- Pastors who need inspiration and idea starters for their sermons
- Church musicians who want to coordinate music and hymn selections with scriptural themes
- Anyone who wants deeper insight into each week’s lectionary passages
These background notes cover every assigned text in the Revised Common Lectionary for each Sunday and major observance throughout the year.
Proper 18 | OT 23 | Pentecost 15 (Cycle C)
Sunday between September 4 and September 10 inclusive
Human reasoning and human relationships are ephemeral and transitory. Only through the wisdom given by God and through our relationships with God can we survive and live joyously, blessed by God.
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Psalm 1
The lives of those who are wicked are worthless. Their lives are like the chaff that the wind blows away. Happy, meaningful, and blessed are the lives of those who delight in the Torah, the way of the Lord. The Lord watches over them and they are like trees planted along streams of water. Their leaves never wither and die.
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
These words in the final six verses of the “Sermon of Moses” in Deuteronomy 4:44–30:20 express the admonition of Psalm 1 and of many other texts in our Older Testament, as well as of the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:13–6:10 and elsewhere, and in the first portion of the Didache in the Apostolic Fathers. In the words of the “Sermon of Moses” here, we, as well as the Israelites and Jews, are given by God the choice between life and death. It should seem to be such as easy choice to make! Why do we and others so often choose the path of death?
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
In this text the psalmist marvels at the infinite wisdom of the Lord God, who brought the life of the psalmist into being and knows every thought, word, and deed of the psalmist. The Lord God is everywhere, in the heavens, everywhere on the land and sea, and even in the graves of those who have died (vv. 7-12, which should be included in this selection). It is only because of the love and wisdom of God that the psalmist has life.
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The same basic message of the other texts chosen for our worship services this coming weekend is expressed in this account of the symbolic act of Jeremiah and his visit to the potter’s house. God is the potter; we are the clay. God can and will smash and destroy any person, nation, or religious community that does evil, but will shape into a beautiful container all who choose to establish and retain a faith relationship with the Lord God.
Philemon 1-21
The relationships that exist between Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus are all bonded together by the relationship that they share “in Christ.” It is because of that relationship they share “in Christ” that Paul asks his friend Philemon to accept Onesimus, the runaway slave, back as a brother “in the Lord.” Paul makes his request so forcefully that we may assume that Philemon could not refuse Paul’s request without jeopardizing Philemon’s own relationship with the Lord. This short letter, therefore, provides for us a paradigm to follow in our relationships with each other as Christians.
Luke 14:25-33
The overall theme of the texts selected for us for use next weekend that human reasoning and human relationships are ephemeral and transitory unless they are linked into our relationship with God continues here in Luke 14:25-33. It is probable that on many occasions the Jesus of history said in one way or another, “Whoever is not willing to give up all other relationships and to put God first is not ready to let God rule.”
For Jesus and for most of the top leaders of the early Church, the cost of discipleship was very high. To let God rule meant that they would no longer let Caesar rule over them. If as a leader among Jews in Galilee and Judea or as a leader in the early Church you publicly rejected the authority of Caesar in favor of the authority of God, you would soon be carrying your cross to your own crucifixion event. You would have to give up all human relationships and give up your life at that point. The cost was very high for this level of commitment! Before you would make this level of commitment, you would do well to determine whether you possessed enough strength to make this commitment. Jesus obviously had this level of strength and commitment.
Unless we have some understanding of the oppressive political situation in which Jesus and his earliest followers lived, we cannot understand Luke 14:25-33 and many other similar Newer Testament texts. As we are able to understand more about what it is like to live in some of the totalitarian states that exist in our time, we gain an increased understanding of many of the Newer Testament texts. Jesus believed, the leaders of the early Church believed, and we believe that by the grace of God our relationship with God, and in some sense on a different level our relationships with each other, will continue even after we die.
