Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Psalm 123 To You I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! [Ps. 123:1] Last Sunday at Blacknall Presbyterian, a group of girls offered a spiritual dance as our music ensemble played. The girls were spread out along both aisles and across the…

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Amos 5:18-24 But let justice flow like water, and righteousness like an unfailing stream [Amos 5:24]. Sunday’s alternate Old Testament reading, Amos 5:18-24, features pronouncements from one of the Twelve Minor Prophets. These writings are minor only in regard to their length. Many OT scholars refer to them…

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Joshua 3: 4-17 “You have not passed this way before” [Joshua 3:4]. I’m showing my age, but I have a vivid recollection of the classic 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film, “The Ten Commandments,” starring Charlton Heston, as Moses and Yul Brynner, as Pharaoh. I didn’t encounter it in…

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Matthew 22:34–46 The expert in the Law who tests Jesus with a question about the greatest commandment, and is asked a question he cannot answer. My father handed me to a teacherwhen I was seven.I rose when that man entered a room for forty years,and for his teacher,and…

Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Isaiah 45:1-7 “I arm you, though you do not know me” (Isaiah 45:5). As we read through this Sunday's OT lesson (Isaiah 45:1-7), we are met by two surprises. For most of us, the first is an unfamiliar name: Cyrus. The second is the title that the Isaiah…

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Exodus 32:1–14 And the LORD relented from the disaster that He had spoken of bringing on His people [Exodus 32:14, English Standard Version]. In my Wednesday meditation posted three weeks ago, we encountered Jonah, a prophet who had a bone to pick with YHWH. Jonah had fled from…

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Isaiah 5:1-7 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? —Isaiah 5:4 The alternate OT reading for this Sunday begins as a love song. Someone who is loved has a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He made special plans….

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Psalm 25:1-10 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation [Psalm 25:4-5]. Abby was a chocolate brown toy poodle, and for more than seventeen years, she was Jane’s…

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Jonah 3:10-4:11 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry [Jonah 4:1]. Jonah’s story is among the most familiar in the Old Testament—or at least we remember its most memorable scene. There is a storm, a man thrown overboard, and an enormous fish. Many of…

High Shoals, NC 1922 Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Exodus 14:19-31 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry…