This is a pretty good help in preparing sermons and the techniques that go into it. The author encourages the reader to use his own style when preaching. I was put off by the author's advice to have a smoke and drink a beer when the sermon preparation is complete. If you can get past that, this will be a good addition to your library.

This is an uplifting book. Capon is particularly adept at unveiling our shallow "theologies of the Cross." This stuff is Calvin with a flair. Those who preach will appreciate his lively Buechner-esque style. I enjoy the way he anticipates various protests from his reader, then answers him/her with earthy honesty. For example, to those who insist on topical over lectionary preaching, he quips: "Like topical anesthetics (topical sermons) don't go deep!" The price of the book is worth the first part. The second part, on the mechanics of the sermon, is not as fun to read, but will be helpful for those just starting out in the pulpit. --Phil Jones, pastor Ayden Christian Church, Ayden NC.

Capon urges those of us who preach to keep our focus on what is most important, namely Jesus Christ. It's not about keeping the rules nor about holding the right doctrine. It's about being held in love by the God who made us and wants to save us by grace through Christ. If you only read one book on preaching this year, it needs to be this one.

Capon uses the parables of judgment as a basis for his exegesis about the mysterious working of God in this world and in its history. This book is part of his trilogy over the parables and as such one expects to find many of the same ideas articulated in this book that are in the other two. This expectation is fulfilled and amplified in this work. In reading the other two books, I remember thinking to myself, "Well, you have a point, but what about the parable about so and so?" In this work, those so and so parables that were my wall of defense to Capon's arguments became transformed into his coup de grace. This work is not one to be read -- it is to be ingested and thoughtfully considered. One cannot assume that reading a work like this leaves one unchanged. I can honestly say that Capon's work with the parables of judgment has helped me see that there is not a Marcionic dichotomy between YHWH and the Abba of Christ Jesus.

Capon's Parables of the Kingdom is bound to bring about fruitful re-examination of the parables captured in Matthew 13. However, Capon seems to confuse the intent of the Gospel writer in placing these parables together with the intent of Jesus, who, in all likelihood, did not order them in this way. Moreover, Capon, who is a Greek scholar, often focuses on the importance and possible interpretations of Greek words used in the Gospel; as Jesus may not have used these particular Greek words (Matthew was probably written some 40 years after Jesus' death)or may even have told them in Aramaic, this emphasis can be misleading.

Robert Capon likes to play around with Scripture. In the epilogue of this book, he even advocates playing with Scripture. That style of hermeneutics can open up some new vistas of spiritual insight, but it can also be somewhat dangerous. Capon sees these parables as presenting the Kingdom of God as sort of a subversive presence throughout the whole world, demonstrating what he calls "left-handed" power. He skirts dangerously close to the precipice of universalism, stopping just short of saying that everyone in the world will be saved. He does stop short, to be sure, but rather reluctantly. It's interesting how he believes that when Jesus was asked to explain a couple of his parables, he gave less than satisfactory interpretations, which Capon said he did on purpose. Now, we sure wouldn't want to be tied down by Jesus' explanation, would we?

The tone of this book is playful and almost jocular. It makes for some entertaining reading. Capon, in some areas, would be considered a conservative (he does accept the supernatural) but he has a rather liberal view of grace. Although I'm not totally comfortable with that, I still recommend this book as a very creative way of getting one to think "outside the box" when it comes to these particular parables. I'm sure I will be reading more of Capon in the future.

Capon is, in a word, unorthodox. As a religious writer, he lands somewhere between the religion department and the pulpit. he takes a lot of freedom in attempting to determine what Jesus really was talking about and why, and i keep expecting him to slip into the academish/nonsense talk of religion professors (in my experience) and yet he always works his way out of that.

his perpective is fresh, well thought-out, and deeply rooted in the original language of the biblical text, as well, as much scholarship. i have no doubt that he knows the bible well.

Capon starts to write about the "left-handedness" of God's use of power -- backdoorish, subtle and tricky, doing things like dying to show his power, instead of direct authoritative, thunderboltish use. and i would like to read and know more about this, but he gets away from it, in order to talk about the first set of parables - parables of the kingdom.

his thesis about the nature of the kingdom revolves around its catholicity, mystery, actuality, and hostility. i follow this far, and some of his arguements to back up this thesis are good.

at times, though, i stare in disbelief at his tinkerings. like when he takes the treasure hidden in the field, adds a barn or two to the field, calls it a farm, then says that "buying the farm" is an adage for death, so the parable really is about death. yikes!

all in all, more good than bad here. he is refreshing, challenging, and i've come to recognize that when an author makes me uncomfortable, that's a good thing. this book is not as profound as I want it to be, but has offered some nice twists on old interpretations of the parables.

a passage:

"Oh dear. I hear two objections. Let me interrupt myself to deal with them. The first is: "But hold on. Doesn't Scripture say that there will be some (or even many) who will reject the reconciliation?" Of course it does. But the very hell of hell lies precisely in the fact that its inhabitants will be insisting on a perpetual rejection of an equally perpetual gift. It will be an eternal struggle to escape from the grip of a love that will never let them go. And for that everlasting stand-off, I think, there is not a word in Scripture that is too strong: not the "fire that is not quenched," not the "worm that dieth not," not the "outer darkness," not the "bottomless pit." not the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" -- and certainly not the utterly fruitless "second death".

if you'd like to discuss this book with me, or anything else really, e-mail me at williekrischke@hotmail.com.

It pains me deeply to have to dish out a two-star review to one of my favorite authors--but someone needs to teach Capon a lesson. I regret that I must be the person to do it.

By no means is "Health, Money, and Love" a poor piece of writing. In fact, it is thoroughly entertaining. Yet, if Capon is not beating a dead horse here--the subject of Grace can never be dead no matter how woefully dealt with--then he is certainly abusing a tired one.

Don't get me wrong. One can never hear enough about God's immeasurable grace. It is just that Capon keeps recasting it in the same old tired metaphorical terms. This stuff was fresh back when he wrote "Between Noon and Three." Now it is just the same warmed-over hash.

Instead of an affair between a teacher and a student, we get an affair between a King and a servant-girl. Only this time, Capon's narrative voice is less endearingly wild and a little too defensive. This book lacks the boldness of "Between Noon and Three." It comes off a little tired and even a little less certain.

I usually don't like comparing different works by the same author. I find it leads to too much personal preference and too little interaction with the text. But these two books are almost identical twins; and one clearly got the weaker genes.

I cannot recommend "Health, Money, and Love: and Why We Don't Enjoy Them." Capon has done a lot better with the same material in a different book. Get "Between Noon and Three" instead.

After reading the entire Bible more than once and almost all of Robert Farrar Capon's books (a handful of those more than once), I have come to the conclusion that Jesus and Father Capon have at least one salient personalitiy trait in common - they both love to shock people - jar us out of our complacency.

In this book, Capon's opening gambit is to declare religion "no fun" (it's all creed, cult and conduct after all), and that its bailiwick is a false parallel universe, that you can make a religion of anything (especially health, money and love) and that Christianity isn't a religion. It's the end of religion because of free grace and besides, "...there is not a properly religious act in the Christian 'religion'"

"Our confessions do not earn us forgiveness: we had it all along by Jesus' gift. Our prayers do not con God into being gracious: he conned himself on the cross. Our Eucharists do not cause Jesus to show up in a place from which he was absent: he is already everywhere - in all the fullness of his reconciling work - before the service starts." And our baptisms! Oh man, our baptisms "...do not divide the world into the saved (us, inside) and the lost (them, outside)."

But I'll try to just let you turn that corner of this fertile valley yourself and not give away the punchline. You should get it from the Capon's mouth (definitely worth the ride).

But I could give you a clue on the infrastructure. Religion, you see, "...operates in a self-originated, parallel world rather than in the world as originated by God" (and as the author always reminds us, there is no ontological evil). Not only that, but the principal device by which original sin works is religion. If you think this is outrageous, read the book and see what an open and shut case it really is. Although the author's style is light, bantering, direct and engaging all at once, he doesn't say anything he says lightly. Lightfully, but not lightly.

My favorite little crosshatch is his interpretation of the Book of Job. Like his take on Luke 16, the unjust steward, I think Capon's cake that he bakes on his take is where it's at.

"But the fact is," says Capon of Job, "...it is God in person who finally confronts Job - and that Job is finally able to fall in love with God rather than with religion - is what makes all the difference."

At the beginning, everybody (Job included) is religious. As a result of Job's afflictions, he falls out of love with the system of control. He loses his religion. His so-called friends spend 34 chapters pushing religion. When God shows up, he speaks only to Job, "...because Job alone has finally gotten out of the false, parallel universe and into the real one that God himself has made." And Job is vindicated. And he gets sort of reimbursed "...just for accepting the real God of the real world rather than conjuring with the gods of the parallel universe."

"Do you see?" says the author, "Job starts out in religion, but he ends up in love...Getting rid of religion, therefore, is always the first step back to love! Given that, the love that draws everything home does all the rest."

Vintage Capon. This is the second time I've read this book, and it's much mellowed from the first time around. Highly recommended. Read it. You just might like it.

pamhan99@aol.com