Luke 13:10-17 Dear Partner in Preaching, Because I am an avid fan of the Olympics, I have been regularly staying up way too late to watch the struggles and victories of the athletes gathered in Rio. And while doing so I have been hearing a lot of “dream” talk. Michael Phelps described his recovery, comeback, and remarkable set of accomplishments in the pool this past week as a dream come true. Simon Biles, perhaps the greatest gymnast of all time, also talked about living out a dream, as did Simone Manuel, the first US African American to win a gold medal in swimming. Katie Ladecky, Kristin Armstrong, Ryan Murphy, Usain Bolt and so many...

Luke 12:49-56 Dear Partner in Preaching, What does it cost us to go to Church? I’ve been wondering of late what our people would say if we asked them that. A free Sunday morning? A chance to sleep in? The ten or twenty bucks they put in the offering plate? Odds are, if we stop to think of it, it costs us very little to be a Christian today, as even in an increasingly “post-Christian” culture, going to church, if no longer quite the norm, at least occasions little comment. Not so, of course, in Jesus’ day. As Jesus indicates in this complicated and, if truth-be-told, somewhat off-putting passage, those who followed him were regularly...

Luke 12:32-40 Dear Partner in Preaching, One of my favorite questions to ask in visioning work or counseling sessions is as follows: “What would you love to try if you knew you couldn’t fail?” You may have heard that question, or asked it, yourself. I like it because it prompts us to cast our gaze beyond our present circumstances and challenges, elements in our lives that, while perhaps real, often cast a larger than necessary shadow. We are evolutionarily wired to overestimate risk and danger because, well, in a harsh environment underestimating risk and danger can be deadly. But one might argue that in our relatively civilized world,...

Luke 12:13-21 Dear Partner in Preaching, What if this parable really isn’t about money? Or about wealth? Or about the need to give to the church? I know, I know, if that’s true, it robs this parable of its value as the fodder of a great stewardship sermon. (If it makes you feel any better, no one really was expecting to hear a stewardship sermon the last Sunday in July anyway.) Yet I think we move too quickly to assume the issue here is about this farmer’s wealth, when rather I think it’s about his isolation. Consider the little conversation he has with himself. Except it’s not just to himself, it’s also about himself…and only...

Luke 11:1-13 Dear Partner in Preaching, I think I would find this passage easier to preach on if there weren’t so many people dying right now. I know, I know, people die every day. More than that, people die in really difficult, preventable, tragic ways every day that I know nothing about. But in recent weeks, the violence in our cities and around the world has been nearly overwhelming. Orlando, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Nice, Baton Rouge again… there are too many people dying for me to read this passage and wonder, not how to pray, but why we pray at all. And here’s the thing: the overwhelming majority of the people we preach to...