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Genesis 32:23-33
Proper 13A
Illustration The dark night of the soul is a concept made popular by a book with that title, written by St. John of the Cross in the 16th century. It means something like a sense of soul weariness, helplessness, a persistent and stubborn dismay with self, with others and with God. Although the concept is…
Genesis 32:22 – 33:12: That Face: Proper 13A
And so it has come to this. Jacob, the heel-grasper, the schemer, the wheeler and dealer, the sneak, the crook, the lie, the cheat: he’s coming home. Deception and wheedling stand on either side of the last twenty years, like bookends on Jacob’s life. He fled Canaan having deceived his old father, Isaac, and having…
Genesis 29:15-28
Proper 12A
Fitting this Story into the Whole At the beginning of chapter 29, Jacob arrives in Paddan-aram. In this text, we see all the ways Laban lords it over Jacob. At the end of chapter 30, Jacob gains the upper hand over Laban and in chapter 31, we see Jacob, along with all his accumulated household…
Genesis 28:10-19a
Proper 11A
Genesis 28 comes on the heels of Jacob stealing his older brother’s birthright or legitimately buying it in trade for a bowl of stew, depending on who is telling the story. What we will see play out in later chapters is, indeed, the younger brother receiving the blessing historically passed down to the first-born. This…
Genesis 25:19-34
Proper 10A
Commentator’s Note: The genius of the latter half of Genesis is the way it tells stories of fascinating characters — interesting to us not primarily because they are foreign or strange but precisely because we see our own families, stories, dramas, traumas and redemptions on display. What I’ve created here is a narrative, created under…
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Proper 9A
Commentator’s Note: The genius of the latter half of Genesis is the way it tells stories of fascinating characters — interesting to us not primarily because they are foreign or strange but precisely because we see our own families, stories, dramas, traumas and redemptions on display. Over the next two weeks, I’ve written a narrative,…
Genesis 22:1-14
Proper 8A
This is one of the simplest stories in the whole Bible. That may surprise you but it’s true. From the standpoint of Hebrew language — vocabulary, grammar, syntax, that sort of thing — this story is remarkably straight-forward. In fact, for this reason, many beginning Hebrew students are assigned this text for their first translation…
Genesis 21:8-21
Proper 7A
Illustration: A while ago I heard a reporter, a Middle East correspondent with decades of experience in Palestine and Israel, being interviewed on the news. He was responding to push back from a listener who didn’t think he gave enough background in a recent news report. You could almost hear the wry smile in the…
Genesis 1:26-27: The Image of God and the Secret Life – Day1 series: Faith and Science, part 5
Last summer I was in Cambridge, England, for a conference. I had a free afternoon and I set out to find the Eagle Pub. The Eagle is just a short walk from the Old Cavendish Laboratory–the laboratory where some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in the 20th Century have taken place. Breakthroughs in physics, chemistry,…
Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)
Proper 6A
(Commentator’s Note: A lot happens between Genesis 12 and Genesis 21 but we only have 1 Sunday in the Lectionary to tell the whole story. This commentary intends to tell the whole story, with stops in Genesis 18 and 21. Pastoral Need God’s Word has plenty to say about waiting. The letters of Paul and…
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