people, two of them in the genealogy of the Christ. The end of the book of Ruth reminds us that Ruth, against all odds, was part of the family tree of David and,…
Mark 9:38-50
The challenge of this lectionary text is that it reads like a hodgepodge of Jesus’ sayings, something like the book of Proverbs with its often unconnected string of wisdom sayings. Because of its lack of apparent cohesion, it would be difficult to build a coherent sermon by moving though the entire text. So, the text…
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…
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
This is first and only time the Song of Songs appears in the Revised Common Lectionary, and it is an odd time. I mean that the reading clearly refers to the first days of spring, while we are in the last days of summer. What can we do with this oddly timed and controversial reading?…
Ephesians 3:14-21
The Bible is inspired. But that does not mean it is always “inspiring” in the typical sense of that word. There are plenty of Bible passages that very nearly repulse the reader: all-out war in the Old Testament where men, women, and children are slaughtered; psalms that delight in smashing babies against rocks. Other Bible…
Isaiah 40:21-31
Grasshoppers are interesting creatures. While they have wings, just like eagles, they can’t soar like eagles. Yet grasshoppers can really jump. If people could jump like them, we’d be able to leap more than 40 yards. Yet while grasshoppers can be colorful, heads that are relatively tiny also house their brains. If you walk through…
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Sometimes actions have surprisingly pleasant results. A soccer players weakly strikes a ball that ricochets off a defender and into the goal. Or a chef blends guacamole, tuna fish and lima beans into a recipe that somehow turns out to be delicious. Other actions, however, have surprisingly unpleasant results. With perfect form a basketball player…
Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
Though it is the first Psalm in Book V of the Psalter, Psalm 107 seems to be a continuation of the historical Psalms that ended Book IV, the end of a trilogy that includes Psalm 105 and 106. All these Psalms sing the praises of the God who acts in history for his people. Psalm…
Matthew 22:34-46
Back to the beginning. That might be a good way to understand this passage in Matthew 22. Because in a couple of ways, these verses hark back to how Matthew began Jesus’ story in this Gospel. First there is the genealogy in Matthew 1. In that “family tree” of Jesus Matthew inserts something into 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? …
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….
Romans 5:1-11
Tragedy and strength. Carnage and hope. It’s the kind of paradoxical combination we Christians know about because most every time we step into a church sanctuary we are confronted with symbols that point to hope in the midst of sorrow. We see a cross, which has somehow transformed from a grim reminder of death into…
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
If you can’t remember the last sermon or lesson that you preached, taught or heard on a text from the book of Leviticus, you’re not alone. Even most of the preachers and teachers I know who are committed to communicating the Scriptures’ full truth seem reluctant to talk about Leviticus. By appointing just one text…
Micah 6:1-8
What do you give to the person who already has everything? It’s not just a question for Christmas, birthday or other gift giving. It’s also, in some ways at the heart of the Old Testament lesson the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday: What do you give to the One who already owns everything? Micah 6:4-5…
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, just a week away from Christmas, it is easy to imagine those shepherds already in the fields keeping watch over their sheep, completely unaware of what is going to happen to them in just a few days. But we can’t go there yet. It is not Christmas yet; it’s…
Romans 1:1-7
“To God’s beloved ones in Rome.” Such a simple, such a commonplace way to open a letter. We read such a salutation in all of the New Testament’s many epistles. And it’s easy to breeze right past it, hurry on by to get to the meat of the letter, the real important stuff about the…
Philemon 1:1-21
Garry Wills’s book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, is a fascinating study of one of the world’s more famous speeches. Wills claims that in the Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln, in the span of a scant 272 words which took him all of three minutes to deliver, forever altered our understanding of the…
Luke 10:25-37
If you are a baseball fan, you remember that bizarre play in Game 5 of last October’s playoffs between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Texas Rangers. The game was tied 2-2 in the 7th inning and Texas had a man on third base. The Toronto pitcher had just thrown a pitch to the Texas…
John 13:31-35
If your son was in a bad car accident and spent weeks in critical condition in the hospital’s ICU with machines keeping him alive, then upon his full recovery and on the day he comes home from the hospital, wouldn’t it feel a bit odd to not celebrate his homecoming in favor of a long…
2 John
“All you need is love…” John Lennon’s iconic refrain still resonates in our culture decades after it was a hit for The Beatles, and so does the sentiment. From the first epistle of John you might get the impression that John agrees, since love is the overriding theme of that letter, mentioned well over 40…
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…
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
For this 4th Sunday after Epiphany, the lectionary returns for a 3rd time in a row to Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, particularly this section focused on the divisions in that church created by their abuse of spiritual gifts. Having emphasized that all the gifts come from the same Spirit for the common good…
Jude
Though it seems like the bulk of Jude’s letter deals with negative examples, he surrounds the negative with some very strong positives. The key is to slow down and pay attention to why Jude says what he says the way he says it. The main thing Jude wants to say to the community is found…
Matthew 15:1-20
Angles, insights, and illustrations as entry points into the text and sermon Inside and Out Preachers as well as parishioners know intuitively that there is much at stake in a text like Matthew 15. What is at stake here, and how high the stakes are becomes obvious as we probe more deeply. In the text,…
Psalm 36:5-10
Verse 1’s reference to an “oracle” that’s in the psalmist’s heart about the wicked’s sinfulness may puzzle citizens of the 21st century who link Oracle to Internet technology. They may wonder if this is some sort of moral “Cloud.” That’s why it’s important to remember the term “oracle” generally refers to some kind of revelation…
2 Corinthians 7
Comments and Observations Recently my congregation lifted up their voices and sang “Blessed Be Your Name” (Matt and Beth Redman). The song speaks of the ups and downs in life – we sang of the times when we’re “in the land that is plentiful, where your streams of abundance flow” we sang of the times…
Exodus 11:1-10
Sermon Idea: God will fight for His people. Comments and Observations: Everybody loves a hero. Tales of individuals who will champion the cause of someone who is unjustly oppressed fascinate us. True heroes, however, are hard to find. Most of us feel as though others are hardly interested in our struggles. Even if we find…
Colossians 3:12-17
The Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s Day is a good day to find a guest preacher to fill in for you. I mean, after all the hoopla of the holidays, people are exhausted and after exploring the depths and heights of the Incarnation. So is the preacher. What do you say on this first…
Mark 9:38-50
Comments and Observations: Unity is important in preaching and teaching. We drill that message into our seminary students in preaching class. We often refer to the mnemonic device devised by Paul Scott Wilson that can be remembered by the phrase “The Tiny Dog Is Now Mine.” The first letter of each word in that phrase…
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, perhaps the greatest truth.” Those opening lines of M. Scott Peck’s bestselling, The Road Less Travelled, were a sensation back in the 1970’s. Now, as the GEICO insurance commercial says, “Everybody knows that.” What people don’t know is how to deal with the difficulty. That’s what Paul…
John 17:6-19
Comments and Observations “You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.” That is a saying of my former Pastoral Care colleague Ron Nydam. And he’s right. But the truth is that parents all know that as a matter of fact you cannot insure the happiness of your children. And that truth is married to another…
John 15:9-17
Comments and Observations Every week the sermon proclaims the Gospel. Yes, there is always a small-t preaching text (Psalm 23, John 15) on which the sermon is based but that text is always also in service of getting at the big-T Text that just is the Good News about Christ Jesus. The Gospel is why…
John 10:11-18
Comments and Observations: Today we don’t have shepherds in the wider society. Today we have managers. But shepherds and managers are not the same. Whenever Jesus uses the pastoral image of a shepherd for himself, the point is nearly always the same: as the good shepherd of his sheep, he will risk his life and…
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Parts of this lection are pretty well known, particularly since in the Passion section of his oratorio Messiah, G.F. Handel lifted up some of these words and set them to music. (I have personally always been struck by the way Handel turned the word “plucked” into a two-syllable word…
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Everybody likes what follows the words “The days are coming” in verse 31 of this passage. A bit more dodgy and difficult to understand, however, is what follows that identical phrase in verse 27. Because there the last thing mentioned is that if ever it had been true that…
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Comments and Observations At first blush, Genesis 17 may not seem like a real likely Lenten text. But stay tuned in this sermon commentary and eventually we’ll come around to seeing how this text fits in with Lent after all and with also the Mark 8 passage assigned for this Second Sunday in Lent of…
Preaching Connection: Love