Tag: Matthew 11:2-15

Where’s My Sign?

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Biblical Text: Matthew 11:2-15

This is one of my favorite texts in the lectionary. I say that primarily because it is a big fat pitch that sets a preacher up to hit one out of the park. Not every text is that. There are hard texts that slapping a single is good. There are texts that the subject matter might be important, but just not that “sexy”. Again, the every Sunday preacher slaps a single, or maybe you can steal a double if you hustle. And then there are texts about why God doesn’t just solve all our problems. There are texts that are responses to “why?” There are texts that get right to the foot of the cross.

This one was helped by an odd occurrence in life. Someone stole a sign at church. It was a sign I had out in the front of the church on the main road inviting people in for Morning Prayer (Tuesday – Friday). Someone just walked away with it. That’s the introduction to the sermon.

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Are You The One?

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Biblical Text: Matthew 11:2-15

The second and third Sundays in Advent are always John the Baptist Sundays. The third one in year A – Matthew’s year – is one of my favorite texts to preach from. Why you ask? Because I think it is a text that gets emotionally to the core of what many Christians feel, but we are usually scared to read it that way. We are too protective of the saintliness of biblical characters. And beyond getting to the core of what we feel, Jesus’ answers are profound in two ways. Jesus does give us the promise, but that promise comes in the very specific form of the crucified one. We get no other messiah. The text is a challenge to the hearers, both to the faithful like John who might not understand, and the crowds who might be pondering the message.

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