Matthew 2:1-12 (13-17) Dear Partner in Preaching, This isn’t the Christmas story most of us shared with the kids and grandkids in our lives. It’s not the Christmas story any of us read on Christmas Eve. And, truth be told, it’s not the Christmas story we like to remember. (And the lectionary, for some reason, spares us the worst part!) But it is in Scripture, and it’s important to take it seriously. Here are the troubling elements most briefly: An easily threatened and manipulative despot who turns to violence when thwarted; traveling and well-intentioned astrologers/seekers first duped, but then enlightened into...

Luke 3:7-18 Dear Partner in Preaching, To scold or not to scold, that is the question. At least that often seems to be the question many preachers ask themselves in Advent. Facing a Christmas celebration that is shaped at least as much by a consumption-driven culture as it is the nativity story, noting the painful disparity present in our communities between the “haves” and “have-nots,” and given just 10-15 minutes on Sunday morning to counter a 24/7barrage of ads that promote self-indulgence over sacrifice, we preachers feel a perhaps understandable tug toward not simply calling our people to resistance but also scolding...

Dear Partner in Preaching, Upon sitting down to write this letter to you, I quickly reviewed the three earlier times I’ve written on this passage (once on these pages, once in a Dear Working Preacher column, and once by way of commentary for Working Preacher) and realized… that they same more or less the same thing! (Less you miss this, take it as a warning about reviewing old sermons, too! 🙂 ) I suppose that’s not terrible and, for what it’s worth, I’ll still stand by my sense of Luke’s audacious testimony that moves from history to confession. But it does remind me that there’s only so much one can say about any given...

Luke 21:25-36 Dear Working Preacher, Let me venture an assertion. It is, unfortunately, not a new assertion, but important to reiterate nonetheless: the greatest challenge we face today is not war, or economic inequity, or community unrest, or prejudice, or division, but fear. Why? Because fear is at the root of all these other things I just mentioned. Think about it. From Pharaoh in the first chapter of Exodus (v. 8-10) to today’s despots, fear is the means by which we turn those who are in some fashion different from us into an enemy, a people against whom we should war. Fear causes us to horde, assuming we will never have enough and...

John 18:33-37 Dear Partner in Preaching, So much in John’s Gospel turns on questions. Have you ever noticed that? How frequently John records questions, whether from Jesus or the person to whom Jesus is talking. From the first chapter with Nathaniel, through Nicodemus and the woman at the well, including multiple encounters with religious authorities, and all the way up to this passage, Jesus is regularly asking or answering questions. On one level, I suppose this is simply a good narrative technique to advance the plot. Questions offer a good rhetorical foil to move into the subject matter at hand. But at another level, there is something...