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.

September 18, 2006

I. Readings
Psalms 97, 112, 135
Job 40:1-24
Acts 15:36-16:5
John 11:55-12:8

II. Selections
Psalm 112:1
Praise the LORD!
Happy are those who fear the LORD,
who greatly delight in his commandments.

Job 40:1-2
And the LORD said to Job: "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
Anyone who argues with God must respond."

Acts 15:36
After some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing."

John 12:3
Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

III. Meditation: The faultfinder

Happiness comes to those who fear you,
who delight in your commandments;
not to those who find fault with you,
who argue and contend.

Faultfinding is a skill we have, though-
and not only when we deal with you;
no, with other people, too.
We would have been hard on Mary.

Too extravagant, that expression
of praise and delight in her Lord.
Pure nard it was, smeared all around,
and then to wipe it with her hair!

When Paul told Barnabas it was time
to check on flocks they'd left behind,
was his a faultfinding expedition?
There I go again-forgive me.

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