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And the women said to Naomi, “Blessed is the LORD, Who has not deprived you of a redeemer today, and let his name be proclaimed in Israel” [Ruth 4:14]. As I mentioned last week, as we journey toward the end of the church year, the Revised Common Lectionary provides us with two OT readings from the often overlooked book of Ruth. Last week, we looked at the familiar “Whither thou goest” passage [Ruth 1:16, KJV]. We observed that Ruth clung to Naomi and determined to accompany her back to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem in spite of the fact that Ruth—a Moabite—might not be welcomed there. This week the Lectionary appoints…

But Ruth said, “…. Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her [Ruth 1:16b-18]. For the next two Sundays, the Revised Common Lectionary appoints two segments of text from the short book of Ruth as the OT readings. As you know, the book of Ruth is just four…

  Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus [Mark 10:49-50]. For years now, I’ve been captivated by the story of blind Bartimaeus. It’s the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday [Mark 10:46-52, the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B]. Luke offers us a similar story [Luke 18:35-43], albeit with fewer details. For example, in the Lukan passage, Bartimaeus is unnamed. I’ve sometimes pictured what might have gone through Bartimaeus’ mind as Jesus approached him on that day so…

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all [Isaiah 53:6]. Barrels of ink have been spilled in efforts to provide a specific identity for the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah 53:4-12 [the OT reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday, the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B]. Today, most Christians see the passage clearly as a foreshadowing of Christ. We read these verses, see that the Servant was “despised and rejected, a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief” [loose translation of Isaiah 53:3], recall the beautiful, familiar words from…

“Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone” [Mark 10:17b-18]. A thousand years ago, when I was in law school—actually, it’s been a mere 45 years since I graduated—we had a particularly frightening law professor. Dr. Robert E. Lee—no joke—was a 1928 graduate of Wake Forest Law. In my first year, the Autumn of 1973, almost 50 years had passed since Dr. Lee had been a law student at Wake. He still maintained the highest GPA of anyone ever to matriculate there. He quickly reminded us that as long as he was…

He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery” [Mark 10:11-12].   I don’t have the pincite handy, but St. Augustine once wrote, “If you believe what you like in the Gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it isn’t the Gospel that you believe, but rather yourself.” That, in a nutshell, is why both my personal devotional practice and these weekly meditations are built upon the Revised Common Lectionary’s appointed set of Scripture readings. In following the RCL’s three-year cycle, not only am I exposed to a broad swath of…

If the LORD had not been on our side—let Israel say—if the LORD had not been on our side … [Psalm 124:1-2a]. College football has changed substantially since my Wake Forest years (1969-76). You’d be correct, of course, if you replied, “What hasn’t?” As participants have grown bigger and faster, a whole new set of safety rules has come into play. At many schools—I won’t say which, although I’m thinking of one in South Carolina whose name begins with a “C” and ends with an “N,”—football is big business. During my WFU years, in business terms, Wake Forest football was bankrupt. Jokes circulated about our ineptitude. One year, at the…

Then he took a child and had him stand in front of them. He put his arms around him and said to them, “Whoever welcomes in my name one of these children, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not only me but also the one who sent me” [Mark 9:36-37, Good News Translation]. One of the more unusual episodes in the life of the first century Palestinian rabbi named Jesus is described in the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday (Mark 9:30-37, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B). Unfortunately, if one reads only the appointed verses, one misses some important contextual elements. For example, beginning in…

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom [Isaiah 35:1] This Sunday, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year B), the Lectionary committee provides us with six readings. The OT reading is a curious one, Isaiah 35:4-7a, not so much because it lacks importance, but rather, due to its brevity. Why not include the entire chapter? It consists only of ten verses that form a cohesive poem. Not to travel too far down into the weeds, lest you think I’m an Isaiah expert—I’m not—but most modern Isaiah scholars see chapters 34 and 35 as a distinct, separate segment of the overall book. Here, we…

My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone [Song of Solomon 2:10-11]. This Saturday (August 28), Jane and I celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. I remember—as if it was just last week—the moment I followed the Rev. Dr. Charles Shannon through the side door of the chapel at First UMC in Gastonia, at High Noon, on a partly cloudy, hot August Saturday. Ours was a small wedding, with about 100 friends and family present. A minute or two after my entrance (twin brother, Todd, was my best man), Jane and…