Sacramental Living

27th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, November 16, Year of Our Lord 2008

Merciful God, forgive us for trusting in ourselves more than you.  Show us your compassion, as we turn toward you again; remind us of your faithfulness and grant us the grace to risk our lives in you.  We like to take the reigns of life ourselves.  We can’t seem to consistently live out a cooperative faith.  But like Deborah and Barak, like the good servants our Lord spoke of, like the church at Thessalonica, fashion us to communally live in the light of the grace you have shed on us.  We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit; one God forever and ever.  AMEN.

26th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 27)
Year A

Readings for the week:
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

For a people who spent a generation on the move, this text is the call to stay put in the land YHWH promised their forebears, and to serve the LORD their God alone.  Joshua reminds the people several times here to serve God alone.

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This is the fourth part of a continuing post.

Read Part 3 here.  Read Part 2 here.  Read Part 1 here.

WARNING: Academic content ahead …

The Korahite Psalms (42-49; 84-85; 87-88) serve as an excellent study in the thematic web woven from the foundation laid in Psalms 1 and 2 of torah, pathway, and refuge. The process of ‘refuging’ in the torah pathway begins with faint hope and profound devotion, moves to proclaiming joy in YHWH’s presence, and ends with absolute abandonment. From heaven to hell, the full gamut of love, rage, fear, peace, anxiety, despair, and hope is here. Specifically, these psalms consist of Zion songs (46, 48, 84, 87), a wisdom psalm (49), a wedding song (45), an enthronement psalm (47), and laments (42-44, 85, 88). ¹

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