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Psalm 17:1-9
Proper 27C
If you bring last week’s psalm lection of Psalm 32 and place it next to Psalm 17, you find a curious contrast. In Psalm 32 the psalmist wrestles with unconfessed sin and how his not confessing it led to no small measure of torment for his spirit but even for his body. Finally he does…
Psalm 32:1-7
Proper 26C
Psalm 32 has multiple voices. In this commentary I will comment on the entire Psalm despite the RCL’s cutting it off at verse 7. But the four remaining verses are important to get the upshot and meaning of the entire poem. The psalm begins with the first voice with a double beatitude pronounced by an…
Psalm 84:1-7
Proper 25C
Psalm 84 is a lovely poem and song and at just a dozen verses, it’s a fairly short song at that. So why the RCL would have us take up only the first seven verses is a mystery to me. Aside from a passing reference to “the wicked,” verses 8-12 simply continue the radiant imagery…
Psalm 121
Proper 24C
The reassurances of Psalm 121 notwithstanding, even most pious Christian parents have a common byword or saying for their children: “Nothing good happens after midnight.” This is the stuff that curfews are made of. Behind it is the belief that when the world grows dark, it grows dangerous. Under the cover of dark, certain things…
Psalm 111
Proper 23C
Psalm 111 was written by somebody who pulled out every stop on the praise organ and then let it rip! In the span of just 10 verses, God is praised up and down, forward and back. God is extolled for the works of God’s hands, for keeping covenant with God’s people, for providing food for…
Psalm 37:1-9
Proper 22C
We can probably describe Psalm 37 as taking the long look. Although the Revised Common Lectionary gives us just shy of a quarter of the longer psalm, the first 9 verses do deliver a good capsule summary of the rest of the song as well. The basic message is simple: don’t fret when evil people…
Psalm 146
Proper 21C
Psalm 146:9 directly names that famous triplet found throughout the Bible but most especially in the Old Testament: the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. If you read God’s Law and the various statutes God put into place for his people Israel (especially in Leviticus but elsewhere as well), you will see again and again…
Psalm 113
Proper 20C
Many of us have been taught that sometimes it is helpful to read passages from the perspective of those who find themselves on the underside of history. This may be especially true of famous pieces of writing that we are perhaps too accustomed to reading from the vantage point of those who tend to come…
Psalm 51:1-10
Proper 19C
Even allowing for poetic license, it is a little difficult to know what to do with Psalm 51:6. Despite in the previous verse having referenced what we often call the doctrine of Original Sin—we are sinful from the get-go and thus not only after we commit an actual sin—in verse 6 the claim is made…
Psalm 1 2025
Proper 18C
The Hebrew Psalter opens with a beatitude. But unlike Jesus’s well-known Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, Psalm 1’s blessing is not for something a given person is or does. No, this blessing gets pronounced over those who do not engage in certain activities. As beatitudes go, then, this one is rather different. A…
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