Matthew 5:1-12 Dear Partner in Preaching, A few thoughts on Jesus’ beatitudes and our celebration of All Saints Sunday, which this year falls just a few days before a bitterly partisan election and as we enter into the early weeks of what may prove to be a dark and difficult winter as the pandemic surges across our communities, nation, and world. First, I find it helpful to remember what Jesus is up to this passage. It’s located, of course, in the larger narrative of his “Sermon on the Mount.” And that sermon – far from being simply another, if extended, homily is, especially in Matthew, a description of, and summons to,...

Matthew 22:34-46John 8:31-36Romans 3:19-28 Dear Partner in Preaching, Depending on what day you choose to lift up this Sunday, you have a variety of passages from which to choose. If you’re preaching Sunday as the 21st Sunday after Pentecost (A), you have Matthew’s story of Jesus’ famous declaration that “love the Lord your God” and “love your neighbor” are the chief commandments of Scripture (Mt 22). If you’re observing Reformation Sunday, you have Jesus connection between truth and freedom (Jn 8) and Paul’s lynch-pin discussion of righteousness (Rom 3). So many interesting, intriguing, and at some points...

Matthew 22:1-14 Dear Partner in Preaching, This may just be my least favorite parable in my least favorite Gospel. (And before you say anything, I know a good working preacher doesn’t play favorites. Well, maybe when it comes to parables, but not Gospels.) Regardless, this parable seems just plain nasty. Not so much because it’s difficult to interpret – it is, to some degree, though mostly, I think, because we don’t like what it says. But rather because of the indiscriminate violence in the passage. What are we to make of it? To get at that question, I’m going to try to summarize what seem to me to be the three main...

Matthew 21:33-46 Dear Partner in Preaching, I think I know what Matthew’s up to here and, quite frankly, I’m not a fan. This parable, quite similar to that in Mark and Luke, has one major and one minor difference from its sibling accounts. First, the major: after telling the story of violent tenant farmers who not only refuse to give the landowner the portion of the produce lawfully owed, all three synoptic gospels portray Jesus as asking a question: “what will the landowner do to those tenants?” But whereas Mark and Luke depict Jesus as answering his own question – “he will destroy those tenants and give the land to...

Matthew 21:23-32 Dear Partner in Preaching, Just a few thoughts as the week suddenly grows short. Actually, maybe just two. But first, and to set the scene, let’s keep in mind that the story before us revolves around the question of authority. From where, in particular, does Jesus draw his authority not just to question but totally up-end the status quo, at least as far as religious power and customs are concerned. Just to remind us of the context, Jesus has just entered Jerusalem, greeted and hailed by the crowds with the messianic title, “Son of David.” His first action after such acclamation is to drive out the money...

Matthew 20:1-16 Dear Partner in Preaching, In reading this parable this week, I was reminded of the 1992 Academy Award-winning film Unforgiven, where Clint Eastwood plays a gun-slinging loner who rides into a Western town to settle some scores. Those of you familiar with Eastwood’s trademark westerns won’t be surprised that the film ends up in a violent confrontation, this time between his character and a wayward sheriff played by Gene Hackman. At the climax of the film, when Eastwood has bested the sheriff, Hackman’s character complains that he doesn’t deserve this. Yeah, maybe he’s a bit crooked, but for the most part...

Matthew 18:21-35 Dear Partner in Preaching, I find sermons on forgiveness challenging. Not because I don’t think forgiveness is important. It is central not just to our life of faith but also, I’d argue, our life together in this world. Absent forgiveness, how could we possibly stay in relationship with each other? Forgiveness isn’t something that only restores, even frees, the one forgiven. Forgiveness also restores and frees the one who forgives. Forgiveness creates possibility, keeps the future open, offers paths forward formerly not imaginable, and breaks the cosmic law of relentless cause-and-effect to create something new....

Matthew 18:15-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, I must confess that I think I’ve been misreading this Sunday’s passage from Matthew for, well, pretty much my whole life. J That’s likely because – another confession coming – I tend to read Matthew as a fairly strict rule enforcer, a little harsh a times, even bordering on nasty occasionally. (Told you I was about to ‘fess up!) But… I think I’ve got it – and Matthew – all wrong. (Well, not all wrong, as Matthew can be kind of harsh, particularly when dealing with the Pharisees, his likely opponents in the struggle for the allegiance of his folks.)...

Matthew 16:21-28 Dear Partner in Preaching, We’re at “part 2” of the Caesarea Philippi scene, and once again, I find that our present circumstances are prodding me to look again at a text I felt like I knew. Typically, I would focus on the heartbreak of the rebuke Jesus levels at Peter. And then connect Peter’s disappointment to our own, as we, too, often want a strong God, even a warrior God, who will come in to save us from our problems. Those – I would argue quite understandable – desires make it hard to accept, let alone celebrate, Jesus coming to us in vulnerability, suffering, and death. Until, that is, we realize...

Matthew 16:13-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, How do we keep faith in the time of COVID? And struggle for racial equity? And weather economic crisis? And stay hopeful (or even just sane) amid such a toxic political culture? (And all this during an election year!) Just now it feels like so much threatens to tear us apart. As those in positions of leadership sometime feel the pressures of the day more keenly, I know you wrestle with these questions – and bear the mental strain of trying to answer them – regularly. These questions have pushed me to read this passage a little differently this year. The larger story and scene that...