covenant – A Preacher’s Ponderings

A grain of wheat

Fifth Sunday in Lent; 17 March 2024; Lent 4B (RCL); Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33.

I believe this is one of the central passages of John’s Gospel, and key to interpreting the whole. John loves the device I call parenthesis. He opens the device with a parenthesis (like Jesus addressing the plural you telling us that we will see visions of angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man) and then keeps us in suspense until he closes it (with Mary’s vision of angels in the empty tomb). Here, John open the parenthesis with the mention of “certain Greeks,” and then leaves us in suspense, and never closes it.

Profit and loss

Second Sunday in Lent; 25 February 2024; Lent 2B (RCL); Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38.

In our Old Testament readings this Lent, we seem to be on a march through stories of various covenants between God and God’s creation. Last week, it was the covenant with Noah and all living creatures of all flesh on the earth. This week, it is a restatement, or renewal, or revision of the covenant between God and Abram, first established in Genesis 15. Here God renames Abraham, and in verses we don’t read, requires circumcision. Abram means something like revered ancestor. Abraham something like ancestor of many nations (or so the narrative tells us). This will happen through Sarai, now Sarah, not through Hagar.

God’s righteousness

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost; 13 August 2023; Proper 14A (RCL); Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33.

Someday, I’ll understand how the designers of the lectionary chose which parts of which passages to read. If we’re only going to read a snippet of Romans 10, why not verses 1-4? Those verses set up Paul’s main argument for the chapter. The bit that begins at verse 5 is just the supporting material for the main argument. How can we understand the supporting material if we don’t the argument? Paul is praying for his kin according to the flesh (that is the Jews, if that term isn’t anachronistic, or better, for Israel, according to the flesh). The crucial sentence (my translation) is “For, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own (righteousness), they did not arrange themselves under God’s righteousness” (v. 3).

God’s risk

Second Sunday in Lent; 13 March 2022; Lent 2C (RCL); Genesis 15:1-12, 15-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17 – 4:1; Luke 13:31-35.

What a mish-mash of readings this week. I suppose that happens when you read books in-course. The Luke reading especially puzzles me; I’m not really sure how it fits into Luke’s overall narrative strategy, although I suppose it pushes forward the progress toward Jerusalem. But Jesus has not yet been to Jerusalem; how can he have desired to have protected her children? Unless perhaps he is speaking as Wisdom.

Sacrifice

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost; 28 June 2020; Proper 8A (RCL); Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42.

I have assiduously avoided choosing this passage from Genesis at Easter Vigils, because it is so troubling. But it comes up in the Sunday lectionary once every three years, so we have no choice but to deal with it. Interestingly, this is the only recorded dialog between Abraham and Isaac. It certainly would have left a lasting impression on the lad.

Stumbling blocks

30 September 2018
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 21B (RCL)
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Psalm 124
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

Let me start by saying that when I was doing my CPE on the rehab floor at Mass General Hospital in the mid-1980s, there was a young man on the floor who was having his hand reconstructed. On the basis of this passage, and feeling guilt about what teenage boys do, he laid his right hand on a railroad track. I’ll never hear this passage in Mark without remembering that young man and the horrible guilt and pain this caused him. We need to use care in reading. Continue reading “Stumbling blocks”