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,...

John 11:32-44 Dear Partner in Preaching, Why this story of the raising of Lazarus for All Saints Sunday? While that was my question a week ago when I first looked at this text and began to think about preaching on this day, that question has taken on greater urgency in light of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg over the weekend. And it’s given launch to other questions as well. Why does this passage matter? Does it matter? What does it say not just to this festival but to our life in this chaotic and violent world? Why this quaint festival at all, for that matter? How does what we do speak into, let alone help, in a...

Matthew 5:1-12 Dear Partner in Preaching, There is a scene in Schindler’s List that came back to me while reading the Beatitudes. Amon Goeth, played by Ralph Fiennes, is the commandant of a German death camp. Goeth is, in brief, a violent sociopath, prone to kill the Jewish prisoners at his camp indiscriminately. And he believes that his ability to kill is the very essence of power. Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, is a consummate showman and has somehow worked his way into Amon Goeth’s good graces. One evening, Schindler challenges Goeth’s beliefs about power. The ability to kill isn’t power; the ability to have mercy is...

A quick note: I’ll be reflecting on the Gospel appointed for All Saints’ Sunday but will put links here to a commentary and reflection I’ve written on Luke 20:27-28 (Pentecost 25 C) below. Luke 6:20-31 Dear Partner in Preaching, There is a reason that Luke describes Jesus preaching his most famous sermon from a plain rather than a mountain. Have you ever noticed that? That what we routinely call the “Sermon on the Mount” isn’t delivered from a mountain in Luke’s Gospel? That is what happens in Matthew’s story, but not Luke’s. Jesus does indeed go up a mountain in Luke’s account, but it is in order to pray, and after a...

Dear Partner in Preaching, You’ll know what to say to your congregation on this Sunday. I know that and trust that. But for what it’s worth, I’m going to share with you in this letter what I want, even need, to hear on All Saints’ Sunday this year. Our custom, of course, is to remember those who have died in the last year. And I believe that practice is, to borrow the old words, “meet, right, and salutary.” It gives us a moment to grieve those we have lost but also to move to thanksgiving for their life and, even more, for their place now among the saints gathered in the nearer presence of God. And so by all means, read the names...