I am an emeritus professor from Cornell University and was a Commissioned Lay Preacher in the Presbyterian Church (USA). For many years I have followed the Daily Lectionary as printed in the Mission Yearbook of my church. For each day of a two-year cycle, the lectionary lists four psalms and three other scriptural passages--usually one from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament. My practice is to copy down a verse or two from one of the psalms and from each of the other three passages. After I have written out all four selections, I reflect upon them, rearrange their order, and incorporate them into a meditation. Sometimes I retain much of the original wording; sometimes all that remains of a selection is an idea that was stimulated when I read the original words. All selections are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. For the Daily Lectionary, see the link below.
How far Your Wonders Are Known--July 31, 2015
[From July 31, 2009 archive]

Are your wonders known to us when we have
passed into the darkness and forgetfulness of death?
Are the dead excluded from your house, as David
in his sarcasm excluded the blind and lame?

The wonders that Jesus performed did not escape notice,
not even the notice of foreigners, and you denied your love
neither to a poor Gentile woman nor to Greeks of high standing.
May we place no limits on how far your wonders are known.

Lectionary Readings
Ps. 88; 148; 6; 20
2 Sam. 5:1-12
Acts 17:1-15
Mark 7:24-37

Selected Verses
Ps. 88:12
Are your wonders known in the darkness,
            or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

2 Sam. 5:8
David had said on that day, “Whoever wishes to strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates.”  Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

Acts 17:1-15
Many of [the Jews in Beroea] therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing.

Mark 7:24b-26a
[Jesus] entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.  Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.  Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin.

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