Reading for Preaching
A Married Man
The Fortunate Pilgrim
My Secret History
Continental Drift
Additional content related to Poverty
Luke 1:46b-55
The Year B Lectionary makes Mary’s song, “The Magnificat,” an alternative Psalm lection for both the Third and Fourth Sundays in Advent. For Advent 4B the main Psalm lection is from Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26. This commentary will be on Luke 1 and Mary’s song but if you want to read a prior Advent sermon commentary…
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
In a classic scene of the old TV sitcom M*A*S*H Hawkeye Pierce decides to play a trick on his nettlesome bunkmate Frank Burns. Lately Frank had been bragging about how his stock market portfolio had been getting richer. But it is clear—to the consternation of the more pacifist Pierce—that the reason is that Burns is…
Micah 6:1-8
For some years I co-taught a Bible course on the prophets with one of my colleagues from the Old Testament division at Calvin Seminary. My main task in that course was to talk about how to preach from the Prophets and then to grade a sermon the students write on a passage from Micah. Somewhat…
Amos 8:1-12
The Old Testament is downright chock-full of God’s overweening concern for that traditional triplet of the widows, the orphans, and the resident aliens within Israel. Each group was vulnerable in the ancient Near East. By tradition, Israel was a male-dominated society. Family and inheritance were key factors in a person’s having a stable place in…
Acts 9:36-43
Call her “Tabitha” or call her “Dorcas” the meaning in both Aramaic and Greek was the same: “Gazelle.” Was it her given name or a nickname that matched her lifestyle? We don’t know but by all appearances the woman best known as Dorcas was gazelle-like indeed. She was lightning fast at helping the poor and…
Psalm 146
The Lectionary likes Psalm 146 a lot and so it comes up with some frequency, including only 2 short months ago the first Sunday in September. The last couple of times that I wrote a commentary on Psalm 146 were pretty similar but this week I will take it in a different direction. If you…
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
What a great text for this Third Sunday of Advent! It is full of Good News, but there is still an air of mystery, a sense of “it’s not Christmas yet.” This poetic description of what God is about to do for his suffering people is among the most lovely and powerful in the Bible. …
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Jimmy Carter is now not only the oldest currently living former President of the United States but he has now lived to become the oldest former President ever. Strikingly, he has also been a former President for nearly 39 years. During those almost four decades of time, Carter’s reputation has soared but, of course, he…
Psalm 72:1-4, 10-14
It is easy to see why this poem was chosen for the Day of Epiphany: it’s all about foreign kings and dignitaries bowing before the King of Israel. Think Magi and all that. The Bible I used for Psalm 72 says up top that this poem is “Of Solomon,” even though at the end of…
Mark 10:17-31
Digging into the Text: Let’s face it, according to Jesus, lots of our congregations are not fertile ground for the gospel. They are rich, at least by the world’s standards, probably middle to upper middle class, and immersed in a consumer culture that glorifies getting more. Here Jesus comes along this Sunday and urges us…
Mark 9:30-37
Digging Into the Text: Jesus and the disciples are “on the road again,” headed for Jerusalem. But Jesus didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want any more disturbances or interruptions because he was teaching the disciples, preparing them for what lay ahead. Now, for the second time he tells them exactly what it is…
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
In God’s Politics Jim Wallis describes an experiment a seminarian once conducted. He cut every text about the poor out of an old Bible. It took him, Wallis reports, “a very long time.” “When,” concludes Wallis, “the zealous seminarian was done with all his editorial cuts, that old Bible would hardly hold together, it was…
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Proverbs 22 is full of famous proverbs on subjects as varied as child-rearing, sexual relations with prostitutes, laziness, the value of wisdom and knowledge, choosing friends and companions, sucking up to the rich and the powerful, abusing alcohol, and money. It is perhaps the best-known chapter in this book. At first, it seemed a little…
Luke 16:19-31
The author Robert Farrar Capon was a master of parabolic embellishment, being highly adept at bringing these ancient stories up-to-date through vivid contemporary language and imagery. Sometimes Capon also did what those of us who preach occasionally do as well: he’d name the characters. And so in the Parable of the Prodigal Son maybe we’ll…
Psalm 49:1-12
The opportunity to preach on Psalm 49 comes at a particularly appropriate time in American history. The whole issue of income inequality has troubled our society for quite a while now, but it has become a hot button topic in the campaign for President. One of the candidates is a non-political figure who claimed very…
Acts 9:36-43
The text the Lectionary appoints for the fourth Sunday in Easter is a happy, hopeful one of healing in the face of chronic illness and life in the face of death. Yet it sticks out like a sore thumb in its Scriptural context. Its story of healing and raising to life just doesn’t seem to…
Leviticus 25
The second law of thermodynamics, in oversimplified layman’s terms, is that everything tends toward chaos. All things fall into disorder. It seems to be a spiritual and moral law as well. At least this is the case after sin infects God’s good creation. One of the most visible areas of this sin-generated chaos is our…
2 Corinthians 11
Pastor Heath Mooneyham thinks that many churches are too wimpy, and that’s why so few men come to church. So his congregation, the aptly-named Ignite Church in Joplin, Missouri, started giving away military-style rifles to attract men to their testosterone-fueled services. Mooneyham enticed seekers with the promise that they could “double tap a zombie in…
Ruth 2
There is a well-known plot device in modern romantic comedies called the meet-cute. In fact, one primetime show, The Mindy Project, had almost an entire season based on the protagonist’s attempts to interpret every one of her encounters with a new man as a meet-cute. Meet-cutes are those moments in the book or scenes in…
1 Timothy 5
Comments and Observations: Children have an uncanny ability to notice differences and point out perceived unfairness. Imagine a father who desires to support each of his three children as they graduate. When his oldest son graduates, he co-signs a loan to help him pay for his education. Two years later, when his daughter graduates, he…
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Comments and Observations On this fifth Sunday after Epiphany, this lesson from the epistles seems to have nothing to do with Epiphany, until we take a wider and deeper look. A review of the wider context reminds us that Paul is writing here to a church that is deeply divided—by the abuse of spiritual gifts,…
Preaching Connection: Poverty