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...

Dear Friends, It’s been a while since I’ve posted, I know. It’s been hard to be away from you all, but my current call at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church (Mpls) — which has been the absolute delight and privilege of my career — has made it hard to find the time to keep up the weekly discipline of writing on the upcoming RCL selections (particularly as we’ve moved to a narrative lectionary pattern — more on that, perhaps, in a later post). But… given what we’re all facing together, and because I am not spending quite as much time commuting(!), I thought I would try to resume that...

Mark 8:31-38 Dear Partner in Preaching, Some will see in this Sunday’s passage a call to be patient and long-suffering in the just cause, and in this sense to take up one’s cross, and I’m sympathetic to that counsel. Others will hear the promise that all things, even something as awful as the cross, work together, in the words of the Apostle, “for the good of the one who believes” (Rom. 8:28) and so invite us to take up our cross trusting that God is in control, and I’ve seen that counsel provide comfort during difficult times. Still others will ask what things we’ve used to try to save our lives rather than giving ourselves...

Dear Partner in Preaching, Somewhere along the line – whether in a college English course or seminary preaching class I can’t quite remember – I was taught to craft a tight, clear theme sentence to guide the whole of the essay or sermon. I’ll confess that I don’t do that every week, but I will this time around. And keeping with the brevity of Mark’s Gospel – and, indeed, his somewhat truncated version of the temptation – I’m going to keep it short: the same Spirit that descends upon Jesus at his baptism now drives him into the wilderness. Did you ever notice that, by the way? That immediately after his Baptism Jesus is...