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 13, 2008

I. Readings
Psalms 103, 117, 139
Joshua 1:1-18
Acts 21:3-15
Mark 1:21-27

II. Selections
Psalm103:15-16
As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.

Joshua 1:2
"My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites." [ The LORD to Joshua]

Acts 21:5-6
When our days [ in Tyre] were ended, we left and proceeded on our journey; and all of [ the disciples], with wives and children, escorted us outside the city. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.

Mark 1:23-24
Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."

III. Meditation: Have you come to destroy us?

The grass grows, the flower flourishes;
the hot wind blows, the flower falls.
Who can find where it bloomed?

Moses was your mighty one; he died.
Joshua replaced him and led the people
where Moses had wanted to take them.

Paul traveled for you-powerful preaching;
then it was farewell, kneeling on the beach;
the disciples headed home, Paul to his fate.

Jesus of Nazareth, O Holy One of God,
do you know about separation and death?
Have you come to destroy us, or to save us?

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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