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.

Who Do You Claim to Be, Lord?--March 9, 2013


 O Jesus, we refuse to hear your words;
stubbornly we follow our own will; 
yet wondrously you have shown
your steadfast love for us.
Blessed be your name.

Who do you claim to be,
Lord--greater than Abraham,
and also greater than the prophets?
Who are we? We present ourselves as
 those you have brought from death to life.

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 43; 149; 31; 143
Jer. 13:1-11
Rom. 6:12-23
John 8:47-59

Selected Verses

Ps. 31:21
Blessed be the LORD,
          for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
          when I was beset as a city under siege.

Jer. 13:10
This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

Rom. 6:13
No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

John 8:53
"…Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?”  [The critics of Jesus, berating him in the temple]

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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