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.

Food the Son of Man Will Give Us--March 28, 2017


We have heard your word for us, O God;
your preachers have stood in the gates to tell us.
To receive your word, we must be humble,
lest through pride we fail to do the good we want,
and the evil we do not want is what we do--
lest we spend our lives for the food that perishes,
not the food that endures for eternal life.

Lectionary Readings
Ps. 34; 136; 25; 91
Jer. 17:19-27
Rom. 7:13-25
John 6:16-27

Selected Verses
Ps. 25:9
[The LORD] leads the humble in what is right,
          and teaches the humble his way. 

Jer. 17:19-20
Thus said the LORD to me: Go and stand in the People’s Gate, by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, and say to them: Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. 

Rom. 7:19
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 

John 6:27a
"…Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  …"  [Jesus to the crowd that had followed him across the sea]

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