Sermon Brainwave from Working Preacher

Matt Skinner, Karoline Lewis, and Cody Sanders unpack Peter's confession and explore what testimony means for the pulpit. The hosts debate the ambiguous "rock" in Jesus's response and connect it to public confession.

They turn to Exodus 1 and celebrate the disobedient women who save Moses' life. Shiphrah and Puah's story sparks a conversation about how theologians across history have judged their lie to Pharaoh. The team also discusses Psalm 138 as a formational prayer and Romans 12's call to live sacrificially.

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Cody Sanders, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner dig into Jesus and the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28. They explore her bold persistence and how she challenges Jesus to expand his mission. The hosts unpack what her story teaches about faith, humility, and changing your mind.

They also cover Isaiah 56's promise of salvation for all nations, Joseph's reconciliation with his brothers in Genesis 45, Psalm 67's blessing, and Paul's declaration of God's irrevocable mercy in Romans 11. This episode offers preachers fresh angles for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A.

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Matt Skinner, Cody Sanders, and Karoline Lewis dig into the texts for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (August 9, 2026).

The team explores Peter's attempt to walk on water in Matthew 14:22-33 and discusses Jesus's compassionate rebuke, "you of little faith." They turn to Elijah's encounter with God in the sound of sheer silence in 1 Kings 19:9-18, and consider Genesis 37's story of Joseph's ornamented robe through a genderqueer lens. The hosts also unpack Psalm 85's vision of a world transformed by forgiveness and wrestle with Romans 10's most-quoted (and most misused) verses.

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Jesus feeds a massive crowd in Matthew 14, and the hosts show how this act challenges imperial power. They unpack splagchnizomai, the Greek word for gut-level compassion.

They trace Isaiah 55's invitation to abundant life and link it to food insecurity today. Jacob wrestles God at the Jabbok in Genesis 32 and walks away blessed and limping. Romans 9 launches a three-week reckoning with Paul's anguish over Israel. The hosts warn against supersessionist theology and anti-Semitism in the pulpit. This episode delivers sharp insight on compassion, provision, and the character of God.

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Matt Skinner, Karoline Lewis, and Cody Sanders tackle Matthew's parable of the wheat and the weeds and its unsettling questions about judgment and impostors in the community of faith. They turn to Isaiah 44's witness against idols, Jacob's dream at Bethel and God's promise to migrants, Psalm 86's memorable use of the word "ruffians," and Paul's rare focus on creation's groaning for redemption in Romans 8. Along the way, they connect that cosmic vision to modern issues like environmental harm and data center water usage, giving preachers rich homiletical angles for July 19, 2026.

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Cody Sanders, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner unpack the lectionary texts for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. They dig into the parables of the mustard seed, the yeast, the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the dragnet from Matthew 13.

The hosts explore why Jesus chose strange, subversive images to describe the kingdom of heaven. They discuss the woman who hides yeast in an enormous amount of flour, connecting the parable to Gospel of Thomas variants. The team wrestles with the dragnet's uncomfortable sorting imagery and warns against easy allegorization. They turn to Solomon's request for an understanding mind in 1 Kings 3 and connect it to Psalm 119's themes of memory and discernment. The conversation moves to Jacob, Rachel, and Laban in Genesis 29, addressing marriage, gender, and power in the ancient world. They close with Romans 8:26-39, highlighting its pastoral power for people who have experienced religious condemnation.

Cody shares a story about the MCC Church of San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic. This episode offers preachers fresh angles on parables, wisdom, and grace for July 26.

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Titles matter. So does the soil.

On this episode of Sermon Brainwave, Matt Skinner, Caroline Lewis, and Cody Sanders dig into the texts for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (July 12, 2026).

The team wrestles with Matthew's Parable of the Sower and asks what it really means to "bear fruit." Is it congregational growth? Spiritual maturity? Something else entirely? Cody points out the parable's strange, almost anti-strategic logic: why would a sower scatter seed on every kind of ground, including the bad soil? The hosts connect this to Jesus' own approach to ministry and mission.

The conversation moves through Isaiah 55's image of creation itself rejoicing, then into Genesis 25's story of Jacob and Esau, a text the hosts caution can easily be misused to justify xenophobia and tribal hatred if preached without care. From there, they turn to Psalm 65 and its language of a God who answers prayer, before closing with Romans 8 and Paul's teaching on flesh and spirit. Cody offers an important corrective here, naming how "flesh" language has historically been weaponized against bodies, women, and queer people, and pointing preachers toward a healthier way to handle the text.

Whether you're preaching the parable, the psalm, the epistle, or the Genesis narrative this week, this episode offers grounded, honest reflection to help shape your sermon.

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What does it mean to come to Jesus weary and burdened?

In this episode of the Sermon Brainwave podcast, Karoline Lewis, Cody Sanders, and Matt Skinner dig into a rich set of texts for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A. The conversation centers on Matthew 11:28–30 and the promise of rest — but not the kind that soothes middle-class stress. These are beatitude people, crushed under systemic weight, for whom Jesus offers liberation one act of mercy at a time.

The hosts unpack the yoke imagery, explore what "rest" means for bodies burdened by imperial economies (ancient and modern), and consider the book Rest Is Resistance as a lens for prophetic preaching. They also take on a challenging passage from Romans 7, where Paul's portrait of a divided self opens an unexpected window into addiction, neurobiology, and how sin operates not just through personal moral failure but through systems — from opioid distribution networks to algorithmically engineered technology. The Pope's recent encyclical on AI even makes an appearance.

Along the way, the group touches on Zechariah 9's post-exilic vision of a humble king riding a donkey (and why that image matters beyond Palm Sunday), the often-overlooked agency of Rebekah in Genesis 24, and how Psalm 145 might work better as liturgy than as sermon text.

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What does it mean to take up the cross in a world that rewards safety and silence? Matt Skinner, Karoline Lewis, and Cody Sanders dig into the lectionary texts for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (June 22, 2026), exploring the missionary discourse in Matthew 10, the prophet Jeremiah's anguished vocation, the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21, Psalm 69's theology of complaint, and the "with Christ" language of Romans 6.

The conversation wrestles with fear as a communal emotion, the two historical horizons behind Matthew's hard sayings, what it means that God makes a covenant with Ishmael, and how baptism in Romans 6 plants us together with Christ in a death like his. Along the way: a remarkable story of Danish Christians defying Nazi deportations, a reframing of judgment as being seen rather than punished, and honest reflection on what prophetic courage and prophetic silence have each cost the church.

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What does it mean to truly welcome someone?

In this episode of Sermon Brainwave, Matt Skinner, Karoline Lewis, and Cody Sanders dig into a compact but dense set of texts for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (June 28). The gospel reading — just three verses from Matthew 10 — uses the word "welcome" six times and raises big questions about hospitality, belonging, and who the "little ones" really are. The hosts also wrestle with Jeremiah 28's portrait of prophetic conflict and the politics of legitimating power, explore the Akedah in Genesis 22 through the lens of a God who sees (not just provides), and follow Paul's argument in Romans 6 toward a conversation about sanctification that Lutherans might find surprising.

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