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Psalm 34:15-22
Proper 16B
So here we are for the third week in a row in Psalm 34, this time centering on the concluding verses. In the first of this Lectionary triplet on this psalm we took note of the fact that this is one of those sunny-side-up poems in the Hebrew Psalter in which everything is coming up…
Psalm 34:9-14
Proper 15B
When I wrote my sermon commentary for August 11, 2024, on the first 8 verses of Psalm 34, I confess I did not notice that the Lectionary continues in this same psalm for this week and, wonder of wonders, finishes it the following week. Three weeks in a row in the same psalm! Not sure…
Psalm 34:1-8
Proper 14B
Let’s say you are going through a tough season in your life. Too much has gone wrong of late and in your head you find yourself returning again and again to that line from the hymn “Abide with Me”: “Death and decay in all around I see.” And let’s say further that one of the…
Psalm 78:23-29
Proper 13B
The seven verses the Lectionary carves out of Psalm 78 for us represents about 10% of this fairly long historical psalm. But as historical overview psalms go, Psalm 78 definitely counts as one of the more downbeat ones among the lot. Although this poem recounts many positive things and events from the history of Israel,…
Psalm 145:10-18
Proper 12B
Psalm 145:15 claims that the eyes of everyone look to God and when they do, God provides everyone with the food they need. It’s a curious claim considering that as a matter of fact, the eyes of plenty of people do not turn to God when they are hungry or at most any other time…
Psalm 23
Proper 11B
Lately I have been in a phase of life where green pastures and still waters seem far away. And though dark-ish valleys have seemed all-too-real, the prospect of being exalted over my foes likewise seems a ways off just now. Maybe you as a preacher feel this way too. I have been out of the…
Psalm 85:8-13
Proper 10B
It could be pretty easy, one supposes, to glide over the concluding verses of Psalm 85 and not take much notice of what they are actually conveying. This is just how the psalms go, we might think. The kind of language being employed at the end is nothing terribly unusual. This is poetry and poetry…
Psalm 123
Proper 9B
Recently I did a study tour through the American South with a focus on reckoning with the legacy of slavery in the U.S. Before the trip I had known, of course, about the reality and the tragedy of the slave culture of the South (and a few places more north too). But after eight full…
Psalm 30
Proper 8B
The superscriptions over various psalms are not considered canonical and may represent someone’s guess at some point as to when a certain psalm may have been composed by David (or someone else). Psalm 51 sounds like something David would have been thinking after being confronted by the prophet Nathan over his affair with Bathsheba and…
Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
Proper 7B
Ancient Israel was never know to be a seafaring people. By Jesus’s day being a fisherman was clearly a common occupation on the Sea of Galilee but Israel did not have much experience with sailing forth on mighty sea vessels out into the Mediterranean or some such. Yet the section of Psalm 107 that the…
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