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...

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...

My heart is breaking, as I know yours is, for all those affected by the shootings in Connecticut. It’s hard for us to contemplate the horror, grief, and loss of the families of those poor children, teachers and staff. It’s even harder for us to understand the madness that could motivate someone to such a heinous act. Contemplating any of this, let alone all of it, is nearly overwhelming. All we can do is hold them in prayer, surround them with love, and when the time comes ask hard questions about the elements of our culture and policies that contribute to such atrocities. Before these awful events, I had been thinking about using an...