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Psalm 22:1-15
Proper 23B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 22 is a psalm of lament that expresses the poet’s anguish at his enemies’ relentless and ferocious attacks on him. It contains the kind of honesty with God that 21st century Christians seem sometimes reluctant to express. So how does such a lament fit into the season of…
Job 23:1-9; 16-17
Proper 23B
Comments and Observations: If you read the John Grisham novel The Firm, you may recall the horrifying moment when a young lawyer and his wife discover that the house so “generously” provided to them by the young man’s law firm is bugged to the hilt. Every conversation they had had, every lovemaking sigh, every TV…
Psalm 26
Proper 22B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 26 is the poet’s plea for God’s “vindication.” It pictures a courtroom in which the poet-defendant begs the judge to declare her innocent. In it she insists she’s innocent because she has led what she calls a “blameless life” (1). Yet such a plea seems to clash with…
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Proper 22B
Comments and Observations: Lately I have been doing some reading of books that try to teach people how to become better writers. Specifically these are books to help aspiring novelists hone the necessary skills that might one day help them to garner that much-coveted acceptance letter from a publisher. One essay that I read recently…
Psalm 124
Proper 21B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 124 is a psalm of praise for God’s deliverance from fearsome enemies. Yet those familiar with Reformed expressions of the Christian faith may recognize that Reformed worship services sometimes begin at Psalm 124’s end. After all, John Calvin’s Genevan and Strasburg liturgies placed verse 8’s “Our help is…
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Proper 21B
Comments and Observations: There is not much Esther in the Revised Common Lectionary, and few pastors have ever complained or requested more. The Lectionary likewise does little with Song of Songs or Jude, and if you follow only the Lectionary, you would be unlikely to generate a long series of sermons on Nahum or Revelation,…
Psalm 54
Proper 20B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 54 is a prayer for God’s deliverance from enemies who wish to harm or maybe even kill the poet. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, it also contains a strong tone of lament over enemies’ mistreatment of the poet. This lends Psalm 54 an air of honesty that sometimes seems…
Proverbs 31:10-31
Proper 20B
Comments and Observations: What are we to make of this conclusion to Proverbs? For a long time some women saw it as a kind of blueprint for life and so were honored if they could be seen as fitting this profile of the “wife of noble character.” Not surprisingly, more recent times have witnessed other…
Psalm 19
Proper 19B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider C.S. Lewis once called Psalm 19 “the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.” So it’s no wonder that lyricists have set a number of beautiful interpretations of it, including “The Heavens Declare Your Glory” and “God’s Glory Fills the Heavens,” to…
Proverbs 1:20-33
Proper 19B
Comments and Observations: 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…
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