Home » Old Testament »
Amos 8:1-12
Proper 11C
“Judgment” is one of those chilling words that may send shivers racing up and down our spines. Yet there are times when judgment is also a gracious gift from God. The word of judgment God wants to say through his prophet Amos, however, is as dark as an unlit cave at midnight. So it may…
Psalm 25:1-10
Proper 10C
On first reading (and, I confess, second and third as well), I could not imagine preaching on Psalm 25. I mean, it jumps all over the place and has no easily discernible preaching theme. In one place it seems that David has a guilt complex, in another a persecution complex, and in still others an…
Amos 7:7-17
Proper 10C
Amos is tough and blunt. He says things no one wishes to hear today any more than they did almost 3,000 years ago. He’s enough to make even the boldest 21st century preachers and teachers shy away from both his message and him. In the text the Lectionary appoints for this particular Sunday, God shows…
Psalm 66:1-9
Proper 9C
Even the staunchest believer sometimes wonders about the efficacy of prayer. Does it really work? Does God listen to our prayers and answer in identifiable ways? Not only our personal experience of apparently unanswered prayers, but also some of the more difficult Christian doctrines (the sovereignty of God manifested in predestination and election) make us…
2 Kings 5:1-14
Proper 9C
Nearly everyone needs some kind of healing. It may be from physical or mental illness. Or perhaps it’s from haunted memories or grief. Yet while God’s people know to look to God for that healing, we don’t always get to choose its method. So we may not always particularly like the way God chooses to…
Psalm 16
Proper 8C
On this sixth Sunday of Ordinary time, reading the sixteenth Psalm brings back extraordinary memories for me. In my Bible, I have underlined many individual verses of Psalm 16 over the years and I’ve filled the margins with dates and notes that remind me of why I underlined those verses. For example, verse 6 is…
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Proper 8C
God doesn’t usually whisk presidents, pastors, church leaders and other workers up to the heavenly realm upon their retirement. Nor do their successors generally actually pick up their articles of clothing. Yet it’s appropriate to reflect on this Sunday’s appointed text anyway. God, after all, remains deeply interested in human leadership and its transitions. 2…
Psalm 22:19-28
Proper 7C
I can easily imagine a 21st century psychologist reading this Psalm for the first time and calling it “The Bi-Polar Psalm,” because of its sudden wild swings of mood. The Psalmist seems to have two totally different minds here. Are these the words of a person driven to mental instability by the clash between his…
I Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a
Proper 7C
Discouragement can be a devastating feeling. A national news magazine once labeled it “the social disease of the 1980s in America.” One biblical commentator suggests “listlessness, despair and resignation are crippling people across the nation in a wave of chronic cynicism.” As evidence, he points to the surging tide of teen suicides and an exploding…
Psalm 5:1-8
Proper 6C
For the second week in a row, I’m going to write on the alternate reading from the Psalter, since I covered Psalm 32 just a few months ago as part of Lent. In a sense, Psalm 5 and Psalm 32 are about the same thing—egregious evil—though Psalm 32 focuses on the evil we commit ourselves,…
Content related to Old Testament