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.

Grace and Works--March 25, 2021


Surely, God, good works are not meaningless; 

for Jesus said it was by his good works 

we would know you were in him

and that he was in you. 

 

And Jeremiah promised 

his people that if they turned

away from their evil doings 

they might escape disaster.

 

Yet it is through your grace 

that we are able to reap with joy, 

even though we have sown in tears. 

 

By grace we know you are in Christ, 

and he is in you, and we are in him;

by grace we receive forgiveness,

by grace change our ways 

from bad to good.

 

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 27; 147:12-20; 126; 102

Jer. 26:1-24

Rom. 11:1-12

John 10:19-42

 

Selected Verses 

Ps. 126:5

May those who sow in tears
          reap with shouts of joy.

 

Jer. 26:3

It may be that [the cities of Judah] will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings.  [The LORD, to Jeremiah]

 

Rom. 11:5-6

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.  But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

 

John 10:38

“…But if I do [the works of my Father], even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”  [Jesus, to his critics]


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