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...

Matthew 9:35-10:23 Dear Partner in Preaching, Where do we start? Do we start with the recognition that Jesus warns his disciples not about outsiders but insiders? The wolves aren’t the Gentiles or the Samaritans… or the immigrants or illegals; they’re the synagogue leaders and council elders, the magistrates and political officials that will threaten the mission of the disciples. Israel’s problems are with Israel or, in Pogo’s words, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Or do we start with the fact that Matthew says their names. Twelve apostles about whom we know next to nothing, twelve among admittedly far, far...