Home » Old Testament »
Joshua 24:1-3, 14-25
Proper 27A
Comments, Observations and Questions: A Choosing Place: Shechem was the site of Jacob putting away foreign gods (Gen 35) recitation of the law (Joshua 8) and the rape of Dinah, leading to decisions about the relationship between God’s people and the other people of the land. “The setting of this episode thus creates an atmosphere…
Joshua 3:7-17
Proper 26A
Preamble: Although this text comes to us through the ordinary 3 year lectionary cycle, it also lands with particularly distressing and uncomfortable timing. As war rages over the lands once given to Joshua and the Israelites, I urge pastors to tred lightly, as I have attempted to do here. First, we acknowledge that the modern…
Psalm 43
Proper 26A
Most scholars seem pretty certain that Psalms 42 and 43 were either originally just one psalm or that they are such tight companion psalms that you are not really supposed to read either of them in isolation from the other. But here we are being asked to look at only Psalm 43. A glance back…
Psalm 1
Proper 25A
With only a few weeks left in the Lectionary’s Year A cycle before Advent and Year B arrives, suddenly we arrive at Psalm 1. Along with Psalm 2, this poem is like the gateway into the Hebrew Psalter. As we have noted often in our sermon commentaries here on CEP, the Book of Psalms is…
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Proper 25A
Preamble: Although this text comes to us through the ordinary three-year lectionary cycle, it also lands with particularly distressing and uncomfortable timing. As war rages over the lands once promised to Moses, I urge pastors to tread lightly, as I have attempted to do here. First, we acknowledge that the modern nation-state of Israel is…
Psalm 96:1-9 (10-13)
Proper 24A
My pastor during much of my growing-up years back in Ada Christian Reformed Church in the 1970s often used the middle portion of Psalm 96 as his Call to Worship. I can still recall hearing Sunday after Sunday “Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe…
Exodus 33:12-23
Proper 24A
In military and government work, informal clearance is often withheld with a simple phrase, “that is need to know,” meaning that you don’t. You can complete your assignment or your project without the answer to that particular question. It seems as though, in this text, Moses is not satisfied with the information God has been…
Exodus 32:1-14
Proper 23A
What is taking God so long? There’s a whole sermon to be preached in the opening clause of this text: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down the mountain…” Of course, the key theme of the text is idolatry: the making and worshiping of the golden calf by the Israelites. …
Psalm 23
Proper 23A
Psalm 23 bears a lot of resemblance to any number of poems in the Hebrew Psalter. This is not the only sunny-side-up psalm that exudes confidence at every turn. It is not the only psalm to use pastoral imagery or to invoke the specter of “enemies” in whose presence God will vindicate the psalmist. Yet…
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Proper 22A
Textual Comments, Observations and Questions: Some commentators believe that these brief excurses (v. 5-6 and 10-11) signal a later addition to the original text, which could substantiate the lectionary compiler’s choice to excise them from the reading this week. However, getting down to just 10 commands out of all the attitudes, postures, words and actions…
Content related to Old Testament