PROPER 27 November 11, 2012 FIRST READING Ruth 31-5; 4:13-17 Gleaners are poor people who come into the fields behind the harvesters of grain. They pick up from the ground the grains left behind, which they can keep for their own sustenance. Boaz, a wealthy young man of Bethlehem, has been charmed by the lovely foreigner who gleans in the fields where he and his men are harvesting barley. Naomi, knowing that Boaz was a close relative of her son, Ruth’s late husband, sends Ruth on a risky and sexy adventure to cause Boaz to fall in love with her. …
Scripture Commentary for November 4, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 26 November 4, 2012 FIRST READING Ruth 1:1-18 The Book of Ruth is a gem set by some ancient editor next to the Book of Judges because, though written much later, the story takes place at that time. It is a moving story about a young, naïve woman and an older, wiser woman, their love for each other, and their making their way together through a world where the power belongs to men. It is also a story about the kindness of those in power to those without it. Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, had migrated from the village …
Scripture Commentary for October 28, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 25 October 28, 2012 FIRST READING Job 42:1-6, 10-17 In today’s reading, we have Job’s reply to God, who has been screaming at him for three chapters. Look at what I am and have done! God has been saying. Who do you think you are! Job’s reply is heart-breaking. Like a tragic hero, he has persisted in saying the truth, that God has been unjust. His miserable “comforters” present every man-made argument that he is wrong; but job will not change his mind. Then God shows up in a whirlwind and lets out this long blast against him. The …
Scripture Commentary for October 21, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 24 October 21, 2012 FIRST READING Job 38: 1-7, 34-41 Our reading consists of two passages from God’s long “answer” to Job (Chapters 38-40). I would not myself call this an answer: God arrives in a whirlwind and at once sets about yelling at Job. Most of his angry scolding consists of rhetorical questions, of which we hear a few. God doesn’t come off looking very good here. “Gird up your loins like a man,” he says to Job, “and I will question you,” as though a macho man could withstand the blasts of God! All of God’s questions …
Scripture Commentary for October 14, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 23 October 14, 2012 Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Three long-winded friends (“comforters”) come to sit with Job in his agony. They give him every argument known in that day to explain away evil, but they do not move Job. No matter what God does to him, says Job he will tell the truth. God is unjust (see, for example, 9:21-24). Our reading for today is a portion of Job’s answer to one of his boring comforters, Eliphaz the Termanite, who assures Job that if he prays, if he returns to God, he will be restored. Job answers that he can’t …
Scripture Commentary for October 7, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 22 October 7, 2012 FIRST READING Job 1:1; 2:1-10 This month we shall have four readings from the Book of Job. God is proud of his servant Job, who is close to perfection in his life and his worship. Satan, not “the evil one,” but a sort of heavenly lawyer, maintains that if you pain the man enough and humiliate him, he will curse God. God says, go find out. Satan destroys all of Job’s livestock and servants, and then sends a cyclone that kills his children. Job says, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed …
Scripture Commentary for September 30, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 21 September 30, 2012 FIRST READING Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 The Book of Esther is a fiction that probably was passed off as history. It seems likely it was written to give an Israelite meaning to an ancient pagan feast of Purim that the people had been celebrating. The story tells how Esther, the young queen of King Ahasurerus (Xerxes I) and her uncle-guardian Mordecai saved their people from a plan to wipe out all the Jews in the vast Persian empire. Behind the story is the ancient enmity between the Amelekites and the Jews (I Kings Ch. 15). …
Scripture Commentary for September 23, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 20f September 23, 2012 FIRST READING Proverbs 31:10-31 This acrostic poem appears at the end of Proverbs. I don’t know why our bishops would include it unless they wanted to give people like me a chance to object. Alas, I fear their motives were other. The reading brings to mind a late relative of mine, a woman who shall be nameless: “At our church, we had a women’s group studying women in the Bible. We decided that the Bible says women should be subordinate to men, and we like it that way.” This is not my idea of wisdom. …
Scripture Commentary for September 16, 2012 by Arthur H. Cash
PROPER 19 September 16, 2012 FIRST READING Proverbs 1:20-33 In the passage we hear today, Wisdom is represented as a woman, as she is also in the apochraphal book of Sirach (also called, Ecclesiasticus). Wisdom preaches at the city gates, where judicial courts are held and businesses are conducted. The meaning of the metaphor is that wisdom is available to any who seek it, a theme which is carried to the end of our reading. We are hearing a poem, though I don’t think the printed version given to you will show that. In the new Revised Standard Version, it …
Scripture Commentary for September 9, 2012
PROPER 18 September 9, 2012 FIRST READING Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Today and the next two Sundays, our Old Testament reading will be from the Book of Proverbs. This is a collection of wisdom sayings and poems compiled in the years after the return from the Babylonian exile. Many of the collected sayings were already ancient, and some are traceable to the wisdom literature of ancient Egypt. No doubt the Israelites admired Egyptian culture, but by the time the collection was made, the saying of Egyptian origin had become integral to the culture of Judeah. Proverbs has been described as …