Every week, we’ll provide a curated collection of weblog posts that talk to the upcoming lectionary texts to assist spark your creativeness and function a thought accomplice for you. We hope these musings meet you proper the place you’re with a contemporary, daring, and devoted witness.
October 19, 2025
Semi-continuous: Jeremiah 31:27-34
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Rescinding Absolutes”
Whereas the phrase “new covenant” was readily appropriated by the early church, there may be nothing “supersessionist” about “new covenant,” for the God of Moses is endlessly making new covenants.… Israel is endlessly summoned from its outdated absolutes to the novelty God is doing amongst them. And naturally the brand new regime that Jesus proclaimed as “the dominion of God” is a summons to new discipleship and new obedience, a summons that mandates departure from outdated “absolutes.” Thus we might formulate a rule of prophetic pondering: Events of displacement and disorientation each require and allow the formulation and embrace of latest guarantees and new obligations.
Semi-continuous: Psalm 119:97-104
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “The Empowering, Illuminating Phrase From Elsewhere”
Psalm 119, nevertheless, is outstanding. In all the opposite instances of acrostic every letter of the Hebrew alphabet happens as soon as in sequence. In Psalm 119, in contrast, every letter will get eight successive traces. Thus with twenty-two letters within the alphabet, and every letter reiterated eight occasions, we get a sum of 176 verses. It’s for that purpose that the Psalm is so lengthy.…Sadly none of that is evident in English translation.
Paired: Psalm 121
Elizabeth Berget, “The Sacred Bizarre: Neither Slumber Nor Sleep”
I attempted to image the scene from God’s perspective, and what I noticed appeared surprisingly like me — a mom, mendacity awake within the night time, decidedly not sleeping, however as a substitute listening for her youngsters’s cries, able to tiptoe down the corridor to their rooms the second she hears them. He who retains you’ll not slumber.
Narrative Lectionary: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Between and Past Certitudes”
The seven good-looking, robust, spectacular sons of Jesse cross one after the other earlier than Samuel, however none of them qualifies. Lastly after the seven sons, “the eighth son,” David, seems and is promptly chosen and anointed by Samuel. The prophet had been instructed by the Lord: Don’t look on his look or on the peak of his stature, as a result of I’ve rejected him… for they give the impression of being on the outward look, however the Lord appears on the center (I Samuel 16:7). The narrative has Samuel sketch out a brand new notion of humanity, and a brand new portrayal of manhood. This younger, good-looking king will act out his manhood differently!
October 26, 2025
Semi-continuous: Psalm 65
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Reflecting Awe: Intersecting Pietism, Religion, and Science”
After all the truth of “awe” is just not new in non secular consciousness, even when it strikes one as new in a “scientific” perspective. The rendering of awe in biblical poetry is thru the singing of doxology within the recognition that the bottom, backside, and floor of what we’re is rooted in a actuality apart from us.
