500 episodes listed below
Lectionary conversation with pastoral nerve.
Sermon Brainwave from Working Preacher brings named voices around the upcoming Sunday readings and lets interpretation happen in real time. The conversation moves from Gospel details, psalms, and epistles toward sermon pressure points: suffering, resurrection, hospitality, exclusion, empire, and hope.
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Sermon Brainwave from Working Preacher is a lectionary conversation for people who prepare sermons with Scripture, season, and congregation all in view. It starts with the assigned readings. From there, the speakers work slowly through what the texts are doing, why their placement matters, and where a preacher might find both promise and danger. The farewell discourse is not treated as a free-floating comfort passage, but as speech heard after Easter, when promises are interpreted through resurrection. Psalm 23 is not reduced to soft reassurance. It becomes a bold claim about God’s presence with people in peril, pursued by enemies, and walking through the darkest valley. The Emmaus story opens into questions of hospitality, migration, bodies at table, and the way recognition of the risen Christ may arrive through sheltering a stranger. Lazarus leads to resurrection as present life, not only future hope. It also raises the communal command to unbind people from death-dealing forces. The Passion readings invite attention to the earth itself, the strange opened tombs, and the uneasy work of preaching empire and unjust suffering responsibly. The show is strongest when it refuses easy closure. A line from John can become a conversation about Christian exclusivism, faithfulness to God, and the risk of feeding nationalist narratives. A familiar Sunday can become newly complicated because the liturgical calendar has placed a text somewhere unexpected. Humor appears, but lightly. The real center is careful interpretation for actual preaching. Sermon Brainwave suits listeners who want biblical scholarship close enough to the pulpit to be useful, yet honest enough to leave tension in the room. It gives preachers language, cautions, angles, and theological texture. It also models how to disagree gently, refine a claim midstream, and let pastoral implications emerge from the passage rather than from a prefabricated point.
Made for: Designed for preachers, Bible teachers, and lectionary readers who want thoughtful help moving from close textual work to Sunday proclamation. It suits listeners comfortable with theological nuance and live interpretive debate.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its patient movement from textual detail to homiletical consequence. It does not simply name sermon themes; it weighs how a reading may comfort, challenge, mislead, or deepen a congregation’s hearing.
Sermon Brainwave from Working Preacher is a weekly conversation on upcoming Revised Common Lectionary readings. The conversations (featuring Luther Seminary faculty) are fun, informative, and creative—and just may give you the spark that ignites your own sermon brainwave!
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Sermon Brainwave pairs close biblical reading with candid conversation about the theological and ethical choices every sermon makes.
Sermon Brainwave turns lectionary texts into a lively working conversation among Caroline Lewis, Matt Skinner, and Cody Sanders. Moving through Easter, Lent, and Passion Sunday readings, they practice close exegesis while keeping the sermon in view.
Good Shepherd Sunday gets less cuddly when your Psalm 23 sermon has to face the darkest valley.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Shepherd imagery stays sharp when the episode keeps its pastoral stakes in view.
The episode moves through Acts 2, Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2, and John 10 with steady attention, lingering in particular on John 10 1-10 and its naming of Jesus as the gate, even as that phrasing has to be carried from door to gate for sheep.
A careful Fifth Sunday of Easter reading of John 14 that keeps Easter, witness, and group identity in view.
On the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Sermon Brainwave returns to John 14 and asks what changes when the farewell discourse is heard after Easter. Cody Sanders, Caroline Lewis, and Matt Skinner move through John 14, Acts 7, Psalm 31, and 1 Peter 2, tracing how Jesus names what is ahead…
A road-to-table reading of resurrection, hospitality, and strangers who disclose the risen Christ.
Luke's road to Emmaus is treated here as a searching account of resurrection recognized through ordinary nearness. Matt Skinner, Caroline Lewis, and Cody Sanders trace the movement from missed recognition on the road to the shared table where hospitality opens the travelers'…
A sharp, preacher-facing conversation about where Matthew's Palm Sunday should lead.
Palm Sunday comes through here as a tricky preaching assignment. The conversation keeps asking where the day should lean: toward Matthew 21, toward Matthew's Passion Narrative, or toward the pressure created by holding both together.
A thoughtful Lazarus conversation on present resurrection, communal life, and the call to unbind.
Sermon Brainwave treats the raising of Lazarus as more than a miracle story or a preview of Easter. Matt Skinner, Caroline Lewis, and Cody Sanders read John 11 with Ezekiel 37, Psalm 130, and Romans 8, lingering over the story's odd turns, Jesus' claim to be resurrection and…
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Live sermons with Easter-shaped urgency.
This episode discusses the biblical texts for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, focusing on Luke 10's account of the disciples' mission and sharing personal anecdotes about hospitality and growing up as a pastor's child.
This episode discusses the biblical readings for the third Sunday after Pentecost, focusing on Luke 9:51-62 where Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, highlighting Luke's distinctive gospel material.
This episode discusses the biblical texts for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, focusing on Matthew's Nativity story and its connections to other scriptures like Isaiah and Romans.
This archived episode of Sermon Brainwave discusses the biblical readings for the Third Sunday in Lent, focusing on Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, and John 4:1-42, with commentary on the significance of including verses 1-4 in John's Gospel.
The hosts discuss the biblical readings for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, focusing particularly on the controversial Luke 10:38-42 passage about Martha and Mary and why it resonates with modern listeners.
Sermon Brainwave 1074 analyzes the Revised Common Lectionary texts for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2026.
Sermon Brainwave #1106 pairs Matthew 22’s difficult wedding banquet with Isaiah 25’s feast and refuge for the poor.
Joseph's "princess coat" becomes a lens for genderqueer identity, social violence, and resistance to the gender binary.
Sermon Brainwave 1095 covers the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (August 2, 2026), with Matt Skinner, Caroline Lewis and Cody Sanders working through Matthew 14:13-21, Isaiah 55:1-5, Psalm 145, Genesis 32:22-31 and Romans 9:1-5.
The hosts open on the fifth Sunday of Easter.
Sermon Brainwave turns to the Fourth Sunday of Easter, which falls on April 26, 2026.
This episode discusses the Gospel reading from Luke 24 about the disciples on the road to Emmaus, exploring themes of resurrection faith, relationship with Christ, and preaching insights for the third Sunday of Easter.
This episode discusses the second Sunday of Easter, focusing on John 20:19-31 and exploring Jesus' resurrection appearances to the disciples and Thomas.
This archived episode of Sermon Brainwave discusses Easter Sunday 2026, focusing on the resurrection of Jesus and providing biblical readings and commentary for sermon preparation.
Palm Sunday arrives with a choice of emphasis.