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.

Silence My Tumult, O God--Nov. 20, 2019



I realize that human measurement
is at odds with your metrics, God,
and your way of looking at things
is completely different from mine.

That said, I cannot fathom how a loving God,
as I know you to be, would desire men to separate
from  their wives and children to preserve ethnic purity.

While I am confessing this, I must also admit
I empathize with the distress of the disciples
over Jesus’ fate.  Did it have to be that way?

You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples;
silence my tumult.

Lectionary Readings
Ps. 65; 147:1-11; 125; 191
Ezra 10:1-17
Rev. 21:9-21
Matt. 17:22-27

Selected Verses
Ps. 65:7
 You silence the roaring of the seas,
          the roaring of their waves,
          the tumult of the peoples.

Ezra 10:10-11
Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to [all the people of Judah and Benjamin], “You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel.  Now make confession to the LORD the God of your ancestors, and do his will; separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” 

Rev. 21:17
[The angel] also measured [holy Jerusalem’s] wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. 

Matt. 17:22-23
As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to [his disciples], “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands,  and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.”  And they were greatly distressed.

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

2 comments:

  1. Mea SententiaNovember 21, 2019 at 9:18 PM

    Ezra is puzzling because the Bible he read has that lovely story of Boaz marrying Ruth the Moabite, right in King David's family line. Perhaps the issue in Ezra's time wasn't so much ethnic as it was religious. Ruth embraced the God of Israel. I am wondering if these foreign spouses had not. Not to condone what Ezra did, but just to try and understand it. He may have simply worried about their survival as a people, with faithfulness to the God of Israel at the center.

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  2. Elmer E. EwingNovember 22, 2019 at 8:48 PM

    I think you are on target as to Ezra's motivations--religious more than ethnic, based on concern over survival as God's people. In any case, the story of breaking up all those marriages and sending the wives and children away reminds me of the danger of excessive zeal in carrying out one narrow religious dictum at the expense of adherence to the broad understanding that God is compassionate and expects us to be, too.

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