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Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
Epiphany 7C
Psalm 37 is a little bit all over the place. The Lectionary would have us skip 27 of this poem’s 40 verses but to preach well on this psalm, we need to at least read through verses 12-38. And if we do so, then we see that Psalm 37 is at once highly realistic and…
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Epiphany 7C
It matters how you tell the story. After chapters and chapters of some narrator telling us Joseph’s story, with very few places where Joseph, himself, gives meaning to the unfolding events. After the most recent three chapters where we experience the brothers living out their story until, two weeks ago, Judah finally spilled the whole…
Psalm 1
Epiphany 6C
The Book of Psalms begins with a beatitude. But unlike Jesus’s well-known Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount that begins in Matthew 5, Psalm 1’s beatitude is not for what a person is or for what a person does. Instead, this blessing concerns what a given person does not do. Principally a person is…
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Epiphany 6C
Tie-In Across Lectionary Texts Sometimes, especially with the Hebrew Scripture text, our best bet is to read it as supplement and complement to the other texts chosen on a given Sunday. This week’s lectionary readings lend themselves that way this week. Across all the lectionary readings this week, with the possible exception of the epistle,…
Psalm 138
Epiphany 5C
The honesty of the psalms is always refreshing. In the case of Psalm 138, such honesty comes through most especially in the final line of the poem. Mostly this psalm brims with enthusiasm for God. Whole-hearted praise begins the psalm followed by joyful observations about how he will continue to worship God, how God always…
Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)
Epiphany 5C
Illustration: It Doesn’t Get Better Than This As a graduate student, I am currently in a season of studying for my comprehensive exams. A couple months ago, I took my reading lists, a calendar and opened a brand new spreadsheet on my computer. I took the afternoon to create a weekly calendar and scheduled my…
Psalm 71:1-6
Epiphany 4C
Even just the half-dozen verses that the Lectionary selects for us from the larger text of Psalm 71 capture the essence of most of the 150 psalms in the Hebrew Psalter. Consider all of what is spoken and expressed in the span of just these few verses: Images of God as refuge and rock and…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Epiphany 4C
Commentary: Why Does God Prefer the Cotton-Mouthed? The keen reader of Scripture might wonder, when reading this week’s Hebrew Scripture text, “where have I heard that before?” In response to God’s call, Jeremiah protests, “I know not how to speak,.” Both Moses and Isaiah claimed the same malady but neither of them got out of…
Psalm 19
Epiphany 3C
Law. Decrees. Statues. Commands. Precepts. Once the writer of Psalm 19 switched his focus from the wonder of creation to the wonder of God’s law, he dug deep into his Hebrew thesaurus to use about every synonym for “law” as he could find. But he used this variety of terms not merely because he did…
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Epiphany 3C
Commentary: Nehemiah, in General Since we are just dropping into the text for a moment this week, it might make sense to broaden our perspective to what the whole of Nehemiah wants us to know and learn. The NIBC commentary observes that “Ezra-Nehemiah is the Old Testament equivalent of the Acts of the Apostles —…
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