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Psalm 51:1-10
Proper 19C
Some years ago a psychologist who works in Britain’s penal system described the startlingly loopy ways by which criminals attempt to sneak out from under their own crimes. He opened his article by reminding readers that in his pseudo-suicide note years ago, O.J. Simpson had the audacity to write, “Sometimes I feel like a battered…
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Proper 19C
If our last reading from Jeremiah 18:1-11 offered a note of hope (and it did with that fourfold repetition of the little word “if”), there seems to be absolutely no such note in this reading. Which makes it a very tough text to preach today. Oh, if all we do is explain what the text…
Psalm 1
Proper 18C
It’s not by accident. It wasn’t editorial happenstance. No one flipped a coin to decide which Hebrew poem to turn into Psalm 1 in this collection. Rather, the Hebrew Psalter is a carefully edited, thoughtfully and intentionally put together collection of poems. The design of the larger book is evident in many ways (for instance,…
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Proper 18C
Who do you think you are? In our text for today, that question floats in the background. It’s a question that can be asked in a friendly manner, or as a challenge. In Jeremiah 18 it is asked in a challenging way. Who does God think he is? Answer- the Potter who “molds and shapes…
Psalm 112
Proper 17C
Very often the Psalms are actually a form of beatitude. Psalm 1 sets the tone: “Blessed is the one who does not walk with the wicked.” Beatitudes—including the most famous ones of them all from Matthew 5—are very often blessings spoken over people whose lives the rest of the world may not deem to be…
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Proper 17C
Last week our study of Jeremiah’s call to ministry gave us the historical setting of his work. Jeremiah prophesied during the last days of the southern Kingdom, after the northern Kingdom had been dragged away by the Assyrian armies. Now Judah was now facing the same fate at the hands of the newly emergent Babylonian…
Psalm 103:1-8
Proper 16C
There are some pieces of music, certain poems, some scenes in movies that are so lyric, so moving, so flat out beautiful that it doesn’t matter how often you hear it, read it, or see it: it gets you every time. Psalm 103 is like that. I usually balk a bit when the Lectionary slices…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Proper 16C
Sometimes it feels as though the Lectionary has a mild case of Alzheimer’s, because it seems to forget that we just talked about a certain text, just a few months ago. Now here it is again in the cycle of readings. That’s the case on this Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, deep in the heart of…
Psalm 82
Proper 15C
What are we to make of Psalm 82? Who are the “gods” that get referred to multiple times? If you as an orthodox believer are convinced there really are no other gods beyond the God and Father of Jesus Christ, then these references to other gods may be a bit unsettling. But as I read…
Isaiah 5:1-7
Proper 15C
This will be a hard text to preach in many settings. I’ve tried to imagine preaching it in my last congregation, a congregation of privilege located in a neighborhood of disadvantaged people. My church had a number of ministries in that neighborhood, because we understood our responsibility for the poor. A significant number of our…
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