Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 Sermon Commentary
Proper 19C
The Politics of Babylon Jeremiah is coming at God’s people with every attempt he can think of in hopes of stirring them out of complacency. The emotional appeals run the gamut: grief, anger, provocation, reasoning, coaxing. He sees the people jockeying for power, attempting alliances with this super-power and then another. He observes their systemic…
1 Timothy 1:12-17 Sermon Commentary
Proper 19C
At first glance, 1 Timothy 1:17 may seem like a strange place to put such a stirring doxology. After all, while we profess the Spirit inspired its placement, it’s only a relative handful of verses into Paul’s letter to his “true son in the faith” (1). While there are, of course, exceptions, we generally find…
Psalm 51:1-10 Sermon Commentary
Proper 19C
Even allowing for poetic license, it is a little difficult to know what to do with Psalm 51:6. Despite in the previous verse having referenced what we often call the doctrine of Original Sin—we are sinful from the get-go and thus not only after we commit an actual sin—in verse 6 the claim is made…
Luke 15:1-10 Sermon Commentary
Proper 19C
These two parables—even without the more often read story that follows them—have a bit of a bite to them all on their own. More likely than not, we come to them with hearts and minds more like the Pharisees and scribes than we do like the tax collectors and sinners. Many of us sitting in…
Luke 14.25-33 2025 Sermon Commentary
Proper 18C
We’re continuing on the road with Jesus this summer and a large crowd has joined us. As though to weed out a few folks, Jesus decides to remind them what following along with him truly means. What seems like disparate instructions and examples are actually tied together by one central purpose: look out for the…
Jeremiah 18:1-11 Sermon Commentary
Proper 18C
Illustration: One of the most delightful challenges of pastoring is attempting answer kids’ questions about God. They are unfiltered and haven’t yet learned the church rules dictating what one can wonder, ask or assert about who God is and how God works in the world. (Maybe this is what Jesus intended when he wished that…
Psalm 1 2025 Sermon Commentary
Proper 18C
The Hebrew Psalter opens with a beatitude. But unlike Jesus’s well-known Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, Psalm 1’s blessing is not for something a given person is or does. No, this blessing gets pronounced over those who do not engage in certain activities. As beatitudes go, then, this one is rather different. A…
Philemon 1:1-21 2025 Sermon Commentary
Proper 18C
Jesus’ friends sometimes define ourselves by our relationships to other people. We naturally think of ourselves primarily as parents, children, spouses, friends, employers, employees or students. But this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson at least tacitly invites preachers to help our hearers to consider other relationships by which we ought to define ourselves. The Paul who writes…
Psalm 112 2025 Sermon Commentary
Proper 17C
Depending on where you are “at” these days, it could well be the case that reading Psalm 112 is a little difficult. Sunny promises tumble over top of one another in these ten short verses. Lyric descriptions of all the good things that come to righteous and good people stack up like cord wood. There…
Sermon Commentary Library
Our weekly sermon commentaries are Lectionary-based, which across its three-year cycle, encompass a vast array of biblical texts. Filter the Sermon Commentary Library to search Scripture texts by book and chapter to find commentary, illustrations, and reflections to spark ideas.
Looking for something else? View our Heidelberg Catechism sermon resources and our Reformed Connections to the RCL section that traces Lectionary texts to specific parts of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession.