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Psalm 138
Epiphany 5C
Our prayer life should be our autobiography, C.S. Lewis once observed. But that is also why Lewis thought the Hebrew Psalter was such a fitting prayer book since it contains prayers that fit a wide variety of life’s experiences. Were the 150 Psalms all in one particular emotional register, what help would it be for…
Isaiah 6:1-13
Epiphany 5C
Somewhere in my reading recently, I ran across this familiar rant about God’s invisibility. “If God really wants us to believe in him, why doesn’t he come out of hiding, you know, make himself visible, write in words across the sky, speak audibly so that everyone can hear his voice, do some miracle that would…
Psalm 71:1-6
Epiphany 4C
There is a part of the well-known story (and the popular Sunday School story) of “Jacob’s Ladder” that most people don’t know about or just ignore. The outlines of the story are familiar and are also accurate enough to the biblical text in Genesis: Jacob is on the lam, fleeing the fury of his brother…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Epiphany 4C
As encouraging and upbeat as Nehemiah 8 was for preachers last week, Jeremiah 1 is more than a bit intimidating and negative. Nehemiah 8 depicted a preacher’s dream: a willing congregation that invited Ezra to open the Word of God, visibly demonstrated their ready hearts, listened intently to the Word and its interpretation, and responded…
Psalm 19
Epiphany 3C
Almost 115 years ago an unknown patent clerk named Albert Einstein published a series of papers detailing what he called “special relativity.” At one fell swoop, Einstein shattered centuries’ worth of scientific theories about the fundamental nature of reality. The theories of Isaac Newton and his mechanical understanding of the universe’s functioning were swept away,…
Nehemiah 8:1-10
Epiphany 3C
This passage will deeply move every preacher who reads it, either to joy or to sorrow, to gratitude or to envy. I mean, what happens here is a preacher’s dream. The whole congregation– men, women (not typical in a Temple service), and children old enough to understand what was going on—spontaneously gathered for worship. They…
Psalm 36:5-10
Epiphany 2C
Once again our friends who put together the Revised Common Lectionary are trying to give us a kinder, gentler version of Scripture. By carving out the middle half-dozen verses of this psalm and by leaving out verses 1-4 and 11-12, the Lectionary would have us only celebrate the goodness of God without having to be…
Isaiah 62:1-5
Epiphany 2C
At first I was puzzled by the Lectionary’s choice of this Old Testament reading for this second Sunday of Epiphany, but then I saw the light, literally. In verse 1 Jerusalem is told that “her righteousness [will] shine out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch,” and, adds verse 2, “the nations will…
Psalm 29
Epiphany 1C
Thunderstorms. On average each day 45,000 such storms occur on Planet Earth. They are among the most powerful forces we know. In the simplest, but also in perhaps the most boring, sense a thunderstorm is an atmospheric stabilizer. Acting like a giant heat machine, a thunderstorm forms when there is a lot of cold air…
Isaiah 43:1-7
Epiphany 1C
On this second Sunday in the Epiphany season, the church focuses on the Baptism of Jesus, arguably one of the greatest manifestations of his glory. This Old Testament reading was undoubtedly chosen because of its baptismal echoes of passing through the waters and being called by name. In the same way that Isaiah 60 anticipated…
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