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Psalm 27:1, 4-9
Epiphany 3A
C.S. Lewis said somewhere that when you add it all up and consider it all together, in the end we would find that our prayer life is also our autobiography. Who we are, where we’ve been, the situations we’ve faced, the fears that nag us, and not a few of the core characteristics of who…
Isaiah 9:1-4
Epiphany 3A
The Common Lectionary’s choice to cut off this reading at verse 4 feels artificial. It’s like asking someone to break off singing midway through verse 2 of “Joy to the World.” It doesn’t work. You both want to finish the song and anyway you hear the song finish up in your head even if you…
Isaiah 49:1-7
Epiphany 2A
In the Servant Songs in this part of Isaiah the Lord God alternates speaking with the Servant himself also making remarks or comments. In this passage we hear from both the God who pre-ordained the Servant long before he was born and from the Servant himself. From God’s side we get high-flying confidence. From the…
Psalm 40:1-11
Epiphany 2A
Did David (or whoever wrote this psalm) write it backwards? You can divide Psalm 40 rather neatly into two halves (though most of the second half is left out by the Lectionary). The first ten or so verses are full of confidence and gratitude for God’s deliverance. As usual in the psalms, we cannot detect…
Psalm 29
Epiphany 1A
Psalm 29 is an ode to a thunderstorm. But this poem is not just that. The primary aim here is to move through the storm to the Lord of the storm, to the King of Creation, to the one, only true, sovereign God: Yahweh. As such, Psalm 29, for all its lyrical and poetic beauty,…
Isaiah 42:1-9
Epiphany 1A
Throughout the “Servant Songs” in this part of Isaiah, despite the focus on the Servant, there is no question who is really in charge and calling all the shots. The Servant has work to do and will achieve that work to a stunning degree of effectiveness. Nothing short of the bringing of justice to all…
Isaiah 63:7-9
Christmas 1A
We have all seen this on the walls of someone’s house. Perhaps it is done in counted-cross-stitch. Perhaps it is done in calligraphy. But we have seen these framed squares or rectangles hanging in a living room and containing a Bible verse shorn of its context. Most of the time this works fine—the verse functions…
Psalm 148
Christmas 1A
Some years back at a worship service we used St. Francis of Assisi’s poem “Canticle of the Sun” as part of a responsive reading. There was, alas, a slight typo in the bulletin that made it sound at one point as though we were worshiping Mother Earth. This led a rather conservative member of my…
Psalm 96
Christmas Day A
Perhaps it counts as something of an irony that the Lectionary calls on us to reflect on Psalm 96 on Christmas Day. After all, if ever there were a day in the church year when we do not want to do what Psalm 96:1 says—namely, sing to the Lord a new song—this day is it! …
Isaiah 9:2-7
Christmas Day A
The first and last titles that we read in Isaiah 9:6 remind us that in God’s Messiah, we find someone who embodies both wisdom and strength. And as with John’s description of the Word of God being full of both grace and truth, so also with wisdom and strength: we all know people who have…
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