John 9:1-41 Dear Partner in Preaching, A single brief question late in the week: Why do we call the main character in this story “the man born blind” or “the man who had been blind”? Maybe you don’t call it that, but that’s the way I’ve normally heard it. And I’m curious as to why. The obvious reason, I suppose, is that this is the way the Gospel of John refers to him. At least some of the time. In the first verse of John’s ninth chapter, he is described as a “man blind from birth.” Okay, that pretty descriptively accurate. Once Jesus heals him, he is referred to directly several more times. In v. 8, he is “the man...

Dear Partner in Preaching, Can I give you some advice? Clear some time on your calendar next week for additional pastoral conversations with people. Because this Gospel reading, with its tussle over authority and deceptively tame parable, has the potential to really stir things up in the life and identity of your people. On one important level, the topic at hand is authority, as the religious authorities challenge Jesus’ right to teach and preach, particularly in the Temple, and Jesus in turn reverses their challenge and ensnares them in their own trap. And certainly you could preach a whole sermon on the dramatic exchange here, how it...

There is something both beautiful and sad about Barbara Crooker’s poem “Surfer Girl.” And it’s something beautiful and sad that I’ve experienced this past week at our cottage on Lake Otsego. Getting old, someone said, is not for sissies. And my siblings and I can testify to the truth of that statement as we live into the reality of being middle-aged. Water skiing – my substitute for Crooker’s surfing – didn’t hurt this much when I was half the age I am now. Nor did running…or sleeping on the less than perfect mattresses that furnish the cottage. And, quite frankly there are a lot of things like that. And so as I...