PROPER 21, SEPTEMBER 29 FIRST READING Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 The Babylonians and Chaldeans are besieging Jerusalem. The king has put Jeremiah in prison for daring to prophesy that Jerusalem will fall (which it did). Yet in the middle of this crisis, God directs Jeremiah to buy some land being offered for sale by his cousin. He does so in a transaction more detailed than any other business transaction in the Bible. But Jeremiah is puzzled that God should tell him to make such an investment at a time when the city and kingdom are about to collapse. In a …
Scripture Commentary from September 19, 2013 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 20, SEPTEMBER 19 FIRST READING Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1 Judah is being overrun by the Babylonians and Chaldeans. As a last refuge, the people have retreated to their fortresses, but to no avail. What we hear today is Jeremiah’s lament for their loss. The balm Jeremiah figuratively longs for is resin from the styrax tree found in the area of Gilead. ALTERNATIVE FIRST READING Amos 8:4-12. Amos, that interesting goat-herder and pruner of sycamore trees turned prophet, had plenty to say about corruption among the leaders of the kingdom of Israel, but in today’s reading he attacks …
Scripture Commentary by Arthur H. Cash for September 11 – 17, 2013
PROPER 19 SEPTEMBER 11-17 FIRST READING Jeremiah 4:11-12. 22-28 Our reading opens with a dramatic metaphor. God speaks of his own voice as the sirocco, a dry wind from the dessert bringing suffocating heat into Judea, or so the prophet tells us. Then the prophet hears the voice of God lamenting the stupidity of his people. His report is followed by an awareness that God is returning the earth to a primary state, destroying the farmlands and cities. Then God speaks, but contradicts himself: “I will not make a full end,” yet “I have not relented nor will I turn …
Scripture Commentary from September 4 – 10, 2013 by Arthur H.Cash
PROPER 18, SEPTEMBER 4-10 FIRST READING Jeremiah 18:1-11 Jeremiah did not sustain his image of God as the potter (found also in Romans 9). The fundamental metaphor is that God the potter will examine the pot, that is, the people, he has created on his wheel. If he likes it, he will preserve it. If he doesn’t like it, he will crush it and rework the clay and make another pot. But Jeremiah, needing to represent an outside threat to these people, shifts the metaphor: he will now make another pot, one of evil, representing the Babylonians, against the …
Scripture Commentary from August 28 – September 03, 2013 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 17, Aug 28 – Sept 3 FIRST READING Jeremiah 2:4-13 The Lord, reports the prophet, is angry with the people. After all the good things he has done for them, they wander away from him. Historians say that apostasy was the major sin of the Jewish tribes before the Exile to Babylon, but he prophets who come after, seldom mention it. The passage was written in verse and appears as verse in the New Revised Standard Version. Some good poetry here. Look at that final metaphor: God is spoken of as living water, suggesting a bubbling and babbling …
Scripture Commentary from June 26 – July 2, 2013
PROPER 8 June 26 – July 2 FIRST READING II Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 The two books of Kings were originally one book, a history, or at least an account, of the reigns of kings from Solomon to shortly before the Babylonian Exile. So here in the second book we have the conclusion to the story of Elijah’s long struggle to reform Israel told in the first book. His old enemies, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, are dead. He has acquired his side-kick, Elisha. It is time to go. Leading up to his assumption into Heaven, we have a story …
Scripture Commentary for June 19-25, 2013 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 7 June 19-25 FIRST READING I Kings 19:1-15a Elijah having bettered the Baal prophets in a contest of who can evoke a sign from God and bring rain, now has them killed. King Ahab tells his queen, Jezebel, that Elijah had killed the Baal prophets, who were her allies. The queen casts aside all pretenses and announces that she will kill Elijah. He flees. After the first day of flight, he is so discouraged he longs to die, but God will not permit that. After being miraculously fed, he undertakes the long journey to mount Horeb (also called …
Scripture Commentary for June 12-18, 2013 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 6 June 12-18 FIRST READING I Kings 21:1-21a Our reading is an incident in the longer story of how young King Ahab was seduced into Baal worship and cruelties to his subjects by his wife, Jezebel, a Sidonian princes and Baal worshiper. The king desires the vineyard of Naboth, but Naboth will not sell his ancestral inheritance; in fact, he cannot sell it legally, for he is bound by ancient law to keep inherited lands in the family. So Jezebel has him murdered in the guise of justice. ALTERNATIVE FIRST READING 2 Samuel 11:26 – 12:10, 13-15 …
Scripture Commentary for June 5-11, 2013 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 5 June 5 – 11 FIRST READING I Kings 17:8-24 Elijah prophesizes that God will send a famine to punish the kingdom of Israel for worshiping Baal. Fearing the wrath of Ahab, Elijah flees to Zarephath, where the poor widow on the verge of starvation reluctantly feeds him. You will read how God miraculously sustains them. The widow believes in worldly retribution, that good comes to those who do their duty, evil to those who are sinful. So when her child falls ill and dies, she assumes the death is punishment for her own past sins and naively …
Scripture Commentary for May 29 – June 4, 2013 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 4 May 29 – June 4 FIRST READING I Kings 8:22-23, 41-43 Our reading today is a bland story of Solomon’s prayer for his people and their visitors from abroad. I find it hard to believe that our bishops should have changed their minds and set aside what used to be our reading for this day, the exciting, even terrifying story of Elijah’s contest with the Baal priests. You ought to read it for yourself: I Kings 18:17-46. SECOND READING Galatians 1:1-12 Paul ends multiple copies a letter to the several local churches in the area called …