(Lectionary for September 24, 2017) Greed seems much in favor these days. There is first and foremost the Greedy One in Chief, Donald Trump, who while performing his presidential duties, however poorly, is profiting all the while from numerous overseas property ventures, thus smashing the emolument clause of the Constitution that forbids any sitting president from foreign source profits. But, what the hey? Greed is on, baby, and a blind eye seems to be the vision quest of the day.... Read more

I have long believed that the famous forgiveness that Joseph offers his terrified brothers at the end of the saga of the book of Genesis is in the main a failure and may in fact be no real forgiveness at all. Forgiveness is tricky business. The word’s English synonyms are illuminative of this trickiness. My thesaurus lists the following: pardon, excuse, allow, indulge, condone, vindicate, overlook, ignore, disregard, pass over. The related word “forgiveness” yields some other words: reprieve, absolution,... Read more

(Lectionary for September, 17, 2017) The very first time I visited Israel, now 40 years ago, our guide was a veteran tank commander of the Israeli army, who, not many years before, had led his forces into battle on the Golan Heights against one of Israel’s many enemies at the time. He regaled us with a brutal account of that battle as we American tourists gazed at the Golan just over our shoulders. We were at that moment standing at... Read more

I have stolen the title of today’s reflection on Ezekiel 33 from the musical horror show, “Sweeny Todd,” by Stephen Sondheim. I happen to believe that that show is the finest musical written in the past half-century, but you are not reading this for my musical critique. A character in the musical, who horribly turns out not to be the beggar she appears to be at the beginning, but in fact is Sweeny’s wife whom he thought to be dead,... Read more

(Lectionary for September 10, 2107) The book of Exodus, despite our general memories of it, and despite the movies that use it as a springboard to continuously connected actions and adventures, is in reality a hodge-podge of material glued together over time, presenting modern readers with a number of challenges for full understanding. Ex.12 completely shatters the narrative flow that has been built up over the preceding 11 chapters. Indeed, at the very end of Ex.11, Moses delivers a terrifying... Read more

 The alternative Hebrew Bible text for September 3, 2017 is one of the so- called confessions of the prophet Jeremiah. I have long found these passages among the most disturbing and illuminating texts in the Bible. We who love the Hebrew prophets often remember them as towers of righteous strength, speaking truth to power, demanding in the face of tyrants justice for the poor, release to those captives of oppression. We think of Amos, that 8th century BCE titan, who... Read more

(Lectionary for September 3, 2017)If Moses at the burning bush is not the most famous portrait in the Bible, it surely is in the top five. For those of us of a certain age, the scene in DeMille’s grand epic, “The Ten Commandments,” where the terrified Charlton Heston is confronted by the talking bush (the voice of John Huston, if I remember correctly) is etched in our brains, albeit the sad lack of CGI capability rendered the bush more glowing... Read more

Rarely in the study of the Hebrew Bible can an interpreter be certain of the specific occasion of any writing. Who finally knows when Genesis or Exodus or Deuteronomy or the great tales of Saul, Samuel, and David first saw print? But Is.40-55 offers us no such confusion. He (we assume a male writer, but one perhaps ought not speak with absolute certainty) without doubt was writing during the exile of Israel in Babylon, and most likely toward the end... Read more

(Lectionary for August 27,2017) The text the lectionary collectors have for us today has far too much material to include in any one sermon. There are two large scenes, intimately connected with one another, but each one of which is fully worthy of a sermonic event. For this occasion, I plan to focus only on scene 1 that catalogues the attempted wiles of the most powerful monarch on earth, the pharaoh of Egypt. This unnamed leader of the land (no... Read more

There can be no grander or more important text for our days than this beauty from that third part of Isaiah, a writer we cannot know but may still bask in the glow of his crucial reflections on a topic that continues to confound and confuse many of us now: what do we do with those who are not like us? I need not tell you that our modern USA is a riven one. Hatred leads some to attack and... Read more