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Psalm 126
Proper 25B
Perky. That’s the word that came to mind after I once again read this short, effervescent psalm. It’s perky. It bubbles over with joy and hopefulness. It is about a reversal of fortune that generates almost giddy happiness and joy. It is about dreams coming true—dreams that for too long seemed to be unlikely at…
Psalm 91:9-16
Proper 24B
If you have been reading my sermon commentaries here on the CEP website over the years, then you have no doubt sensed that I hold a very high view of Scripture as God’s Word. I take it more than seriously and I reverently honor its inspired nature and believe it is infallible in all the…
Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Proper 24B
Image: To begin as a kind of summary of where Job has been, we might turn to that sage philosopher in black, Johnny Cash. In his song, I Won’t Back Down, Cash sings: I won’t back down. No, I won’t back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won’t…
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Proper 23B
Image: It’s been over four years since the world learned the technology of online meeting software. And still, not a meeting, class, or conversation goes by without someone saying, “whoops, you’re muted.” And sometimes all it takes is a simple click to unmute. Sometimes the discovery that we can’t hear someone leads to a whole…
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…
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