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Psalm 1
Proper 25A
For a long time I never knew or recognized the fact that the Hebrew Psalter was a thoughtfully edited collection of 150 songs and poems. I am not sure if I ever actually thought this collection was random or haphazard but it did not occur to me that someone put each psalm where it appears…
Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13)
Proper 24A
“A scribe to the Lord . . .” At least that is what I heard my minister say when I was a young boy attending a church in Ada, Michigan. Rev. Angus MacLeod began more morning worship services than not with that portion of Psalm 96 that repeats the call to “ascribe” to the Lord…
Psalm 23
Proper 23A
This is now at least the third time Psalm 23 has popped up in the Year A Lectionary and across also calendar 2020. The first time was during Lent and the second time a couple weeks after Easter. The first time was before we knew the world was going to get turned upside-down due to…
Psalm 80:7-15
Proper 22A
“The Lord make his face to shine upon you . . .” That’s a line from the great Aaronic Benediction originally given to Israel in Numbers 6 and it is a line with which many Christians are exceedingly familiar on account of having heard it at the end of a church service so many times. …
Psalm 25:1-9
Proper 21A
Samuel Johnson is reported to having once said something to the effect that we need more often to be reminded than instructed. Intuitively probably most of us have a pretty solid sense of what he meant. It’s not that I don’t know the basics of knife safety when I am slicing and dicing vegetables in…
Psalm 145:1-8
Proper 20A
Yogi Berra is the one who famously coined the phrase “It’s déjà vu all over again” but of late it is the Revised Common Lectionary that seems to be making us live that out. As I looked at the Psalm selection for the Year A Proper 20 or the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, I knew…
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Proper 19A
It is difficult to carve up Psalm 103, though the Lectionary does its best to try doing so anyway. There really is no reason to not preach on the entire Psalm, and that is pretty much the direction my commentary will go as well. What impresses you most of all about this well-known and lyric…
Psalm 119:33-40
Proper 18A
The PBS show Sesame Street traditionally included as part of their educational efforts the opening line for each episode, “Today’s program is brought to you by the letter B . . .” Or it was by the letter R or E or G or whatever. That letter would then get woven throughout the episode in…
Psalm 26:1-8
Proper 17A
For the 1999 edition of the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, illustrator Barry Moser sketched two portraits of David. The first is of the young David, the “getting ready to slay Goliath” David. He’s young, brash. The eyes say it all. He has his whole life ahead of him and he’s confident it’s going to be…
Psalm 138
Proper 16A
It’s only 8 verses long and yet Psalm 138 pulls off a pretty nifty feat: it encapsulates most of the major themes of the entire Hebrew Psalter! Let’s make a list of the kinds of prayers and motifs that get mentioned across these very few verses: A vow to praise God continually A vow to…
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