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Proverbs 1:20-33
Proper 19B
In Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus Socrates tells an ancient Egyptian legend about a king named Thamus and a god named Theuth. Theuth, it seems, was an inventor of great tools and new technologies. One day he showed King Thamus a vast array of his inventions, climaxing with his most recent innovation: writing. The inventor proudly told…
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Proper 18B
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” “The early bird catches the worm.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” “God helps those who help themselves.” Sound familiar? They should as these are among the better known modern-day proverbs that have a lot of currency throughout North America. I am not familiar enough…
Psalm 15
Proper 17B
Well, I guess you had best count me out. At least in terms of dwelling in God’s “sacred tent.” Because if the list of entry requirements in Psalm 15 are accurate, rare would be the day I could check every box. I might be able to check certain boxes on certain days and different ones…
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Proper 17B
Are the people who put together the Common Lectionary winking at us this week? The Lectionary across its three-year cycle contains exactly ONE text from the Song of Songs (or the Song of Solomon) and this is it. But it occurs on the same Year B Sunday when the Gospel lection is from Mark 7…
Psalm 34:15-22
Proper 16B
Welcome to Week 3 of Psalm 34. As noted before, the Lectionary for some reason devotes three consecutive Sundays to this relatively short psalm. What’s more, in the original Hebrew this is an acrostic poem, meaning it is meant to be memorized and seen as a unity. But despite via the Lectionary we have considered…
1 Kings 8:(1-6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43
Proper 16B
The last few verses of this lection strike me as much as anything. So much of the Old Testament is all-Israel all-the-time. There is warfare and defeat of other nations, dark warnings about inter-marriage with Canaanites, the threat of foreign religious practices wheedling their way into the faith of Israel. It’s easy at times to…
Psalm 34:9-14
Proper 15B
It is not at all clear to me precisely the thinking behind dedicating three August Sundays to a single psalm. Preachers are challenged enough this month on the Gospel side of things with five weeks’ worth of sermons from John 6, all pretty much on the same theme. But now we are getting a triplet…
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Proper 15B
My wife tells me I think too much about The Godfather, and if you have been paying weekly attention to these sermon commentaries of late, then you know this is indeed the second time in as many weeks that I have mentioned Francis Ford Coppola’s landmark 1974 film. But really, even more than last week’s…
Psalm 34:1-8
Proper 14B
These days I am contributing two sermon commentaries a week here on the CEP website: the Old Testament reading and the Psalm. This week I worked on the Old Testament passage first: the tragic story of the unraveling of David’s household through the rebellion and later the heartbreaking death of David’s son Absalom. So having…
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