Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
Epiphany 7C
Across the spectrum of poems in the Hebrew Psalter are prayers that fit most every occasion and season in life. Laments, petitions, confessions, praise, thanksgiving; songs that fit happy days and songs that fit rotten days; lyric expressions of trust and bitter cries of abandonment and anger. It’s all in there. That’s an important thing…
Psalm 111
Epiphany 4B
You don’t have to read many sermons to notice that at least some pastors are vulnerable to a kind of moralism that focuses on the “do’s” and “do not’s” of the Christian faith. We sometimes want to leap right to what God wants people to do before contemplating who that God is and what God…
Psalm 62:5-12
Epiphany 3B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider The author of Psalm 62 is clearly under some kind of duress whose cause he hints at, but doesn’t specifically identify. That lack of specificity makes this psalm’s sentiment something to which anyone under some kind of duress can relate. Whether what harasses us is individual, communal or even…
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
Epiphany 2B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider The poet begins by professing, O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. In doing so she recognizes that God knows human beings perfectly. So the Lord doesn’t just know when people get up and when they sit down. God even knows our most secret thoughts. The…
Psalm 29
Epiphany 1B
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 29 is a hymn of praise to the God of creation. It’s a rather “noisy” psalm that the poet fills with the sounds of praise, thunder, wind and even the sound that earthquakes make. It’s a psalm that the psalmist also fills with vivid images of angels around…
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
Epiphany 5B
Psalm 147 is the second Psalm in the so-called Hallelujah chorus that ends the book of Psalms. It is part of the final triumphant response of God’s people to their difficult experience with God in a hostile world. Gone now are all the “why’s” and “how long’s,” the threats of enemies and the crises of…
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
Epiphany 5B
Notes and Observations Psalm 147 is one of the psalter’s five last psalms, each of which begins and ends with a “Hallelu Yah!” It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate way to close God’s people’s hymnbook. In fact, this psalm even basically begins by asserting the fittingness of praise to God. It is, insists the…
Psalm 119:1-8
Epiphany 6A
Whenever I read Psalm 119, alarm bells go off in my head. For one thing, it feels like a literary monstrosity, 176 verses of boring, repetitious monotony. The great Old Testament scholar Artur Weiser wrote that Psalm 119 is “a particularly artificial product of religious poetry. The formal external character of the Psalm stifles its…
Psalm 112:1-9 (10)
Epiphany 5A
Well, they did it again. I mean the compilers of the lectionary. For the second week in a row, the lectionary returns to a Psalm that we studied less than half a year ago. I know, I’m beginning to sound like one of those “grumpy old men” who complain about everything. But, really, with 150…
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