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We are just about ready to wrap up another church year (liturgically speaking, that is) and our texts for this week send us into Jesus’ own musings about how things get wound down (or up, depending on your perspective). We will conclude Year A with what is sometimes known as an “eschatological trilogy” of stories that turn our attention toward the ending of time and final judgement and such as that. What a ride it has been! So let’s buckle up and follow along with Larry the Cable Guy: “Get’er Done!”

The Gospel is the parable of the ten bridesmaids — the first in a short series of parables Jesus tells about readiness as he nears the end of his public teaching. Five bridesmaids bring extra oil for their lamps; five do not. The bridegroom is delayed. All ten fall asleep. At midnight the cry goes up: the bridegroom is coming. The five who prepared for the delay enter the wedding banquet. The five who did not go off to buy oil and find the door shut when they return. The parable closes with Jesus’s warning: “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Image by Margaret Jaszowska from Unsplash

Track One brings us Joshua at Shechem, demanding of Israel that they make a choice about whom to serve. Track Two gives us a double option: the gentler personification of Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon, or the fierce prophetic warning of Amos 5 — both of which address the question of what the day of the Lord actually is for those awaiting it. This guide treats the Amos option, which more sharply pairs with the Gospel. If you are using Wisdom 6, the key move is the opposite: Wisdom is readily found by those who seek her, and the pastoral weight is on invitation rather than warning.

The Epistle is one of the most pastorally important passages in all of Paul: 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, written to a congregation grieving their beloved dead, assuring them that those who have died in Christ are not lost. On the Sunday following All Saints’ Day, this Epistle is almost perfectly placed. The congregation that read the names of their beloved dead last Sunday hears this week a specific pastoral word from Paul about where those beloved dead now are.

For preachers continuing a series: this is the first of three Sundays in the eschatological trilogy that closes the Matthew arc. Next Sunday brings the parable of the talents. The Sunday after that — Reign of Christ — brings the sheep and the goats. All three parables are about what it looks like to be ready for the final meeting with Christ — readiness, stewardship, and recognition.

The Readings

Joshua 24:1–3a, 14–25

First Reading (Track One) — Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Summary

Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel to Shechem. He summons the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers, and they present themselves before God. Joshua recites the story of what God has done — beginning with the ancestors who lived beyond the Euphrates and worshipped other gods, continuing through God’s calling of Abraham and the whole sweep of the exodus. And then he puts the choice directly to them. Fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods your ancestors served. Choose this day whom you will serve. Then comes the famous declaration: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” The people answer: we also will serve the Lord. Joshua pushes back — you cannot serve the Lord, he is a holy and jealous God — but the people insist, and a covenant is made that day at Shechem.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The choice Joshua puts to Israel is not a single moment but a recurring decision. The people have inherited faith from their ancestors, but inheritance is not enough. Each generation has to choose again. Where in your congregation might people need to hear that the faith of their parents or grandparents does not relieve them of their own choice to serve the Lord?

* Joshua pushes back on the people’s easy affirmation. “You cannot serve the Lord,” he tells them, “he is a holy God, a jealous God.” This is a leader refusing to let his people make the covenant lightly. Where in your congregation might the invitation to deeper faith need to be preached with the same honest resistance — the acknowledgment that serving God is not easy, before anyone is asked to say yes?

* The declaration “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” has become one of the best-known lines in the Hebrew Bible. In context, Joshua is modeling for the people what a public commitment sounds like. The leader states his family’s posture first, and then invites the people to make their own choice. Where might your sermon do something with the specific pastoral practice of leaders stating their own commitments plainly before asking anything of the people they lead?

Significant Cautions

* “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” has sometimes been pulled out of its context and turned into a decorative plaque for home display or into a loyalty test for family members. The context is a public covenant renewal, not a household motto. The decorative use of the line can quietly transfer the covenant’s weight from Joshua’s whole community to one family’s self-image.

* The “jealous God” language in verse 19 has historical complexity. In its context it is a theological claim about God’s exclusive claim on Israel’s loyalty, not a psychological description of divine insecurity. Preachers who dwell on the word jealous without framing it carefully can leave hearers with a picture of God that does not match the gospel.

Psalm 78:1–7

The Psalm (Track One) — Tell the Next Generation

Summary

The psalmist opens as a teacher, calling the people to pay attention to his instruction. He will utter dark sayings from of old — things we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. These stories we will not hide from our children, but will tell them to the coming generation: the glorious deeds of the Lord, his might, and the wonders that he has done. The purpose is explicit: so that the next generation might know, and in turn tell their children, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm names the specific pastoral task of generational transmission. The deeds of God are not a possession the current generation owns; they are a trust held for the next generation. What might your sermon do with the question of how, in your particular congregation, the stories of God’s faithfulness are being passed to the next generation — and what might be lost if the transmission stops?

* The purpose of the telling is that the next generation might “set their hope in God.” The transmission is not for its own sake. It is so that the next generation has a foundation for their own hope. Where in your congregation might young people be helped by hearing older members tell them, specifically, where their hope has come from and what has sustained it?

Significant Cautions

* Generational-transmission texts can slide into guilt-inducement for parents and grandparents whose children have left the faith. The psalm is a positive vision of faithful telling, not a judgment against those whose telling did not produce the result they hoped for.

Amos 5:18–24

First Reading (Track Two) — Let Justice Roll Down

Summary

Amos confronts those who have been looking forward to the day of the Lord with pleasant expectations. “Why do you want the day of the Lord?” he asks. “It is darkness, not light.” He compares it to a man fleeing from a lion only to meet a bear, or going into his house and leaning his hand on the wall only to be bitten by a snake. God then speaks in the first person. “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.” The sacrifices will not be accepted. The grain offerings will not be looked on. The sung praises are to be taken away — God will not even listen to the melody of their harps. And then one of the most famous lines in all of Scripture: “But let justice roll down…

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A note on the calendar coincidence: November 1 is All Saints’ Day, which falls on a Sunday this year. Congregations observing All Saints with its own propers will use those readings. This guide covers Proper 26, the ordinary Year A readings for the Sunday, which the lectionary continues to track regardless of festival overlays.

If your congregation is observing All Saints and you need materials for that observance, those can be found in our tentative new service (launching officially for Advent — we hope) at this link: Pericope Pro.

The Gospel opens Matthew 23 — Jesus’s long and difficult address about the scribes and Pharisees. Our passage is the setup, closing before the Seven Woes begin. Jesus grants the scribes and Pharisees their teaching authority but exposes the gap between what they teach and what they do. They love honor, titles, best seats, and the burdens they lay on others. Jesus closes with the characteristic reversal: the greatest will be the servant; those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

Track One brings us Israel crossing the Jordan under Joshua’s leadership. Track Two brings us Micah’s furious judgment against false prophets, rulers who hate good, and priests who teach for a price — the direct prophetic line Jesus is standing in when he confronts the scribes and Pharisees. The Epistle gives us Paul’s continued recollection of his ministry among the Thessalonians, where the gospel was received not as a human word but as the word of God.

For preachers continuing a series: last week Jesus bound the two great commandments as inseparable, and the Pharisees dared ask no more questions. This week Jesus turns from them to the crowds and his disciples, and tells them exactly what was wrong with the religious leadership they had been watching. The Matthew arc is now very close to the end of the public teaching. The next scenes will be the full Seven Woes, the Olivet Discourse, and the beginning of the passion narrative.

The Readings

Joshua 3:7–17

First Reading (Track One) — Crossing the Jordan

Summary

God tells Joshua: today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. The priests are instructed to carry the ark of the covenant into the Jordan. When the soles of their feet touch the waters, the waters will stop flowing. The priests obey. The waters pile up in a heap. Israel crosses on dry ground. The priests stand with the ark in the middle of the Jordan until the whole nation has passed over. The passage is a deliberate echo of the parting of the Red Sea — a new generation, a new crossing, a new entry into what God has promised.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* God’s word to Joshua is that his exaltation is for the sake of the people — “so that they may know that I will be with you.” The authority is not for Joshua’s benefit. It is for the people’s assurance that God is still with them. Where in your congregation might leadership have been imagined as a reward for the leader rather than as an assurance for the community?

* The priests stand in the middle of the Jordan with the ark while the whole nation passes over. That is a specific pastoral image — the leaders hold the position of difficulty until everyone else has crossed safely. What might your sermon do with a picture of leadership that stays in the hard place until the people have been brought through?

* The crossing is deliberately an echo of the Red Sea. The new generation receives its own version of the old deliverance. God’s past faithfulness becomes the ground of God’s present faithfulness. Where in your congregation might people be helped by hearing that what God did before is what God does now, in a new form, for a new generation?

Significant Cautions

* The conquest narratives that follow this passage are deeply difficult — texts that describe the destruction of Canaanite peoples with divine sanction. Preachers who preach the Jordan crossing without any awareness of what comes next hand the congregation a sanitized version of the story. You do not have to resolve the conquest problem in this sermon, but at least do not pretend it is not there.

* “I will exalt you in the sight of all Israel” has sometimes been used by religious leaders to claim personal honor. The passage is explicit that the exaltation is for the people’s confidence, not the leader’s. Do not let it drift the other way.

Psalm 107:1–7, 33–37

The Psalm (Track One) — Give Thanks to the Lord

Summary

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” The psalm celebrates God’s rescuing of the redeemed from various troubles. The selected verses focus on wanderers in desert wastes who found no city, who were hungry and thirsty and whose soul fainted, and whom God led by a straight way to a city to live in. The second selection speaks of God’s power to turn rivers into desert and desert into pools of water — and to turn the hungry into a settled community.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “His steadfast love endures forever” is the psalm’s refrain. Every rescue the psalm describes comes back to this one constant. What might your sermon do with the specific practice of returning again and again to the fixed point of God’s steadfast love when the particulars of our lives keep shifting?

* The psalm pays close attention to specific kinds of trouble — wandering, hunger, thirst, fainting, exile. God’s rescue is not generic. It meets the specific need. Where in your congregation might people be helped by hearing that God’s help is not vague but specific to the trouble they are actually in?

Significant Cautions

* The psalm’s pattern of distress leading to rescue has sometimes been preached in a way that implies every faithful cry will be answered as the psalm describes. Many people cry and are not rescued in this life. Keep the psalm’s hope without making it a formula.

Micah 3:5–12

First Reading (Track Two) — Zion Shall Be Plowed as a Field

Summary

Micah’s judgment against the leaders of Israel. The prophets cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, and declare “war” against those who put nothing in their mouths. The sun will go down upon the prophets. The rulers of the house of Jacob abhor justice and pervert all equity. They build Zion with blood. The heads of Jerusalem give judgment for a bribe, the priests teach for a price, the prophets divine for money. And yet they all lean on the Lord, saying “Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.” Therefore, Micah thunders, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins; and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Micah is a prophet standing within Israel, speaking Israel’s hard truth to Israel’s own leadership. Jesus in today’s Gospel is doing exactly the same thing. The two prophetic voices stand in one line. Where might your sermon help a congregation see that prophetic critique has always come from within the tradition, not from outside it?

* The specific indictment is that the prophets, rulers, and priests are all for sale — they cry peace to those who pay them, judge for bribes, teach for a price, divine for money. The corruption Micah names is specifically the monetization of religious authority. Where in your congregation might this ancient indictment land uncomfortably in a contemporary religious landscape that also knows what happens when ministry is tied to money?

* The leaders who are being judged are described as leaning on the Lord and saying “No disaster shall come upon us.” Their very confidence in God’s presence has become part of their corruption — a shield against hearing the prophetic word. What might your sermon do with a picture of religious confidence that has quietly become religious complacency?

Significant Cautions

* Micah’s judgment is harsh — Zion plowed as a field, Jerusalem a heap of ruins. These images have historically been used by Christian preachers to describe actual later destructions of Jerusalem as di…

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Jed Clampett, head of the fictional clan, The Beverly Hillbillies (sorry if you’re too young for the reference — or too old?) was quoted as saying, “Welll, doggies!” when faced with an unusually challenging or inspiring event. You’ll have to decide which of those the texts for this week are!

The Gospel contains what may be the most famous passage in all the Gospels — the great commandment. A lawyer asks Jesus which commandment is the greatest, and Jesus answers by linking two scattered commandments from the Hebrew Bible into one inseparable teaching: love God with everything, love neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these.

The passage includes a second scene often skipped by preachers — Jesus’s own counter-question about the Messiah being David’s son. The combined effect: by the end of the passage, no one dares ask Jesus any more questions. The temple controversies are over. Matthew’s next move will be the woes and the apocalyptic discourse.

Track One brings us Moses on Mount Nebo, seeing the promised land but not entering it. Track Two brings us the direct source of Jesus’s second commandment: Leviticus 19 and its call to love the neighbor. The Epistle gives us Paul’s tender description of his ministry among the Thessalonians — “like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.”

For preachers continuing a series: last week Jesus turned the Caesar question into a deeper question about whose image we bear. This week he turns the “which commandment” question into a synthesis that will shape the ethics of two thousand years of Christian life. The Matthew arc is now closing out the public ministry. Next week brings All Saints.

The Readings

Deuteronomy 34:1–12

First Reading (Track One) — The Death of Moses

Summary

Moses climbs Mount Nebo. God shows him the whole promised land — from Gilead to Dan to the sea, from the Plain to Zoar. “This is the land I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over.” Moses dies there in Moab. God buries him in a valley; no one knows his grave to this day. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, but his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated. Israel wept for Moses in Moab thirty days. The passage closes with one of the great tributes in Scripture: “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Moses sees the land but does not enter it. That is a devastating pastoral image. Where in your congregation might people be living with their own version of this — having worked and prayed and waited for something they will not get to enter themselves? What might your sermon do to honor that experience without pretending it is not loss?

* The passage says God buried Moses. Not Joshua. Not the people. God. The great prophet is laid to rest by the hand of the one he served. What might your sermon do with a picture of death held in the specific tenderness of God’s own hand?

* “The LORD knew him face to face.” That is the final word on Moses. Not his miracles. Not his leadership. Not his legacy. Knowledge. Mutual recognition. Where might your sermon help a congregation see that the deepest measure of a life is not what we accomplished but who knew us?

Significant Cautions

* “He did not enter the land” has sometimes been preached as Moses’s punishment for his earlier impatience. The passage does not say this. Preach what the text says, not what the broader narrative implies.

* “Never since has there arisen a prophet like Moses” is a text often cited to say every subsequent leader was lesser. The passage is honoring one specific prophet; it is not demeaning the others who would follow.

Psalm 90:1–6, 13–17

The Psalm (Track One) — Teach Us to Count Our Days

Summary

Attributed to Moses. “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Our days are swept away like a dream, like grass that flourishes in the morning and withers by evening. “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” The psalm closes with a prayer for God to satisfy us in the morning with steadfast love, and to prosper the work of our hands.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” Not count hours. Not count accomplishments. Count days. That specific accounting leads not to anxiety but to wisdom. Where in your congregation might people be measuring the wrong things, and how might this psalm invite them into a different reckoning?

* “Prosper the work of our hands” is the prayer that closes the psalm. The psalmist asks God not to prosper our status, our success, or our reputation, but the work of our hands. What might it look like to preach this specific prayer in a culture that is often more interested in reputation than in hands?

Significant Cautions

* “Our days are seventy, or by strength eighty” has been used to produce anxiety about aging. Keep the psalm’s larger frame: God has been our dwelling place.

Leviticus 19:1–2, 15–18

First Reading (Track Two) — Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Summary

From the holiness code. “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” The selected verses then move to very practical commands. Do not render judgment with partiality. Do not slander your neighbor. Do not profit by your neighbor’s blood. Do not hate your kin in your heart. Reprove your neighbor rather than letting resentment fester. Do not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your own people. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” This is the direct source Jesus quotes in today’s Gospel.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not an isolated gentle maxim. It sits in the middle of a list of very concrete commandments about not slandering, not holding grudges, not showing partiality in court. Love of neighbor, in Leviticus, is a specific set of practices, not an abstract feeling. What might your sermon do to recover the concreteness of this famous verse?

* “Reprove your neighbor” is in this same passage, right next to “love your neighbor.” Reproof — honest, caring correction — is itself an act of love in this text. Where in your congregation might love and honest truth-telling have been imagined as opposites, when Leviticus imagines them as the same thing?

* “I am the LORD” closes the passage. The reason you love your neighbor is not sentimentality or civic virtue. It is because God is God, and God is holy, and you belong to this God. What might it look like to preach a love of neighbor grounded not in moral feeling but in divine command?

Significant Cautions

* “Love your neighbor as yourself” has sometimes been preached in ways that presuppose we already love ourselves. For many people, that assumption does not hold. Handle with pastoral care.

* The holiness code includes many commandments that preachers across the centuries have selectively applied. Be honest about this. Do not pull out the loving-your-neighbor verse while hiding the rest of the chapter.

Psalm 1

The Psalm (Track Two) — Trees Planted by Water

Summary

The classic two-ways psalm. The happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked but delight in the law of the LORD. They are like trees planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in season. The wicked are like chaff that the wind drives away. “The LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The righteous are “like trees planted by streams of water.” Not like oak trees that grew up through sheer determination. Planted. Someone put them where the water is. What might your sermon do with a picture of the faithful life that includes being planted — having been placed by God in the place where you can bear fruit?

* “Yielding its fruit in its season” names something many of us resist: fruit comes in seasons. There are years without visible fruit. The psalm does not panic about those years. What might it look like to preach a faith that trusts the seasonal rhythm of …

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Some days, it’s better late than never! Just a reminder that your humble Bubbas are also working pastors and that — as you know so well — a few extra hospital visits and a funeral or two can really work on your schedule as planned. Let’s press on!

The Gospel is one of the most quoted and most misused passages in all of Scripture. The Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a question about taxes to Caesar, and Jesus responds with a line — “give to the emperor what is the emperor’s, and to God what is God’s” — that has been pressed into service for just about every imaginable political arrangement in Christian history. Preachers who want to actually honor what Jesus said will need to resist the easy readings.

Photo by Peter Barrett Bryan on Unsplash

Track One brings us Moses in dialogue with God after the golden calf — the audacious request to see God’s glory, and the tender compromise of God’s hand in the cleft of the rock. Track Two brings us one of the most startling passages in Isaiah: God addresses Cyrus the Persian emperor — a foreign, non-believing ruler — as “my anointed.” The Epistle gives us Paul’s warm opening to the Thessalonians, naming their faith, love, and hope — and their turning from idols.

For preachers continuing a series: last week the wedding banquet raised questions about accepting the garment with the invitation. This week the famous Caesar passage raises questions about the deeper allegiance that governs every other allegiance. The Matthew arc keeps pressing toward Jerusalem and Holy Week.

The Readings

Exodus 33:12–23

First Reading (Track One) — Show Me Your Glory

Summary

After the golden calf, Moses is in dialogue with God. He asks for assurance of God’s presence: “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.” God answers: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses makes an audacious request: “Show me your glory.” God answers that God’s goodness will pass before him, but God’s face cannot be seen — “no one shall see me and live.” God places Moses in the cleft of a rock and covers him with God’s hand as God passes by. Moses sees God’s back. The face remains hidden.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Moses’s request — “show me your glory” — is one of the boldest prayers in the Bible. He is not asking for anything God has promised. He is asking for more. And God does not scold him. Where in your congregation might people be helped by hearing that it is faithful to ask God for more than has been given, as long as we trust what God chooses to give?

* God’s response is intimate: “I will make all my goodness pass before you.” God will not show glory in abstract power, but in goodness. What might your sermon do with a picture of God’s glory that looks, in the end, more like goodness than like force?

* The image of God’s hand covering Moses in the cleft is remarkable. God protects Moses from what Moses asked to see. God’s care includes limiting what we can bear. Where in your congregation might people be exhausted from wanting to see more than they can hold, and how might God’s covering hand be the gift they need?

Significant Cautions

* “No one shall see me and live” has been used to make God sound distant and unknowable. The passage actually describes a God remarkably close to Moses — just more mystery than any one person can hold.

* The “back of God” imagery has been overread theologically. Keep its narrative strangeness; do not systematize it.

Psalm 99

The Psalm (Track One) — The Lord Is King

Summary

A psalm celebrating God as king. “The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble!” The psalm names Moses, Aaron, and Samuel as those who called on God’s name and received answer. God forgave them while also punishing their wrongdoings. The call to “extol the Lord our God” closes the psalm.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm names Moses, Aaron, and Samuel — imperfect leaders, all three. God “answered them” and “forgave them” and also held them accountable. What might your sermon do with a picture of God’s relationship with leaders that includes real forgiveness and real accountability in the same sentence?

* “The Lord is king” is a political claim as much as a religious one. In context, saying God is king meant other claimants to kingship were secondary. Where might this psalm press against our tendency to treat religious claims as merely private?

Significant Cautions

* Do not use this psalm to prop up Christian nationalism. “The Lord is king” is precisely the claim that relativizes every other kingdom, not the one that sanctifies one of them.

Isaiah 45:1–7

First Reading (Track Two) — Cyrus, My Anointed

Summary

A startling passage. God addresses Cyrus — the Persian emperor who will shortly conquer Babylon and allow the exiled Jews to return home — as “my anointed.” That is a Hebrew word usually translated “messiah.” God is applying it to a foreign, non-believing emperor. God calls Cyrus by name even though “you do not know me.” God is using Cyrus to accomplish God’s purposes — so that all peoples may know that there is no god but the Lord. The passage ends with one of the most theologically challenging verses in the Hebrew Bible: “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “My anointed” applied to Cyrus is stunning. The prophet is naming a non-Jewish, non-believing emperor as God’s chosen instrument. Where in your congregation might people be helped by hearing that God works through people who do not know God, and that God’s purposes are not limited to the people who identify as God’s?

* “I call you by name, though you do not know me.” That line has pastoral depth. There are people in your pews whom God knows by name even if they are not sure they know God. Where might this verse speak to the quietly uncertain in your congregation?

* “I form light and create darkness.” That is the hardest verse in the passage, and preachers often skip it. The prophet is not making a philosophical argument about theodicy; he is insisting on God’s sovereignty over everything that happens, in a way our neat theology struggles to hold. What might it look like to preach a verse like this without domesticating it?

Significant Cautions

* Do not use the “God used Cyrus” image to bless any contemporary political figure as “God’s anointed.” Cyrus is named prophetically for a specific liberation of a specific people from exile. The imitators who have claimed this title for themselves have always been false.

* The “I create woe” verse should not be preached as if God is the author of evil. The verse is naming God’s sovereignty over outcomes, not God’s moral endorsement of them.

Psalm 96:1–9, (10–13)

The Psalm (Track Two) — Sing to the Lord a New Song

Summary

A psalm of praise. “O sing to the Lord a new song.” The psalm declares God’s glory among the nations, calling all peoples to ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. The optional verses declare God’s coming to judge the earth with righteousness and the peoples with truth. The whole earth is called to tremble before God.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “Sing to the Lord a new song” assumes we have been singing old songs long enough. The new song is specific — it praises God’s reign and names God’s works among the nations. Where in your congregation might the songs be growing stale, and how might this psalm invite freshness without discarding what has been held?

* The psalm invites “all the earth” and “all the peoples” to join. Praise, in this psalm, is not provincial. It is as wide as the globe. What might it mean to preach a worship that sees itself as part of a global and even cosmic song?

Significant Cautions

* “Judge the earth with righteousness” has been used to generate fear rather than hope. In context, God’s judgment is the correction of injustice — good news to those who have been suffering under it.

1 Thessalonians 1:1–10

The Epistle — Faith, Love, and Hope

Summary

The opening of Paul’s letter — one of his earliest, possibly the earliest book of the New Testament. Paul, Silvanus, and Timo…

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And the hits just keep on coming!

The Gospel for this week is another difficult parable in Matthew’s temple sequence. The parable of the wedding banquet includes a king who destroys those who refuse the invitation, an indiscriminate welcome of “both good and bad,” and a jarring ending about a guest thrown out for not wearing a wedding robe. Preachers who approach it honestly will have to handle its difficulties rather than smoothing them over.

Track One brings us the golden calf — one of the most emotionally honest passages in the Pentateuch. The people grow impatient, Aaron caves, and Moses becomes the great intercessor. Track Two brings us Isaiah’s eschatological feast on the mountain — God’s victory over death and the wiping away of all tears. The Epistle gives us Paul’s famous call to rejoice and the peace that surpasses understanding.

A small liturgical pleasure worth naming: Psalm 23 on Proper 23. The number is coincidence, but the pairing of the psalm’s table-in-the-presence-of-enemies with the Gospel’s wedding banquet is worth preaching toward.

For preachers continuing a series: last week the wicked tenants exposed those who forgot they were tenants. This week the wedding banquet raises questions about who accepts the invitation and how they respond when they do. The Matthew arc keeps challenging the shape of our response.

The Readings

Exodus 32:1–14

First Reading (Track One) — The Golden Calf and Moses’s Intercession

Summary

Moses has been on the mountain forty days. The people grow impatient and come to Aaron: “Make us gods who will go before us.” Aaron takes their gold earrings and casts an image — a golden calf. He builds an altar and declares, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord!” The people offer sacrifices and feast. God tells Moses, “Go down at once! Your people have acted perversely.” God threatens to consume them and start again with Moses. But Moses intercedes — not for himself but for the people. He appeals to God’s reputation, to God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The text records a striking turn: “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The people’s impatience is the trigger. Moses had been gone forty days, and they could not stand the waiting. The golden calf is what we make when we cannot bear to wait for the real God any longer. Where in your congregation might people be making golden calves of various kinds because waiting has become unbearable?

* Aaron’s role is uncomfortable. He does not refuse. He does not even hesitate publicly. He collects the gold. He shapes the image. He builds the altar. He declares a festival. And he is not punished for it in this passage. What might your sermon do with a picture of institutional leadership that caved to pressure — not with villainy, but with convenience?

* Moses becomes an intercessor. God has just said “your people” to disown them; Moses throws the phrase back and says “your people, whom you brought out of Egypt.” He stands in the gap. He argues with God. He appeals to God’s own promises. Where in your congregation might people be helped by hearing that genuine intercession is not polite agreement with God but an argument on behalf of someone God is angry with?

* “The Lord changed his mind.” That is a striking theological statement. Not that God is capricious, but that God is in genuine relationship. The intercession matters. What might it look like to preach a God who actually responds to the prayer of a persistent intercessor?

Significant Cautions

* “God changed his mind” has been used in theological controversies about divine immutability. Do not fight those debates from the pulpit. Preach the narrative; let the theology take care of itself.

* Aaron’s lack of punishment here can be preached in a way that excuses institutional complicity. Do not. His failure is real; the passage simply does not resolve it here.

* The golden calf has been reduced to a metaphor for “idolatry” generally. Keep the specific context — impatience with waiting — rather than letting it dissolve into generic preaching about idols.

Psalm 106:1–6, 19–23

The Psalm (Track One) — Standing in the Breach

Summary

A recital of Israel’s history of sin and God’s mercy. The selected verses praise God’s goodness, confess that “we have sinned like our ancestors,” reference the golden calf incident at Horeb — “they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass” — and name Moses’s role as intercessor, “standing in the breach before him, to turn his wrath away from destroying them.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm’s refrain of identification — “we have sinned like our ancestors” — refuses the easy move of distancing ourselves from those who failed before us. Where in your congregation has distance from historical sin been imagined as moral progress, when the psalm imagines solidarity?

* “Standing in the breach” names Moses’s intercession with a specific architectural image — a human body in the gap where the wall has fallen. What might your sermon do with a picture of intercession as literal body-in-the-gap work rather than polite prayer at a distance?

Significant Cautions

* “Like our ancestors” has been used to minimize distinct historical responsibilities. The psalm names solidarity, not equivalence.

Isaiah 25:1–9

First Reading (Track Two) — The Feast on the Mountain

Summary

A hymn celebrating God’s eschatological victory. The strong city of enemies lies in ruins. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. God will destroy the shroud cast over all peoples, the sheet spread over all nations. God will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces. “This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The feast is for all peoples. Not for the deserving. Not for the religious. All peoples. On God’s mountain. What might it look like to preach an eschatology that is as wide as Isaiah’s vision — a feast where every nation sits down together?

* “He will swallow up death forever.” That is one of the most audacious lines in Scripture. The prophet names what God will do to death itself. Where in your congregation are people who need to hear that death — not merely their sins, but death — is what God promises to end?

* “This is the Lord for whom we have waited.” The passage names waiting as the posture of faith — not passive waiting, but expectant waiting for a specific feast. What might your sermon do to help a congregation feel the specific thing they are waiting for?

Significant Cautions

* “Swallow up death” has been used to minimize the grief of those currently mourning. The promise is future and does not erase present pain.

* “All peoples” has been used to flatten particularity. The feast is for all peoples as peoples — not for one global, generic humanity.

Psalm 23

The Psalm (Track Two) — You Prepare a Table

Summary

The most beloved psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Green pastures, still waters, right paths. Through the valley of the shadow of death, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” The table prepared in the presence of enemies. The cup overflowing. “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” The psalm’s table is not safe. The enemies are still there. God’s provision happens in the middle of what is still difficult. Where in your congregation have people been assuming God’s blessing requires the end of their troubles, when the psalm imagines blessing in the middle of them?

* “You are with me.” That is the center of the psalm. The shepherd’s presence, not the shepherd’s protection from all difficulty, is what the psalmist celebrates. What might your sermon do with the distin…

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Hold on to your pulpits this week, preachers! The Gospel is one of the hardest parables in Matthew — and one with the most difficult history in Christian preaching. The parable of the wicked tenants has been used, throughout Christian history, to justify the church’s replacement of Israel and to fuel centuries of anti-Jewish violence, from medieval pogroms through Nazi propaganda. Preachers must handle it with unusual care.

Track One brings us the Ten Commandments at Sinai. Track Two brings us Isaiah’s song of the vineyard — the direct source material for the Gospel parable. The Epistle gives us Paul’s autobiographical turn: whatever gains I had, I count as loss for Christ.

For preachers continuing a series: last week’s parable of the two sons exposed the yes that did not go. This week’s parable of the wicked tenants exposes what happens when tenants forget they are tenants. The Matthew arc keeps sharpening toward the passion.

The Readings

Exodus 20:1–4, 7–9, 12–20

First Reading (Track One) — The Ten Commandments

Summary

God speaks to Moses at Sinai. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Then the commandments: no other gods. No idols. No misusing God’s name. Remember the sabbath and rest. Honor your father and mother. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not covet what belongs to your neighbor. When the people see the thunder, the lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they tremble and stand at a distance. They tell Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses reassures them: God has come to test you, so that the fear of God may be with you and keep you from sinning.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The commandments begin with a verb about God, not a demand of the people. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out.” Deliverance comes first; then the shape of life among the delivered. What might your sermon do with the specific order — grace before command — that most preachers know but many congregations have never actually heard?

* The commandments protect people. Do not murder protects human life. Do not steal protects property. Do not bear false witness protects reputation and truth. Do not covet protects the heart from unrest. These are not arbitrary rules; they are the shape of a community where life can flourish. Where in your congregation have the commandments been imagined as arbitrary restrictions when they are actually protections?

* “You speak to us, but do not let God speak to us” — the people’s request captures a real spiritual pattern. We often prefer mediated religion to direct encounter. What might it look like to preach a God who is willing to be heard directly, and to name the tender fear that keeps us at a distance?

Significant Cautions

* Do not preach the commandments as if the whole ethical life of the church can be reduced to ten rules. Jesus himself will summarize them in two.

* The lectionary omits verses 5–6 (the “jealous God” verses). Preachers should know what has been omitted and decide honestly whether to preach the whole passage or just the assigned selection.

* The commandments have often been misused as a checklist for civic religion. Handle their communal, covenantal context carefully.

Psalm 19

The Psalm (Track One) — The Heavens Are Telling

Summary

“The heavens are telling the glory of God.” The psalm begins with creation’s silent praise — day pours out speech to day — and moves to the law: perfect, reviving the soul; sure, making wise the simple. The psalm closes with a prayer against hidden faults and presumption, and the famous closing petition: let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm links creation and law in the same song. The heavens declare God’s glory; God’s word revives the soul. Both are revelation. Where has your congregation imagined creation and Scripture as competing sources of knowing God, when the psalm holds them together?

* “Clear me from hidden faults” — the psalmist prays not for the sins he can see but for the ones he cannot. What might your sermon do with a spiritual practice that includes asking God to name what we are not yet aware of?

Significant Cautions

* “The heavens declare the glory of God” has been misused in the culture wars around science. The psalm is not a scientific claim; it is doxology.

Isaiah 5:1–7

First Reading (Track Two) — The Song of the Vineyard

Summary

The prophet sings a love song about his beloved’s vineyard. God did everything for the vineyard — dug it, cleared it of stones, planted choice vines, built a watchtower, hewed a wine vat. And expected grapes. But the vineyard yielded wild grapes. So God will remove its hedge, break down its wall, make it a waste. The song ends with the interpretation: “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The prophet’s judgment on Israel is Israel’s own prophet speaking within Israel’s tradition. This is not an outside voice condemning God’s people. This is Isaiah’s love for his people speaking hard truth. What might it look like to preach a prophetic word that comes from love rather than distance?

* The wordplay in Hebrew is untranslatable but worth naming. God expected mishpat (justice) but saw mispach (bloodshed); God expected tsedaqah (righteousness) but heard tse’aqah (a cry). Justice and bloodshed sound alike. Righteousness and outcry sound alike. Only one letter apart. What might your sermon do with the closeness of what God wanted and what God got?

* Isaiah 5 is the direct source for today’s Gospel parable of the tenants. Jesus is not inventing a new critique; he is quoting Israel’s own prophet. Where in your congregation might people be helped by hearing that Jesus’s hardest words about religious leadership are drawn from Israel’s own tradition of self-critique?

Significant Cautions

* This passage should not be read as evidence that God has rejected Israel. Isaiah’s critique is a call to return, not a decree of replacement.

* “He expected justice but saw bloodshed” has been quoted in ways that reduce injustice to individual sin. Isaiah is naming systemic failure of leadership, not simply personal wrongdoing.

Psalm 80:7–15

The Psalm (Track Two) — The Vine You Brought Out of Egypt

Summary

Another vineyard psalm. God brought a vine out of Egypt, drove out the nations, and planted it. It sent out its branches to the sea, its shoots to the river. But now its walls are broken down and passersby pluck its fruit. “Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm imagines God as the planter and Israel as the tended vine. It is a picture of intimate care — God’s own right hand doing the planting. What might your sermon do with a picture of God’s investment in the people that is this personal?

* “Turn again, O God” is a psalm of return — not the people’s return to God, but a prayer that God will turn back toward them. What might it look like to preach a faith that includes asking God to notice again, when God’s face seems turned away?

Significant Cautions

* This psalm’s laments have sometimes been used to shame communities into thinking their difficulties are always God’s judgment. Not all suffering is discipline.

Philippians 3:4b–14

The Epistle — I Count It All as Loss

Summary

Paul lists his credentials. Circumcised on the eighth day. Of the people of Israel. Tribe of Benjamin. Hebrew of Hebrews. A Pharisee. A persecutor of the church — by which he means he was zealous. Blameless under the law. Then the turn: whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. He counts everything as rubbish compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. He wants…

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Another week, another great set of readings. Let’s think about preaching!

The Gospel is the confrontation in the temple. Jesus is teaching after his triumphal entry when the chief priests and elders come to challenge his authority. He refuses to answer directly. Instead, he tells a parable that exposes them — a parable about two sons, one who said no but did the work anyway, and one who said yes but did not. The parable closes with one of Jesus’s sharper lines: tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Track One brings us the Israelites at Massah and Meribah — a story of thirst, complaint, and water from the rock. Track Two brings us Ezekiel’s rejection of the proverb “the parents have eaten sour grapes,” insisting that change is possible for anyone and ending with God’s astonishing plea: “turn, then, and live.” The Epistle gives us the Christ hymn — Christ’s self-emptying as the pattern for the church’s common life.

For preachers continuing a series: last week’s parable of the vineyard workers exposed our envy of God’s generosity. This week’s parable of the two sons exposes the difference between the yes we say and the yes we do. The Matthew arc keeps sharpening.

The Readings

Exodus 17:1–7

First Reading (Track One) — Water from the Rock at Massah and Meribah

Summary

The Israelites are camped at Rephidim, and there is no water. They quarrel with Moses, demanding water. Moses asks why they are testing God. The people press harder — they and their children and their livestock are thirsty; they wish they had died in Egypt. Moses cries out to God: what am I supposed to do? They are ready to stone me. God tells Moses to take his staff, go ahead of the people to the rock at Horeb, and strike it. Water will come out. Moses does this in the sight of the elders. The place is named Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling), because the people asked: “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The people’s complaint is real. They are thirsty. Their children are thirsty. Their livestock is thirsty. The text does not shame them for being scared; it simply gives them water. Where in your congregation have people been told their complaints were faithless when what they actually needed was water?

* Their question — “Is the Lord among us or not?” — is honest. It is the question we ask when we are exhausted and afraid, when God’s presence seems more theoretical than real. What might your sermon do with a God who does not answer this question with a lecture on faith, but with actual water?

* The place is named Massah and Meribah, and the naming stays in the tradition. Israel remembers their doubt as part of the story, not as something to be edited out. Where in your congregation has the impulse been to erase the memory of doubt rather than name it as part of the faithful story?

Significant Cautions

* Do not preach this in a way that shames people who are asking honest questions about God’s presence. The people’s question is not what the text critiques; it is the testing (implying “prove yourself to us or we walk away”) that is more problematic.

* Later in the Torah, Moses’s own impatience at another version of this story will cost him entry into the promised land. Do not conflate the two stories.

Psalm 78:1–4, 12–16

The Psalm (Track One) — We Will Tell the Coming Generation

Summary

A wisdom psalm calling for the passing down of God’s works from one generation to the next. The selected verses focus on Egypt and the wilderness — the dividing of the sea, the cloud that led by day and fire by night, the water from the rock that split open like rivers. The psalmist insists this story must be told to children.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation.” That is a specific pastoral commitment. Where in your congregation is the passing-down of the faith going quiet, and how might this psalm invite grandparents, parents, and mentors into concrete practice?

* Read alongside the Exodus reading, the psalm’s calm narration of “water flowed from the rock” flattens the tension of Massah and Meribah. Where has your congregation’s remembering of the past made the actual difficulty feel smaller than it was?

Significant Cautions

* Do not use the psalm to shame parents who are struggling to pass the faith on. The passing-down is a communal responsibility, not a solo parental burden.

Ezekiel 18:1–4, 25–32

First Reading (Track Two) — Turn, Then, and Live

Summary

God rejects the proverb Israel had been quoting to itself: “the parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” This proverb had become an excuse — the current generation is suffering for what their ancestors did. God insists otherwise: every life belongs to God; the person who sins is the one who is accountable. If a wicked person turns from their sin, they will live. If a righteous person turns from righteousness, they will die. The people complain that God’s way is unfair; God answers that it is their ways that are unfair. And the passage closes with God’s astonishing plea: “Have I any pleasure in the death of anyone? Turn, then, and live.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The rejected proverb had become a way of avoiding responsibility — blaming the past for the present. God’s response is not “let it go” but “turn.” Where in your congregation has intergenerational blame become a substitute for actual change?

* The passage insists that change is possible in either direction. A wicked person can turn. A righteous person can fall away. Neither category is permanent. What might your sermon do with a God who refuses to give up on people who have failed and who refuses to guarantee people who have succeeded?

* “Have I any pleasure in the death of anyone?... Turn, then, and live.” That is God’s own posture. God is not eager for judgment; God is longing for return. Where in your congregation has God been imagined as more eager for judgment than the text depicts?

Significant Cautions

* The passage’s insistence on personal responsibility should not be used to dismiss the real effects of intergenerational trauma. Ezekiel is arguing against fatalism, not denying that families and communities pass down real wounds.

* “The soul that sins shall die” has been used in ways that make God sound bloodthirsty. In context, this is a call to change, not a threat of eternal punishment.

Psalm 25:1–9

The Psalm (Track Two) — Remember Not the Sins of My Youth

Summary

A psalm of trust and prayer. “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” The psalmist asks to be taught God’s ways, remembered by God’s mercy, forgiven for the sins of youth. Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. The humble are led in what is right and taught his way.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “Remember not the sins of my youth… according to your steadfast love, remember me.” That is a prayer many people in your congregation have never given themselves permission to pray. What might it look like to offer them the specific practice of asking God to remember them by mercy rather than by the mistakes they made when they were younger?

* “He instructs sinners in the way.” That is a striking picture — God as a teacher of the ones who have failed. Where in your congregation has failure been imagined as the end of instruction, when the psalm imagines it as the beginning?

Significant Cautions

* “Sins of youth” should not be read narrowly. The point is that God’s memory of us is not our worst moments.

Philippians 2:1–13

The Epistle — The Mind of Christ; the Christ Hymn

Summary

Paul writes to a community he loves, urging them to be of one mind, one love, one accord. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit; in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Then the great Christ hymn: let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something…

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The Gospel is one of the most disorienting parables Jesus ever told. A landowner keeps going out throughout the day, hiring workers even at the eleventh hour, and pays everyone the same. The all-day workers grumble. The landowner responds with what may be the sharpest question in any of the parables.

Track One brings us the manna in the wilderness — daily bread, given as needed, no more, no less. Track Two brings us Jonah’s anger at God’s mercy toward Nineveh, and the book’s astonishing final image: God’s concern for a great city and also its animals. The Epistle gives us Paul from prison, torn between longing for Christ and remaining for the sake of the churches — with the famous line, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

For preachers continuing a series: last week’s parable of the unforgiving servant exposed what we do when we forget the scale of mercy we have been shown. This week’s parable of the vineyard workers exposes what we do when we cannot bear that mercy being shown to others. The Matthew arc keeps turning the mirror slowly.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The Readings

Exodus 16:2–15

First Reading (Track One) — Manna in the Wilderness

Summary

The Israelites, only weeks out of Egypt, complain against Moses and Aaron. They would rather have died in Egypt where they had food than starve in the wilderness. Moses hears the complaint as ultimately directed at God, not at him. God tells Moses that bread will rain from heaven — each family gathering just what they need for the day. That evening, quails cover the camp; in the morning, a fine flaky substance appears on the ground. The people look at it and ask, “What is it?” Moses tells them: it is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The people’s complaint is honest. They are hungry and afraid. It is easy to preach against them for lacking faith, but that misses what the text is doing. God does not scold them; God feeds them. Where in your congregation have people been shamed for honest complaint when what they needed was bread?

* The manna comes daily. Not weekly. Not monthly. Daily. And no one can hoard it — later verses tell us it spoiled when they tried. What might it look like to preach a faith that is fed each day, not stockpiled?

* The people’s first response to the bread is “what is it?” They do not recognize it. God’s provision does not always come in a form we would have anticipated. Where in your congregation might people be missing manna because they were expecting something else?

Significant Cautions

* Do not preach the manna in a way that shames people who are food insecure. The text is about God’s provision to people who genuinely did not have bread, not a metaphor for what to do when a delivery is late.

* “Daily bread” is a phrase Jesus takes up in the Lord’s Prayer. That connection is worth noting, but the manna story stands on its own.

Psalm 105:1–6, 37–45

The Psalm (Track One) — God’s Provision in the Wilderness

Summary

A section of the great remembering psalm, now focused on the exodus and wilderness. God brought Israel out with silver and gold. God spread a cloud for covering, gave quails and bread from heaven, opened the rock so water gushed out. God brought the people into the promised land. The closing is a single hallelujah.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm remembers not just the dramatic deliverance but the daily provision — quails, bread, water from a rock. God’s care for the people included every meal. What might your sermon do with a picture of God’s faithfulness that includes the ordinary?

* The psalm’s mode is remembering. The Israelites are being asked to keep the story alive across generations. Where in your congregation is the practice of shared remembering going quiet, and how might this psalm invite its recovery?

Significant Cautions

* The psalm’s cheerful retrospect flattens a lot of pain in the wilderness generation’s experience. Do not preach the calm summary as if it were the whole truth of what those people lived.

Jonah 3:10–4:11

First Reading (Track Two) — Jonah’s Anger at God’s Mercy

Summary

God sees that Nineveh has turned from its evil ways, and God does not destroy the city. Jonah is furious. He prays a bitter prayer: this is exactly why I fled to Tarshish in the first place — I knew you were a gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. Jonah asks God to take his life. God asks, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah goes outside the city and sulks. God provides a bush for shade, which Jonah loves. Then a worm attacks the bush; it dies; Jonah is again ready to die. God asks: is it right for you to be angry about the bush? And the book ends with God’s question, unanswered: you are concerned about a bush; should I not be concerned about a great city with more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left — and also many animals?

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Jonah’s honesty is remarkable. He does not pretend his anger is righteous. He says plainly: I ran away because I knew you would show mercy, and I did not want you to. Where in your congregation has anger at God’s generosity been hiding, unspoken, behind more acceptable feelings?

* Jonah’s theology is not wrong — his summary of God’s character (gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love) is exactly right. What has gone wrong is that he does not want that God to be that God toward these people. What does it look like to preach a Jonah-shaped hypocrisy — the theology we affirm about God we do not want extended to certain neighbors?

* God’s argument at the end is unforgettable. You cared about a bush you did not plant. I care about a city with a hundred and twenty thousand people. And also many animals. That final phrase is a stunning small note. God’s concern is bigger than the human world. Where in your congregation has God’s concern been imagined as narrower than the text describes?

* The book of Jonah ends on God’s question, unanswered. The reader is left to answer it themselves. What might your sermon do with the fact that Jonah is silent at the end, and we are asked to speak in his place?

Significant Cautions

* The book of Jonah is often preached as a story about a big fish. Do not spend the sermon on the fish. The fish is a subplot; the point is God’s mercy toward people Jonah wanted destroyed.

* Do not use Jonah as a stand-in for Judaism (a common Christian misreading). Jonah is a specific prophet with a specific problem, and the book is Israel’s own honest self-critique. Handle carefully.

Psalm 145:1–8

The Psalm (Track Two) — Gracious and Merciful

Summary

A psalm of praise. Every day I will bless you. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. One generation shall laud your works to another. The psalmist meditates on God’s greatness and steadfast love. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “One generation shall laud your works to another” — the psalm assumes praise is handed down. Where in your congregation is the passing-down going quiet, and how might your sermon speak to grandparents, parents, and young adults about it?

* The psalm’s picture of God — gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love — is the same picture Jonah quotes bitterly. The psalmist praises what Jonah resented. What does it look like to preach the difference between celebrating God’s mercy and hating that God’s mercy extends to others?

Significant Cautions

* “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised” has been used as an empty affirmation. Handle the language so that it lands as specific, not generic.

Philippians 1:21–30

The Epistle — To Live Is Christ; Live Worthy of the Gospel

Summary

Paul writes from prison, torn between two things he wants. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If he continues in the body, he will keep laboring fruitfully for the churches. If he dies, he will be with Christ, which is far better. He is hard pressed between the two, but thinks it m…

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Last week we heard the process for handling harm within the community. This week we hear how far the forgiveness extends. Peter asks the question we all quietly want to ask — is there a limit? — and Jesus answers by rejecting the whole counting frame, then tells one of the hardest parables in the Gospels.

Track One brings us the crossing of the Red Sea and, at the preacher’s choice, either Psalm 114 or the Songs of Moses and Miriam that celebrated the crossing. Track Two brings us Joseph forgiving his brothers — a fitting Old Testament companion to the Gospel, and one of the most extraordinary reconciliation scenes in the Bible — paired with Psalm 103’s picture of a mercy as wide as the distance between east and west.

The Epistle continues Paul’s practical instructions, this time on judging one another over matters of conscience: welcome those who are weak in faith, do not despise those whose consciences differ from yours, and remember that we all give an account to the same Lord.

For preachers continuing a series: the Matthew 18 arc closes here. Next week brings the parable of the workers in the vineyard — a shift to the question of God’s generosity toward those who came late. The Gospel keeps exposing our secret bookkeeping.

The Readings

Exodus 14:19–31

First Reading (Track One) — Crossing the Red Sea

Summary

Israel is trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the sea. The pillar of cloud that has been leading them moves behind them, becoming a barrier between the Egyptians and the Israelites. Moses stretches out his hand; the Lord drives back the sea by a strong east wind all night, and the waters divide. Israel walks through on dry ground. Pharaoh’s chariots pursue them. In the morning watch, God throws the Egyptians into panic; the wheels of their chariots clog. Moses stretches out his hand again; the waters return; the Egyptian army is drowned. Israel sees the great work the Lord has done and believes.

Photo by Miguel Lindo on Unsplash

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The pillar that led Israel now stands between them and their pursuers. God’s presence is not just a light for the road ahead; it can also be a wall between us and what pursues us. Where in your congregation might people need to hear that God’s presence protects as well as leads?

* The sea is parted by wind and by night — a whole night of what must have looked like slow, uncertain divine work. Deliverance in this text takes time. What might your sermon do with a God whose deliverance is not always instantaneous?

* The text names the Egyptians’ death honestly. This is not a story of pure joy for anyone who reads it carefully. How might your sermon hold together the reality of God’s deliverance and the sober fact that it came at cost to others?

Significant Cautions

* The drowning of the Egyptians has been used triumphally in ways that make God’s people cheer at the death of enemies. Rabbinic tradition teaches that God rebuked the angels for singing when the Egyptians drowned. Christian preaching should honor that restraint.

* Do not press the Red Sea as a metaphor for whatever escape your people are hoping for. The text is doing specific historical and theological work; it is not a general promise about deliverance from difficulty.

Psalm 114

The Psalm (Track One, primary option) — When Israel Went Out from Egypt

Summary

A short psalm celebrating the exodus. The sea saw and fled. The Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams. The whole earth is called to tremble at the presence of the Lord.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The psalm imagines the whole creation reacting to God’s deliverance — the sea, the Jordan, the mountains. The natural world has skin in the game. What might your sermon do with a picture of deliverance that includes creation, not just people?

* The closing line — “tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord” — is a call, not a threat. The trembling is reverence, not fear. Where has your congregation confused reverence with terror?

Significant Cautions

* The vivid poetry (“mountains skipped like rams”) is imagination, not physics. Do not preach a literalist reading that flattens the psalm’s exuberance.

Exodus 15:1b–11, 20–21

The Psalm (Track One, alternative option) — The Songs of Moses and Miriam

Summary

A song celebrating the crossing. Moses and the Israelites sing that the Lord has triumphed gloriously — the horse and rider thrown into the sea. The song rehearses God’s mighty acts against Pharaoh. Then Miriam, named as a prophet, and the women take up tambourines and sing back the refrain: sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The song is answered by Miriam and the women, dancing with tambourines. The tradition of women’s celebration is worth honoring in a church that has too often silenced it. What might it mean to preach a Miriam-shaped moment in your congregation this week?

* The song is exuberant, martial, and specific. It names Pharaoh’s death by name. Later Jewish tradition will pull back from too much celebration of enemies’ death. What does it look like to sing the song faithfully in the modern moment, honoring the joy of the delivered without the cruelty of the triumphant?

Significant Cautions

* The song’s celebration of enemies’ destruction has been used to bless violent triumphalism in Christian history. Handle with care.

Genesis 50:15–21

First Reading (Track Two) — Joseph Forgives His Brothers

Summary

Jacob has died, and Joseph’s brothers are afraid. They imagine that Joseph has only been kind to them because their father was alive, and that now he will finally take revenge for what they did to him. They send a message pleading for forgiveness, claiming their father commanded it before he died. Joseph weeps. When they come to him and offer themselves as his slaves, he refuses. “Am I in the place of God?” he says. “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” And he speaks kindly to them and promises to provide for them and their little ones.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Joseph’s brothers cannot believe they are forgiven. They construct a story about their father commanding it — as if forgiveness requires a legal warrant. Joseph’s tears seem to be for the fact that they still cannot receive what he has been giving them for years. Where in your congregation are people still constructing stories to make forgiveness legally binding, when what has been offered is grace?

* “Am I in the place of God?” That is Joseph’s own restraint — the recognition that judgment is not his to hand out. What does it look like to preach a restraint like Joseph’s in a culture that keeps insisting we get to keep score?

* “You intended it for harm; God intended it for good” is Joseph’s theological interpretation of his own suffering. It is his to offer, not ours to impose. Where has this line been forced on people whose harm has not yet been redeemed, and how might Joseph’s own timing correct the church’s misuse?

Significant Cautions

* “God intended it for good” should not be handed to suffering people as an explanation. Joseph earned that meaning through decades of hardship. No one else has to earn a lecture on it.

* The brothers’ fear is real, and Joseph does not dismiss it. Do not preach forgiveness in a way that skips over the wounder’s guilt or the wounded’s ongoing work.

Psalm 103:(1–7), 8–13

The Psalm (Track Two) — As Far as East Is from West

Summary

One of the tenderest psalms in the psalter. Bless the Lord, O my soul. The Lord forgives your iniquity, heals your diseases, redeems your life from the Pit, crowns you with steadfast love. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. God does not deal with us according to our sins. As far as the east is from the west, so far God removes our transgressions from us. As a parent has compassion for their children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The images the psalmist reaches for are specific: as far as east is from west…

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The Gospel is a practical continuation of last week’s way-of-the-cross language. If we are going to follow Jesus together, how do we handle it when we hurt each other? Matthew 18 gives us one of the most concrete passages in the New Testament about how a Christian community handles conflict — a text often preached badly and often skipped altogether.

Track One brings us the institution of Passover — the community meal that will define God’s people, remembered forever. Track Two brings us Ezekiel as watchman — the prophet made responsible to warn, but not responsible for the response. The Epistle gives us the ethical grounding for all of it: owe no one anything except love, for love is the fulfillment of the law.

For preachers continuing a series: last week we heard about taking up the cross and following. This week, the road brings us into a specific and hard question — what does following look like when the person following alongside us has hurt us?

Photo curated by Unsplash.com

The Readings

Exodus 12:1–14

First Reading (Track One) — Passover Instituted

Summary

God gives Moses and Aaron detailed instructions for a meal — one that will mark a whole new calendar, and one that will be remembered for generations. Each household takes a year-old lamb without blemish, keeps it until the fourteenth of the month, and then slaughters it at twilight. The blood is put on the doorposts and lintel. The lamb is roasted whole, eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and the family eats in haste — dressed to travel, sandals on their feet, staff in hand. It is the Passover of the Lord. And this night is to be remembered as a festival forever.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The instructions are elaborate and detailed — a whole liturgy for a meal. Israel’s freedom will begin with a shared table and a specific practice of remembering. Where in your congregation has the shared table been reduced to a formality, and how might this text restore its weight?

* The lamb is to be shared — if your household is too small, join with a neighbor. Even the meal of deliverance requires community. What might it mean for your people to hear that no one is meant to eat this meal alone?

* The meal is eaten “in haste, ready to travel.” This is not a celebration of arrival but a meal for the road. God’s people are being fed for a journey they have not yet made. Where in your congregation has faith been imagined as arrival, when the biblical picture is more often provision for the road?

* Jesus will later use this meal as the frame for his own last supper with his disciples. Christian preachers should honor both readings — the meal as it is celebrated by our Jewish neighbors, and the meal as it has shaped the Christian eucharist — without letting the second erase the first.

Significant Cautions

* Do not preach the Passover in a way that reduces its meaning for Jewish communities who continue to celebrate it. The Christian tradition of reading Jesus into this meal is real, but it does not replace the meal’s own meaning.

* The tenth plague, which frames this text, involves the death of every firstborn in Egypt. Do not skip this or celebrate it. It is a hard, painful part of the story that deserves acknowledgment rather than triumphalism.

Psalm 149

The Psalm (Track One) — The Lord Takes Pleasure in His People

Summary

A short psalm of praise for the community of the faithful. Sing a new song. Praise God in the assembly. Let the faithful dance and rejoice, for the Lord takes pleasure in his people and adorns the humble with victory. The closing verses take a sharp turn toward warfare — a two-edged sword, vengeance on the nations, binding kings — that has troubled Christian readers for centuries.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “The Lord takes pleasure in his people.” That is one of the most tender lines in the psalter — God as a delighted parent, not a distant judge. Where has your congregation quietly assumed God’s default posture toward them was disappointment?

* “He adorns the humble with victory.” The word for adorn is not the language of grim reward — it is the language of dressing up, decorating, honoring. God does not merely permit the humble to succeed; God delights in decking them out. What might your sermon do with a God whose delight in the humble is that concrete?

Significant Cautions

* The closing verses about the two-edged sword and executing vengeance have been used in some of the worst chapters of Christian history — to justify religious violence, crusades, and colonial conquest. Do not preach the joyful opening without acknowledging what the closing verses have done in the world.

Ezekiel 33:7–11

First Reading (Track Two) — The Watchman

Summary

God appoints Ezekiel as a watchman for the house of Israel. He is to warn the wicked when he hears God’s word — and if he fails to warn them and they die in their iniquity, their blood will be on his hands. But if he warns them and they refuse to turn, he has done his duty. The passage ends with a striking word from God: “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live. Turn back, turn back... why will you die, O house of Israel?”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The watchman is responsible to warn, not responsible for the response. That is a distinction many faithful people have not been given. Where in your congregation are people carrying the weight of outcomes that were never theirs to control?

* “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.” That is God’s own posture. The God we serve is not eager for judgment; God is longing for return. Where in your congregation has God been imagined as more eager to judge than the text actually depicts?

* The plea “why will you die?” is the heart of this passage. It is not the voice of a wrathful judge; it is the voice of a heartbroken parent. What might it look like to preach a God who genuinely does not want the people God loves to be destroyed?

Significant Cautions

* The watchman role has been used throughout Christian history to justify harsh, aggressive, and self-righteous confrontation. That is a distortion. Ezekiel is not being given license to browbeat; he is being given a solemn responsibility of loving witness.

* The “blood on your hands” language is meant to weigh on the prophet, not to be used to weigh on ordinary Christians who are silent for good reasons. Be careful.

Psalm 119:33–40

The Psalm (Track Two) — Turn My Eyes from Vanities

Summary

Another section of the long acrostic psalm on God’s word. The psalmist prays to be taught God’s statutes, given understanding to keep them, turned from vanities, and given life. The prayer is not that God’s law be made easy but that the psalmist be shaped to receive it.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways.” That is a beautiful pairing — asking to be turned from what wastes attention and asking, in the same breath, for life. Where in your congregation are people whose eyes have been captured by vanities they cannot easily look away from?

* Every verb in this section is a request. The psalmist is not boasting about his obedience; he is asking to be made able to obey. What might it look like to preach a faith that begins with asking, not with claiming?

Significant Cautions

* The psalm’s love for God’s law is not legalism. Do not preach against a strawman the psalm never sets up.

Romans 13:8–14

The Epistle — Love Fulfills the Law

Summary

Paul turns to specific ethical instruction. Owe no one anything except the debt to love one another — for the one who loves fulfills the law. The commandments — do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet — are all summed up in one word: love your neighbor as yourself. Then Paul shifts key. You know what time it is, he says. The night is far gone; the day is near. Wake from sleep. Lay aside the works of darkness. Put on the armor of light. Live honorably as in the day. And put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Key Ideas for Preach…

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