Home » Old Testament »
Genesis 45:1-15
Proper 15A
After chapters and chapters of third person narration, reading Joseph’s story through someone else’s lens, we might come to this chapter eager to hear how Joseph makes sense of the unfolding events. At last, Joseph lets his brothers know who he is. He tells his own story. He could have told a story about a…
Psalm 85:8-13
Proper 14A
“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” Here is a lyric and pretty well-known line from Psalm 85. But based on how this psalm begins—in the part the Lectionary would have us leap frog over in the first 7 verses—you would not have predicted this Hebrew poem would end up including…
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Proper 14A
Patterns of preference and favoritism and jealousy replay themselves with uncomfortable regularity through the history of God’s people. Abraham’s son Ishmael is nearly written out of the story by Sarah’s jealousy. Isaac and Rebekah are #TeamEsau and #TeamJacob accordingly. Jacob shames Leah and honors Rachel. No doubt the ten sons of Leah have noticed Jacob’s…
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21
Proper 13A
The RCL had us in the heart of Psalm 145 a scant month ago for its July 9, 2023, psalm lection. Why we are looping back to some of these same verses so soon is not clear. In any event, I refer you to that sermon commentary and will not here repeat everything I said…
Genesis 32:22-31
Proper 13A
If you are searching Hebrew Scripture for parenting advice, healthy examples of marital bliss … well, you probably shouldn’t. The Bible is not a book about functional families. The Bible, chock full of dysfunctional people, is always the story of a functional God. Jacob’s whole life has been clouded by competition with the twin brother…
Genesis 29:15-28
Proper 12A
“When morning came, there was Leah!” Hands down that is one of the funniest lines in the Bible. Imagine the fun a good Hollywood director would have setting up the scene and the dramatic flair of music to accompany the moment of the big reveal. Jacob wakes up, wipes the sleep out of his eyes,…
Psalm 119:129-136
Proper 12A
A Bible reader could plunk down most anywhere in the Bible’s longest psalm and read pretty much the same kind of thing. For this week the Lectionary has chosen the 17th of Psalm 119’s 22 sections. Maybe as a nod toward the sheer length of this ode to God’s Law, each section corresponds to a…
Genesis 28:10-19a
Proper 11A
It’s a shame the RCL cuts off this story in Genesis 28 before getting to the final 3 verses. Perhaps it would be a stretch to say those verses are the kicker but for certain they tell us a great deal about this rascal Jacob who is the focus of this middle part of Genesis. …
Psalm 86:11-17
Proper 11A
In one of her novels Anne Tyler shows a woman named Maggie attending a funeral. In the course of the service the pastor reads a psalm, and Maggie found it to be a lovely poem full of warmth and hope. This was a relief to her since ordinarily she thought of the psalms as often…
Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-13
Proper 10A
As I write this in July 2023, it feels at times like the world is on fire. Canada certainly has been on fire for a good bit in 2023. Canadian wildfires burning thousands of miles away have been blanketing with smoke cities as far away as Washington D.C. and also in the Midwest, giving us…
Content related to Old Testament