Charles Hoffacker

The Rev. Charles Hoffacker lives in Greenbelt, Maryland, with his wife, Helena Mirtova. He is the author of A Matter of Life and Death: Preaching at Funerals from Cowley Publications. Many of his sermons appear on sermonwriter.com.
Sermons and Bible Studies
The Sound of It Sprouting, Pentecost 26 (B) – November 17, 2024
[RCL] Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25; Mark 13:1-8 It’s been said that people today experience three kinds of suffering. The first kind belongs to our human condition. The flesh is heir to deprivations such as illness, death, and grief. The second kind of suffering results from bad decisions people make. We bring […]
May Your Heart Live for Ever!, Easter 5 (B) – April 28, 2024
[RCL] Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8 The psalm selection for today, a portion of Psalm 22, can catch us by surprise. Psalm 22 is famously associated with Holy Week. Jesus, suspended from the cross, close to death, quotes its opening words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And […]
Talking to the Salt, Epiphany 5 (A) – 2023
[RCL] Isaiah 50:1-9a, (9b-12); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20 The celebrated Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote many odes. An ode, you will recall, is a poem that addresses its subject in an exalted fashion. Thus, we have poems by Keats such as “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian […]
Johnny Appleseed Christianity, Epiphany 1 (A) – 2023
[RCL] Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17 The Epiphany Season is a time in the church year when we focus on many epiphanies, shinings forth of the glory of Christ, among them his manifestation to Gentiles as an infant, the time at Cana when he supplied wine for a wedding, and his mountaintop […]
An Alternative Consciousness, Proper 10 (C) – 2022
[RCL] Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37 Flashing through the Bible and beyond is a lightning bolt known as prophetic ministry. What prophetic ministry does, according to Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, is generate “a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” This is not a […]
Time, Easter 5 (C) – 2022
[RCL] Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35 Our services for the Easter Season this year feature readings from the Revelation to John, the last book of the Bible and perhaps the most mysterious. Much of the drama in Revelation is centered around the throne of God and the Lamb, or as it is […]
Jesus’ Mission Statement, Epiphany 3 (C) – 2022
[RCL] Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21 Today’s gospel presents us with Jesus’ first act of public ministry, described for us in Luke’s gospel. Following his river baptism and his long wilderness fast and temptation, Jesus returns to his home country, Galilee. Reports about him have been spreading through the […]
Risks We Can Take, Proper 21 (B) – 2021
[RCL] Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50 The theme of God’s people struggling to survive in a sophisticated, alien culture appears throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. This theme is central to the Book of Esther, which supplies today’s first reading. Today is the only Sunday in our three-year […]
Takers or Givers, Proper 12 (B) – 2021
RCL: [RCL] 2 Samuel 11:1-1; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21 The penultimate paragraph of this sermon, which appears in brackets below, may be omitted at services where Holy Communion is not distributed. We see it from time to time. Someone performs brave deeds, enjoys great advantages, reaches a lofty position of prominence. Defeat seems […]
Have You Been Transfigured?, Proper 27 (A) – 2020
[RCL] Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13 Today, let’s explore the problem known as burnout and the hope we call “transfiguration”. In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In recent decades, “burnout” has become a popular word to describe a particular human problem. Burnout is commonly understood as […]
The Economics of God, Proper 20 (A) – 2020
[RCL] Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16 The economics of God are not like our human economics. Time after time, we humans just do not get the economics of God. In Scripture readings for today, we have reminders of the ways we miss the point about God’s economics. We also have a […]
How Joseph Became a Gift-Giving Man, Epiphany 7 (C) – 2019
Today let’s look at one of the major stories in the Old Testament, and consider how its principal character, whose name is Joseph, changes from a man full of himself to someone who gives the gift of life. In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What we heard just now from Genesis—Joseph’s […]
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