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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…
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…
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…
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,…
Psalm 30
Proper 5C
Easter and Eastertide have now passed this calendar year and yet in the Sundays after Pentecost the Lectionary provides us with some wonderful poetry to help us continue living into and celebrating Easter. With its imagery of death and resurrection, Psalm 30 is a perfect post-Easter Psalm. Its purpose is to keep the memory of…
Psalm 96
Proper 4C
There are two very different ways to read this Psalm. If we focus on the Psalmist’s claim that Yahweh is Lord of all nations and the attendant claim that he is far above all the gods of the nations and the in-your-face assertion that, in fact, those gods are nothing but idols, we could call…
Psalm 8
Trinity Sunday C
Throughout the Christian church this is the Sunday to celebrate the Trinity. Our other readings for today are richly Trinitarian (John 16:12-15 and Romans 5:1-5) or at least suggestive of the Trinity (Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31). Psalm 8? Not so much. In Year A of the lectionary cycle Psalm 8 is paired with Matthew 28, and…
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Pentecost C
This Psalm gives the enterprising preacher a fresh alternative for a Pentecost sermon, because it focuses on the Spirit’s work not in redemption (as do the other readings for Pentecost Sunday), but in creation. Though a number of contemporary scholars think the mention of the Spirit in verse 30 is not a reference to the…
Psalm 97
Easter 7C
It’s not hard to understand the message of Psalm 97; it’s just hard to believe. There’s no doubt about its message: “The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad, let the distant shores rejoice.” But, if a growing consensus of scholars is right, there must have been a great deal of doubt in the minds…
Psalm 67
Easter 6C
Easter is long gone, but Psalm 67 and the other readings for this sixth Sunday of the Easter season keep the Easter theme alive by foreshadowing one of the most astonishing results of Christ’s resurrection. Let me explain that by putting Psalm 67 in liturgical perspective. Next week, we will celebrate Christ’s Ascension when, according…
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