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.

October 28, 2005

I. Readings
Psalms 25, 40, 84
Nehemiah 2:1-20
Revelation 6:12-7:4
Matthew 13:24-30

II. Selections
Psalms 84:2
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

Nehemiah 2:1-18
I told them that the hand of my God had been gracious upon me, and also the words that the king had spoken to me. Then they said, "Let us start building!" So they committed themselves to the common good.

Revelation 7:2-3
I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying, "Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads."

Matthew 13:30
'Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'

III. Meditation: Grace or wrath?
Are you a God of grace or a God of wrath? Shall our souls long, even faint to be in your courts, singing for joy? Or shall we dread your coming, fearful that we are the weeds scheduled for burning when the wheat is gathered into your barn? Are your angels holding back the destroying fury because we have been marked with the seal of salvation, or are we among the unmarked? We do not know, but we know that your hand has been gracious to us. That is enough, enough to start building and commit ourselves to the common good.

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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