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.

God, Is Your Language hard to Understand?--May 16, 2015


Dear God, why do we have so much trouble
understanding what you want us to know?
Why is your meaning concealed from us?
Is it that you speak to us in a strange
and obscure language?  Through
the ages people from many
different languages seem
to have listened to you.
Have we become dull
in understanding?
Or are we afraid
to ask what you
want us to know
because it might not
be what we want to hear?

Lectionary Readings
Ps. 92; 149; 23; 114
Ezek. 3:4-17
Heb. 5:7-14
Luke 9:37-50

Selected Verses
Ps. 114:1
 When Israel went out from Egypt,
          the house of Jacob from a people of strange language…

Ezek. 3:5-6
For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel--not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand.  Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. 
[The LORD to Ezekiel] 

Heb. 5:11
About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. 

Luke 9:45
But [the disciples] did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it.  And they were afraid to ask [Jesus] about this saying.
Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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