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Psalm 90:12-17
Proper 23B
The Lectionary has us picking up just the tail end of Psalm 90 this week. It is a curious poem. It opens with a lyric consideration of how God had been his people’s dwelling place—their home—from generation to generation. But then in the middle section there is a shift in tone as a rather fearsome…
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Proper 22B
Once Upon a Time… Love it or hate it, Job rarely allows a neutral reading. However, we can, perhaps, safeguard against the worst interpretations by stopping at the outset to clarify the text’s genre. According to Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter, the interpretive key may be found in the very first verse: “A man there was…
Psalm 8
Proper 22B
Psalm 8 swiftly sums up something that the Israelites found as amazing as anything else they could think of. Yes, the psalm is about the majesty of God and that is awesome enough. And the psalmist sees that majesty of God chiefly in the things that this great God created and most especially the wonders…
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22
Proper 21B
Wisdom Personified Personified In her commentary on Esther for the Africana Bible Commentary, Dorothy Bea Akot identifies the genre of this text as a royal court intrigue or a Sophia/Wisdom tale. For those of us following the Lectionary texts of Hebrew Scripture. I am, on occasion, critical of what the Lectionary has chosen to leave…
Psalm 19:7-14
Proper 21B
We all recognize that rules and regulations are simply a part of life. Mostly, however, we are only too happy to dispense with recitations of such things as quickly as possible. Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial airline know that before the flight can begin, the flight attendants have to run through their…
Psalm 54
Proper 20B
Psalm 54 tells a story in just seven short verses. Like most if not all of the stories the psalms tell, it is a very generic tale. We have no precise clue who the psalmist is, who his enemies are, exactly what actions the enemies take, or what God does to earn the praise he…
Proverbs 31
Proper 20B
Content Warning Because the Biblical text overwhelmingly centers male characters in a way that is unsurprising for ancient near-eastern literature, every women’s devotional writer and preacher tasked with a Mother’s Day sermon takes a turn with Proverbs 31. The result is over-used and over-wrought exegesis. Unfortunately, far too many women and girls in our churches…
Psalm 116:1-9
Proper 19B
One of the benefits of the fact that psalms are not tied to any obvious specific set of circumstances is that they can be applied to a wide variety of experiences whether or not those exactly match whatever any given psalmist was talking about. In the case of Psalm 116, one could surmise this was…
Proverbs 1:20-33
Proper 19B
Wisdom Personified Tackling this week’s lectionary text from the first chapter of Proverbs, with next week’s text from the last chapter in mind, it may be worth considering making a short series out of the two together. The first thing that holds them both together is the theme of wisdom and, particularly, the way wisdom…
Psalm 146
Proper 18B
As we often note here on the CEP website and in our various sermon commentaries on the Psalms, we use the word “Hallelujah” as an expression of praise. For us it is synonymous with the sentiment, “I am praising God right now!” And sometimes we use it as a way to express gratitude and relief,…
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