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.

July 23, 2005

I. Readings
Psalms 56, 111, 118
2 Samuel 1:1-16
Acts 15:22-35
Mark 6:1-13

II. Selections
Ps. 118:22
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.

2 Sam. 1:16
David said to him, "Your blood be on your head; for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, 'I have killed the LORD's anointed.'"

Acts 15:28-29a
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.

Mark 6:2a
On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded.

III. Meditation: Surprises
The Amelekite expected reward for telling David that he had killed David's enemy. He was in for a cruel surprise. Life holds surprises for all of us, some good, some bad. The hometown folk who expected to hear the son of Mary speaking words of a carpenter were astounded at his teaching in the synagogue. He was a stone rejected as unworthy, yet he became the chief cornerstone. Those who followed him arrived at surprising conclusions, too, that led to the inclusion of Gentiles among his disciples. Keep us alert and expectant to receive the surprises that you have in store for us.

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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