Additional content related to Trust
Psalm 27
At Calvin Theological Seminary for the past two decades we have used as a kind of homiletical template Paul Scott Wilson’s “The Four Pages of the Sermon” format. As some of you reading this may know, Wilson uses what he calls Trouble and Grace as the two primary components of a sermon. Page One (or…
Psalm 138
The honesty of the psalms is always refreshing. In the case of Psalm 138, such honesty comes through most especially in the final line of the poem. Mostly this psalm brims with enthusiasm for God. Whole-hearted praise begins the psalm followed by joyful observations about how he will continue to worship God, how God always…
Psalm 71:1-6
Even just the half-dozen verses that the Lectionary selects for us from the larger text of Psalm 71 capture the essence of most of the 150 psalms in the Hebrew Psalter. Consider all of what is spoken and expressed in the span of just these few verses: Images of God as refuge and rock and…
Psalm 36:5-10
Psalm 36 contains a striking line about God: “In your light we see light.” It is a curious turn of phrase, seeming very nearly tautological. What does it mean that we can only see light when we are in the midst of some other light? It may be a way of saying that we cannot…
Psalm 16
It is easy to see why many people associate Psalm 16 with funerals. It often gets read at funerals and one or another of the verses sometimes gets printed on the cover or the back cover of a funeral program or memorial folder. And of course sometimes we preachers are asked by families to use…
Psalm 146
Psalm 146 is the Year B psalm appointed for November 10, 2024, which in the United States will be the first Sunday following the Presidential election. No doubt even those of you reading this commentary who do not live in the U.S. have been aware of this election and maybe you have even paid some…
Psalm 19:7-14
We all recognize that rules and regulations are simply a part of life. Mostly, however, we are only too happy to dispense with recitations of such things as quickly as possible. Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial airline know that before the flight can begin, the flight attendants have to run through their…
1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49
What’s not to like about this story? It has everything a good story needs: a scrappy young up-start, in intimidating and arrogant bully and a dramatic reversal of fortune with national consequences. For all that we say the Bible isn’t a book of heroes, this story — and it’s popularity in Sunday school classrooms around…
Psalm 62:5-12
As usual when we encounter this phenomenon in the Revised Common Lectionary, it is unclear why this lection sheers off the first 4 verses. Certainly one can preach on Psalm 62 starting with verse 5 and the psalm is not particularly diminished. But why not let a sermon on this encompass the whole thing? In…
Psalm 25:1-9
Psalm 25 has its share of ups and downs. On the one hand there are some very sunny promises here. The opening of the psalm assures us that those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame. Were we to peer at the dozen verses that round out Psalm 25 beyond the…
Exodus 16:2-15
The waters of the Red Sea have barely even crashed back together. The victory song has barely even faded off Miriam’s lips. The Israelites have barely even finished filling their canteens at an oasis with twelve springs and 70 palm branches. But out in that desert, the people of God melt into a collective toddler…
Exodus 14:19-31
Over and over again in the story, God refers to the people as His army or His battalion. But they couldn’t have been a very fearsome force. They’ve just spend the last 430 years in slavery. Maybe they got strong building bricks but they would have had a lot of disadvantages. Hard to think that…
Genesis 22:1-14
A mere 21 chapters into the Bible, the Holy Spirit was brave when it inspired the authors and redactors of Genesis to include a scandalous story such as the one we get in Genesis 22. As some have noted across the ages, here is a narrative with so many fraught elements—not the least being things…
Psalm 23
It’s not quite true but sometimes it feels like Psalm 23 pops up in the Lectionary every couple weeks. In fact, this psalm really was assigned just a few weeks ago during Lent. Psalm 23 pops up at least once—and usually twice—inside any given calendar across Years A, B, and C of the Lectionary. And…
Psalm 27:1, 4-9
C.S. Lewis said somewhere that when you add it all up and consider it all together, in the end we would find that our prayer life is also our autobiography. Who we are, where we’ve been, the situations we’ve faced, the fears that nag us, and not a few of the core characteristics of who…
Psalm 46
It probably counts as something of an irony that for all its soaring comfort in proclaiming the sovereignty of God and God’s rule over all things, Psalm 46 is invoked most often precisely in those times when it is most difficult to believe that a good and loving God is providentially in charge of the…
Luke 18:9-14
In our passage this week, the great reversals continue in the Gospel of Luke. One of the challenges we have as modern readers is that we know what to expect. For instance, those of us who have encountered these stories many times know that it is likely that the Pharisee is going to be revealed…
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
A real estate deal seldom had it so good. All through the Bible you can find a recurrent theme related to real estate, to land, to who owns what. It all began with a promise of land to Abram (who for some reason had to leave behind the land he already owned to set out…
Psalm 33:12-22
Suppose you are a person who is leery of civil religion, of the possible idolatry that can come when people equate a given nation with God’s kingdom. Well, in that case, Psalm 33:12a might give you pause, or it might flat out trouble you a bit. “Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh.” That…
Psalm 31:9-16
Comments, Observations, and Questions It is Palm/Passion Sunday and so God’s people come to church. We Christians come to church because we believe when we do, we come into the presence of God. We believe in God and so we believe God is faithful to the promise that when we gather in God’s name, God…
Psalm 27
C.S. Lewis said somewhere that when you add it all up and consider it all together, in the end we would all find that our prayer life is also our autobiography. Who we are, where we’ve been, the situations we’ve faced, the fears that nag us, and not a few of the core characteristics of…
Jeremiah 17:5-10
In the most straightforward sense, this snippet from Jeremiah 17 is all about trust. Bad Trust. Good Trust. If you trust in mere human beings in all of life, you are on a slippery slope to ruin. In fact such people can be considered cursed. Nothing good will come their way. But trust in God…
Luke 3:1-6
This week and next we are listening to John the Baptist, who is set up here as a prophet. The signs are obvious (once you know how to see them). First, there’s the clear shift in the text from chapter 2, as Luke provides political context to pinpoint the actual historical moment that John’s message…
John 6:24-35
We’re in week two of our long stretch in John 6 as Jesus introduces himself as the bread of life. This week’s Scripture passage begins in an odd spot. The lectionary skips a couple of verses that talk about how some people noticed that Jesus didn’t travel with the disciples and picks up the story…
Psalm 130
This poem is labeled a “Psalm of Ascent” but it starts as a Psalm of Descent. It is called De Profundis in older Bibles—the Latin for “from the depths.” It is certainly a curious, perhaps an almost stark, way to begin 2021’s Season of Ordinary Time! And yet this psalm fits this time, these past…
Exodus 17:1-7
Israel is wandering in territory that is all too familiar to us—in the great wilderness of In Between, between release from bondage and possession of the Promised Land. As the New Interpreters Bible puts it, this passage is “a paradigm for the crisis of faith that occurs between bondage and well-being.” Thus it is relevant…
Genesis 25:19-34
Here we are, stuck in Ordinary Time. We’ve spent half the church year celebrating the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, but now the fireworks are over. Now we are plodding along through ordinary time. Except this time is extraordinary, too, because God is walking with us each step of the way….
Exodus 17:1-7
In my last two Sermon Commentaries on the Old Testament readings for Lent (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 and Genesis 12:1-4a), I noted that the Lectionary is focusing on texts that highlight the “one for all” theme running throughout salvation history, culminating in the One who died for all, once for all. That theme continues here in…
Psalm 27:1, 4-9
C.S. Lewis said somewhere that when you add it all up and consider it all together, in the end we would find that our prayer life is also our autobiography. Who we are, where we’ve been, the situations we’ve faced, the fears that nag us, and not a few of the core characteristics of who…
Psalm 33:12-22
Suppose you are a person who is very leery of civil religion, of the possible idolatry that can come when people equate a given nation with God’s kingdom. Well, in that case, Psalm 33:12a might give you pause, or it might flat out trouble you a bit. “Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh.” …
Psalm 124
Digging into the Text: Psalm 124 is again one of that special collection of Psalms called “Songs of Ascent.” These Psalms were associated especially with the liturgical life of Israel during the pilgrim feasts in which the people traveled to Jerusalem and its Temple. It’s clear that this Psalm has a liturgical setting. It begins,…
Psalm 125
Digging Into the Text: Psalm 125 is one of that small collection in the book of Psalms called “Songs of Ascent” (120-134). Most scholars agree that this is most likely a group of songs or chants used by pilgrims going up (ascent} to Jerusalem for one of the three great pilgrimage feasts– Jerusalem, Mount Zion,…
Psalm 31:9-16
The Revised Common Lectionary has two suggested readings from the Psalms for this Sixth Sunday of Lent, Palm Sunday. The first, Psalm 118, emphasizes the positive side of this day with lots of verses that anticipate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The second, Psalm 31:9-16, zeros in on the tragedy of Palm Sunday, the gathering…
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Our names are very important to many of us. We might even argue that they come close as close as anything to identifying who we really are. We are, at least in some ways, our names. Names have throughout measured time had meaning. God asks Adam to name each creature as God creates it, so…
Psalm 145:8-14
Psalm 145 is an exuberant, but hardly extemporaneous Psalm. Indeed, it is a carefully crafted Psalm of praise. The superscription explicitly identifies it as that, using a word for praise found only here in the entire Psalter. We might call it the quintessential Psalm of Praise, for it uses all the traditional language of praise…
Genesis 22:1-14
I have colleagues whom I respect who tell me they’ll never preach this Old Testament text the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday. When I asked a very wise friend for advice on how to preach this text, he told me to “Skip it.” After all, while our text’s Abraham asks no questions, we have plenty…
Psalm 95
The readings from the Psalms for this season of Lent are carefully and well chosen. We began our Lenten journey with Psalm 32, which sets the penitential tone of Lent while still calling us to rejoice in forgiveness. Psalm 121 gives Lenten pilgrims the deep assurance that Yahweh is watching over us as we make…
Genesis 12:1-4a
The Old Testament lesson the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday reminds us that the God whom we worship in Jesus Christ is a God who calls. Yet it also reminds us that God always calls for a purpose. So we listen, not just for God’s call, but also for what purpose God calls us. At…
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
There are lots of passages like this in the Bible even as we sing such sentiments in any number of songs and hymns. I am referring to texts that seem to have an utter confidence that God always comes through in the clutch. In this part of 2 Timothy 4 it’s the verse where Paul…
Luke 18:1-8
Most of us know the opening to the various iterations of the “Law & Order” TV series that has been running for years and now in reruns. We hear a two-note musical beat, the screen fades from black to reveal . . . a dead body on the floor, someone’s discovering a corpse in a…
Psalm 121
Walter Brueggemann is a giant in Old Testament studies. Among his many contributions to the field is his famous distinction among Psalms of orientation, Psalms of disorientation, and Psalms of re-orientation. Psalms of orientation are those Psalms in which all is well because the writer is experiencing a “season of well-being that evokes gratitude for…
Psalm 37:1-9
The lectionary is on a roll in these early weeks of autumn, or in a rut. How you see it will depend on whether you like being instructed. For the last four Sundays (Psalms 1, 113, 146, and part of Psalm 51) the lectionary has been focusing on Psalms that give counsel to God’s people…
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
A real estate deal seldom had it so good. All through the Bible you can find a recurrent theme related to real estate, to land, to who owns what. It all began with a promise of land to Abram (who for some reason had to leave behind the land he already owned to set out…
Psalm 33:12-22
Our Psalm reading for today is the second half of a Psalm of praise to Yahweh. It is focused on the sovereignty of the God of Israel. It is one of the first Psalms of praise in the Psalter and one of only a few such Psalms in the first book of the Psalter, which…
Luke 7:1-10
The deeper you get into this brief story, the better the anonymous (and never-seen) centurion looks. First we hear this Roman higher-up has a sick servant, and just this far into the story you could read that as meaning that this man has a piece of property who is not performing well. To certain upper…
Psalm 31:9-16
At first glance, this is not a good choice for a Palm Sunday text. I mean, how do we connect David’s feeling that “there is terror on every side” with Jesus’ experience of being surrounded by an adoring crowd shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David?” But when the lectionary reminds us that this is…
Psalm 27
While this Psalm has been the source of inspiration and consolation for many believers, there’s a sense in which it is a troubling Psalm. There is a great tension in it. Perhaps dichotomy is a better word. It is composed of two entirely different parts. The one is a magnificent confession of unshakeable trust in…
John 4:46-54
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Jesus is no Ned Flanders. The “okely-dokely” nooberly-nice Evangelical neighbor of the Simpsons is a far cry from the Lord, who can come off as needlessly harsh, even rude. Who says to a desperate father–with a feverish son at death’s door- “unless you people see miracles, you won’t believe?”…
Numbers 13
Here in Numbers 13, the Israelites have arrived at the southern border of the Promised Land. Ever since the days that they left Egypt, this is where they were heading. The land was the gift that God had promised them. This was “the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (13:1, emphasis…
Exodus 15:22-27
Exodus 15:22-27 is one of numerous stories driven by Israel complaining, grumbling, or murmuring because of the conditions of the exodus. Like God does in the other stories, God provides for the Israelites even though they are rebellious against him. But what stands out in this particular narrative is God’s self-proclaimed title in verse 26:…
Matthew 9:27-34
Comments and Observations I hate it when someone acts one way when we’re with one group of people and then is a completely different person in a different context. Perhaps that explains some of my discomfort with this passage from Matthew 9. These back-to-back healings are, in many ways, nondescript. We are given few details,…
2 Corinthians 7
Comments and Observations Recently my congregation lifted up their voices and sang “Blessed Be Your Name” (Matt and Beth Redman). The song speaks of the ups and downs in life – we sang of the times when we’re “in the land that is plentiful, where your streams of abundance flow” we sang of the times…
Genesis 50:15-26
Comments and Observations The book of Genesis is about the God who makes and keeps promises – often in the unlikeliest of situations. Early in the story, God calls Abraham, and promises that he will give him a family. Through that family, the LORD promises to bless him, make him into a great nation, give…
Revelation 22:7-21
Comments and Observations: Between the years 2000 and 2015, one of the noticeable trends in television programming was the increasing number of reality shows that featured home remodeling projects. Each show had its own unique spin on the same theme of renewing an old home or space. “Trading Spaces” focused on sprucing up a single…
Psalm 22:1-15
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…
Psalm 31:9-16
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 31 is the prayer of a servant of God for God’s protection and deliverance from his enemies. It’s a prayer that Christians can hardly hear without thinking of Jesus Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. After all, it’s not just that the Revised Common Lectionary uses it…
Matthew 6:24-34
Comments and Observations Unexpected twists arrest our attention. How often haven’t we seen a movie advertised as worth seeing because, according to the promotional ad, “You won’t believe how it ends!” or “The conclusion will leave you breathless!” Some years ago the popular movie The Sixth Sense shocked viewers around the world with an ending…
Preaching Connection: Trust