Second Sunday after the Epiphany (Year 3, NL)

In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr.’s confidence in the politics of progressivism dimmed. Judgment became his refrain.

In order to stop it, we have to understand it.

It is not just his words that make Jeremiah a prophet. It is his willingness to share in the judgment.

Jesus didn’t come to make us feel good.

When Jesus steps up to read the scroll, he comes home to a place of clarity.

Stanley Hauerwas’s The Peaceable Kingdom at 40

What are we willing to sacrifice for racial justice?

Jesus refuses at every turn to do something important, the things his neighbors thought he should do when he grew up.

If Jesus is with the other guy, how can he be with us?

The word of God is living and active; it meets us where we are.

This time of year, our inner landscapes can seem as bleak as the outer ones.

In his response to John, Jesus speaks of hope in the present tense.

What’s up with Luke’s assertive Jesus?

As a homiletics professor, I would be inclined to give Jesus a passing grade, and not just because he is Jesus.

There’s a lot of urgency in that single word today.

How would Norman Rockwell have painted Jesus' homecoming to Nazareth?

The writer of Luke may be challenging his readers to accept even those whom the oppressed might reject, but Paul reminds us to act with love in all things.

In this week’s Gospel reading, many people praise Jesus’ teaching—until he claims that he is the fulfillment of the scripture he reads. It is difficult for American Christians to grasp how shocking Jesus’ announcement is to a first-century synagogue.