By Joel Shuman

• Captivities by Joel Shuman (9/28/2016)
  Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Lamentations 1:1-6 OR 3:19-26 OR Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4 Psalm 137 2 Timothy 1:1-14 Luke 17:5-10 This week’s texts share, at least implicitly, the common theme of captivity. From Jeremiah’s lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and the hard life of servitude facing those exiled to Babylon, to the exiled Psalmist’s wondering about the very possibility of faithfulness for the remnant of...
• The Last Word by Joel Shuman (7/20/2016)
  Tenth Sunday after Pentecost Hosea 1:2-10 Colossians 2:6-19 Luke 11:1-13 This week’s lectionary readings invite a nuanced continuation of the theme developed last week by Jessie Larkins, who juxtaposed God’s blistering and apparently final judgment upon Judah from Amos 8 (vv. 1-12) with the very different message of Colossians 1:15-28, where judgment is leveled not so much against a people as an idolatrous way of life that the Cross of Jesus makes it possible to abandon. Again this week we are offered a word of prophetic judgment (from Hosea) and a reiteration of the author of Colossians’ account of what transp...
• Resurrection and the Way by Joel Shuman (3/22/2016)
  Easter Sunday Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-18 Easter has long since become, at least in certain Protestant circles, a day aimed largely at “catching” a few from the crowds in the pews that otherwise make themselves scarce at ecclesial gatherings. This means, to the extent such efforts are made in given congregations, pastors and other church leaders must attempt a precarious balancing act, looking to incentivize attendance among non-churchgoers with perquisites and simplify the liturgy and sermon to make them more “rele...
• The Kingdom Unleashed on the World by Joel Shuman (1/6/2016)
  Baptism of the Lord First Sunday after Epiphany Isaiah 43:1-7 Psalm 29 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Before there was an ekklesia, before there was a Messiah, before there were mangers or magi or shepherds or heavenly hosts, there was talk among the common folk in and around Jerusalem—furtive whispers and improbably hopeful snippets of conversation among a people long since accustomed to injustice and subjugation at the hands of series of imperial oppressors and collaborators from among their own leaders. The topic of conversation was not new in ...
• All Will Be Thrown Down by Joel Shuman (11/10/2015)
  Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost Daniel 12:1-3 Psalm 16 Hebrews 10:11-25 Mark 13:1-8 By any measure, the Temple Jesus and his disciples visited on their Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem was an impressive structure. Commissioned around 20 BCE by Herod the Great, the Roman client King of Judea, “Herod’s Temple” was on one hand a conciliatory gesture toward the priestly class and leaders of the Temple who were deeply suspicious of the king (Herod had slaughtered a number of priests when he took power not that many years earlier), and on the other hand a narcis...
• Keep Reading by Joel Shuman (10/20/2015)
  Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Job 42:1-6, 10-17 OR Jeremiah 31:7-9 Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22 OR Psalm 126 Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 10:46-52 Maybe the most important counsel a commentator on this week’s lectionary texts can offer to whoever hopes to preach them is to keep reading (I’m sure there’s a proverb about this somewhere, but darned if I can come up with one). The lectionary I consulted began with the text from ...
• The LORD Will Make You (into) a House by Joel Shuman (7/15/2015)
  Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2 Samuel 7:1-14 Psalm 89:20-37 Ephesians 2:11-22 Mark 6:30-34, 50-56 This week’s First Testament text is a familiar one from 2 Samuel. David, having consolidated his reign and established momentary peace in Israel, wonders aloud to the prophet Nathan whether it is fitting for him to live comfortably in a well-built house while the Ark of the Covenant, the most conspicuous and immediate symbol of God’s presence with Israel, remains in a tent. The subtext here is pretty obvious; David has in mind the construction of a temple t...
• The Economy of God's Redemption by Joel Shuman (5/27/2015)
  Trinity Sunday Isaiah 6:1-8 Psalm 29 Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17 When I teach Christian Ethics, I try to compensate for my students’ general lack of theological literacy by taking them on a whirlwind tour of the biblical narrative. The main thing the Bible has to teach us, I often tell them, is who God is and what God is up to, with the latter showing us a lot about the former. What God is up to, I suggest, is some variation of the same thing he’s been up to since he approached Abram somewhere around 4,000 years ago: a work of healing, cosmic in ...
• It Can't Come Soon Enough by Joel Shuman (3/18/2015)
  Fifth Sunday in Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 51:1-12 Hebrews 5:5-10 John 12:20-33 In the undergraduate Christian Ethics course I teach just about every semester, we are talking this week about a notion many of my students seem to regard as quaint, if not downright archaic, namely sin. Among the more important points I have tried to highlight is one well-worn in many strands of Christian tradition; sin is self-destructive, in that it separates us from our true ultimate end and therefore from the possibility of genuine flourishing as women and men made in the im...
• What is Power For? by Joel Shuman (1/29/2015)
  Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Psalm 111 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Mark 1:21-28 Albeit in different ways, each of this week’s texts (save perhaps the Psalm) has to do with power and its potential or actual social effects. Although I am expert neither in social theory nor its criticism, one thing I do recall from my relatively scant reading in those fields is that power is an ineliminable aspect of all human associations, from the most intimate interpersonal relationships to the most impersonal instit...
• Looking for the Redemption of Jerusalem by Joel Shuman (12/23/2014)
  First Sunday after Christmas Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Psalm 148 Galatians 4:4-7 Luke 2:22-40 Over against the spectacle that Christmas in America has long since become – the kitschy sentimentality of front lawns unselfconsciously strewn with inflatable reindeer and snowmen alongside crèches populated by conspicuously Caucasian renditions of the Holy Family; the collective credit card induced hangover that invariably follows our annual orgy of consumerism; and our habitual rush always to look ahead to whatever’s next (there’s New Year’s Eve revelry to be planned, afte...
• Do As They Say, Not As They Do by Joel Shuman (10/28/2014)
  Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Micah 3:5-12 Psalm 43 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13 Matthew 23: 1-12 Apart from a somewhat odd convergence of occurrences over the past few days, I would have been clueless as to how to write about this week’s lectionary readings. To be honest, my first couple passes at them left me mostly flat and uninspired. And then, as sometimes happens, things became just a bit clearer. I was first awakened to the possibilities offered by the texts when I read Kyle Childress’s bLogos p...
• Minding Our Own Business by Joel Shuman (9/3/2014)
  Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Ezekiel 33:7-17 Psalm 119 Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20 The students whose work I evaluate would probably disagree, but it’s my disposition, both by nature and upbringing, to be averse to conflict. The very thought of confrontation puts me ill at ease, and I will go out of my way to avoid saying or doing anything that might hurt another’s feelings or create an unhappy tension between us. I am far too captive to and dependent upon the esteem of others. I want not just to be respected, b...
• Risen Indeed by Joel Shuman (4/4/2012)
  Easter Sunday John 20:1-18

  Death is the peak of all that is contrary to God in the world, the last enemy, thus not the natural lot of man, not an unalterable divine dispensation. … Peace cannot and must not be concluded just here in such a way as to establish a spiritual-religious–moral Kingdom of God on earth, while forgetting the enemy. There is peace only in prospect of the overcoming of the enemy.

  -Karl Barth I recently accepted an invitation to write an encyclopedia article on death and dying, and I wonder if I am up to the task. In particular, I wonder if I have it in me to tell the truth about death. The fact is death intrigues me even as it scares m...
• Just a Kid. Just a Seed. Just a Church. by Joel Shuman (6/11/2009)
  [image]1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34 He was just a kid, so young and apparently insignificant that his own father didn’t consider him worthy even to attend the sacrifice offered by the traveling prophet Samuel. Sure, he was good looking, and he was tough, and he had some talent, but by and large everyone who knew him assumed he’d ...
• Spoilin’ for a Fight by Joel Shuman (4/2/2009)
  [image]Mark 11:1-11 (John 12:12-16); Psalm 118 (Palm Sunday/Liturgy of the Palms) In her wonderful autobiography An American Childhood, Annie Dillard fondly recalls her Sunday School days in her parents’ mainline Protestant church. She notes of her introduction to the Bible, “The Bible’s was an unlikely, movi...
• Wild Grace Abounding by Joel Shuman (1/2/2009)
  Epiphany - Jan. 6 Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12 In Canto I of Dante’s Purgatorio (the second of three volumes of the Divine Comedy), Dante and his guide Virgil climb from the depths of hell to emerge tired and dirty on the shores of the island of the Mountain of Purgation. They are immediately confronted by the appointed guardian of the island, the Roman orator Cato of Utica (d. 46 BCE), who demands they give an account of themselves. Dante is shocked by their interlocutor, not because of his question, but because he is there at all; not only did Cato die a pagan a generation before the birth of Jesus, he took his own life in protest of the emerging power of the then nascent Roman Empire. Surely ...
• Revolution Now! by Joel Shuman (12/16/2008)
  [image]Fourth Sunday of Advent: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Psalm 89 (Luke 1:46-55); Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38 The excitement, celebration, and anticipatory hope for change attending the election o...
• Give it All by Joel Shuman (11/12/2008)
  [image]Matthew 25:14-30 The parable of the talents is for me about fear, or rather, about the ways we respond to fear. I have been attentive recently to how much of modern life is controlled, or at least infected, by fear. One reason for my attentiveness is because I am something of an expert where fear is concerned. It’s no secret to my friends...
• Useless by Joel Shuman (8/28/2008)
  [image] Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28 A good friend who teaches Theology at a seminary in another part of the country likes occasionally to begin his new classes with the pronouncement that “God is useless.” As you might expect, this assertion is usually not well received by the pious young women and men on the other side of the lectern, who find it ...
• Nice Guys and Crucifixion by Joel Shuman (8/1/2008)
  [image] Even if we have somehow managed to remain blissfully ignorant of where our Lenten journey has been taking us, or with whom we are traveling, the traditional Gospel text for Palm Sunday—and indeed, all of Matthew’s Gospel from Chapter 21 on—serves ...