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.

June 04, 2008

I. Readings
Psalms 65, 91, 125
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
Galatians 2:11-21
Matthew 14:1-12

II. Selections
Psalm 91:5
You will not fear the terror of the night,
or the arrow that flies by day ...

Ecclesiastes 3:11
[ God] has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Galatians 2:20b
And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Matthew 14:12
[ John's] disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

III. Meditation: Suitable for its time

You have made everything suitable
for its time, and you have given
us a sense of past and future.

Though we understand little
about what you have done,
of this we are confident:

The terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day-
John the Baptist did not escape them, nor can we;
we do not avoid them; but we need not fear them,

not if with Paul we can say: the life we now live
in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved us and gave himself for us. Amen.

No comments:

Post a Comment