Lectionary Sermon Starters Archives - Page 31 of 63

“The Offense of Grace” – Matthew 20:1-16 (Year A, Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost)

Read the Lectionary Texts I had a scary dream the other night. Dreamed I died and went to heaven. Well, that wasn’t the scary part. What was scary is what happened there at the pearly gates. St. Peter met me and said before I could enter the heavenly realm, I had to make a complete public disclosure of all my sins. Man! I’d always heard you had to do that, but I’ve been kind of hoping it was a misprint in the Bible. Well, St. Peter took me over to a place where there was a giant chalkboard. It [READ MORE]

“Of Saints and Sinners” – Matthew18:21 – 35 (Year A, Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

[email protected]2023-09-12T13:27:06-04:00September 12th, 2023|Lectionary Sermon Starters|

Read the Lectionary Texts I’m hung up on this forgiveness thing, aren’t you? In fact, I’d say that Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness is probably the teaching I most often and strongly argue with Jesus about. For years now, I have been urging Jesus to just get rid of it. It is the most unreasonable of all his teachings. Someone hurts me and I am supposed to forgive – and forget – and just let it go. Forgive me, but I just don’t buy it. And I think there’s strong evidence that most Christians pretty much ignore Jesus’ teaching [READ MORE]