Words 5.20

 Words Twice a Week           5.20

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Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday - Pentecost

Ezekiel 37.1-14

+ the valley of dry bones.  I guess this passage sticks out or me this time around, simply because so much of life today seems like a valley of dry bones – the pandemic, the politics, the economic climate and wealth inequality, the racial inequality, the Middle East, climate change, pollution.  It just seems to picture where we are.  And all the sinews and stuff – I don’t know, I just need the word of hope and promise and life that comes at the end, even though most of the time I don’t hardly believe it.

Psalm 104.24-34

+ opposite the valley of dry bones is the sea, and the ships, and Leviathan/Nessie/God’s Rubber Duckie!

+ vs 25 “creeping things” creeping along the paths of the sea!  What might they look like? And how are they doing with all the plastic and trash we are raining down on them?

+ vs 32 God looks on the earth and it trembles, touches the mountains and they smoke – powerful, but a little bit destructive.  We like vs 20 about feeding, and vs 30 about creating and renewing better.

Acts 2.1-21

+ another one of these stories/passages that we know so well that someone starts reading or telling it and we say “Yeah, ok, we know this” and get impatient or almost bored waiting for it to be over.  I find it helps me to have one or two “points” to listen for – “tongues of fire”, “filled with new wine”, “these are not drunk”, and the whole quote from Joel, especially “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams,” and “portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.  The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.  Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'”

So that’s it.  I guess for me this is a Sunday to simply listen and hear the lessons, more than to actually think about them.  How’s it work for you.

Anyway, that’s what I got for now…..

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