Dear Partner in Preaching, I’ve often thought that there are at least two kinds of courage. One is the immediate and situational courage of the person who, in a moment of extreme need, summons the courage to face an imminent danger. This is the courage of the by-stander who pushes someone out of the way of oncoming traffic or jumps into a raging river to save someone struggling to swim at great risk to him or herself. Of course, such courage is not actually just a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing but ultimately is a display of character, an accumulation of traits and beliefs, training and patterns of behavior that have been developed and...

Dear Partner in Preaching, You may be tempted to read just the primary verses of this Sunday’s appointed passage – Luke 9:28-36 – and save the remainder (37-43) for another time. That’s understandable, as the two discreet scenes appear to have little to do with each other. The first, after all, is about the transfiguration, Luke’s take on the dramatic mountaintop encounter between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah while the second is a more ordinary scene of Jesus responding to human need back in the valley. Little wonder you may be thinking of focusing on the former and saving the latter for another Sunday. If this is how you’re leaning,...

Dear Partner in Preaching, While reading this passage, I kept thinking of Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” and, in particular, it’s most famous line: “Good walls make good neighbors.” While that line is perhaps well known to many of us, it’s easy to forget that the whole of Frost’s poem is written to challenge that assertion. Two farmers are out for their spring ritual of replacing stones that have fallen from the wall separating their two properties. One, the voice of the poet, keeps wondering why they need walls at all: “My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.” To which...

Luke 4:14-21 Dear Partner in Preaching, When you hear the word “power,” what comes to mind? Significant influence or wealth, as in one who strides down the “corridors of power”? Or perhaps great physical strength, the powerful front line of the Carolina Panthers, for instance? I was struck by the line introducing the passage we’re reading this week: “Then Jesus, filled by the power of the Holy Spirit,….” According to Luke, Jesus does what he does and says what he says precisely because he is filled with power, great power, the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the first scene Luke offers to describe Jesus’ public ministry...

Dear Partner in Preaching, The first line of this week’s reading really grabbed my attention: “As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John….” What I find fascinating is not actually how John responding to all this attention; rather, I’m intrigued by the wondering and perhaps murmuring and even hoping among the people about whether John might be the promised Messiah in the first place. And that got me to thinking: “Are our people still expecting a Messiah?” Or, perhaps more accurately, “Who are our people looking to with...

I love John’s audacity. I know, I know, I said the same thing about Luke just a few weeks ago, but hear me out. Luke is an audacious historian; John is an audacious author and theologian. Take, for instance, how he begins his Gospel: “In the beginning….” Sound familiar? Of course it does. These are the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth….” (1:1). So think about that for a moment. John is writing his story of Jesus and decides to start by quoting the beginning of Genesis or, really, the whole Bible. It would be kind of like if I wanted to write a novel and decided to begin,...