Matthew 11:2-11 Dear Partner in Preaching, It’s quite a change, isn’t it? I mean, last Sunday’s gospel reading all but brimmed over with John the Baptist’s confidence and his clear and compelling call for repentance. Yet John’s tune changes markedly in the reading we will be preaching this Sunday. Now, sitting alone in a dark and dank cell, John questions his earlier confidence and perhaps his very mission and identity, and so sends a disciple to go and ask Jesus a poignant, even heartbreaking question: are you really the one who is to come, or should we look for another? The movement from last week’s reading to this one is both...

Matthew 3:1-12, Isaiah 11:1-10 Dear Partner in Preaching, What do you think: Is there any chance we can reclaim the value of the word “repentance” this Advent? Or, for that matter, Advent itself? Here’s why I ask. I’m guessing that most of our folks assume repentance means saying you’re sorry. Or better, that you’re really, really sorry and will never do it – whatever “it” is – again. And, sure, that’s a part of repentance but, honestly, a pretty small part. As you know, the heart of the word repentance means turning around, starting over, taking another direction, choosing another course. All of those actions by their...

Matthew 24:36-44 Dear Partner in Preaching, I am writing this letter to you on the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day. In a few hours, stores will open and people will flock to cash in on Black Friday deals. It used to be that Black Friday started on, well, Friday, but as you likely know those shopping “opportunities” have slowly but surely crept back into the wee hours of Friday morning, then to midnight, and most recently into the evening of Thanksgiving Day itself. On the whole, we seem to have a very hard time waiting for things. So did the early Christians to whom Matthew was writing. Keep in mind that Matthew likely writes in the early...