Dear Partner in Preaching, Well that was fun! Our sharing and conversation via last week’s letter and comments, that is. Let’s do the same this week, and continue building a community of partners in preaching. As to this week… Over the years I’ve learned a lot from marketing guru Seth Godin. And one of the things I’ve learned seems particularly apt in light of this week’s parable. Godin argues in his little book All Marketers Are Liars that it’s not just marketers who lie, but all of us do. What he means is simply that we regularly tell ourselves things that we at least suspect, and sometime know for sure, are not true, and...

Dear Partner in Preaching, November is a hard month to preach. Part of that is where we are in the cycle of the church calendar, as November draws us toward Christ the King and the lectionary readings anticipate Christ’s second advent even as we prepare to celebrate his first advent at Christmas. And the other part is Matthew, who offers more warnings about hellfire and gnashing teeth than the rest of the evangelists combined. And so this Sunday and those that follow will treat us to exhortations to wait, to make the most of our gifts, and to do good…or else. And while all these parables present their own distinct challenges, I have to...