Lectionary
Ruminations 2.0 is a revised continuation of Lectionary Ruminations. Focusing on The Revised Common Lectionary Readings for the upcoming Sunday from New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, Lectionary
Ruminations 2.0 draws on nearly thirty years of pastoral experience. Believing that the questions we ask are often
more important than any answers we find, without overreliance on commentaries I
intend with comments and questions to encourage reflection and rumination for
readers preparing to teach, preach, or hear the Word. Reader comments are
invited and encouraged. All lectionary
links are to the via the PC(USA)
Devotions and Readings website.
FOR AN UPDATED AND REVISED VERSION, GO TO
THIS LINK
2:1 How did early Christians
know the day of Pentecost had arrived when they had not yet been filled with
the Holy Spirit? In othger words, what are the Jewish roots of Pentecost? Who
are “they” and what does it mean (existentially and theologically) that “they were
all together in one place”?
2:2 What Greek word is
translated as wind and how else might it be translated? Why were they sitting
in a house?
2:3 What is a divided
tongue?
2:4 Do you think some of
them spoke in other languages better than others? Was this the first and
original Rosetta Stone?
2:5 What is the difference
between a devout Jew and a Jew? Where these Jesws living in or actually
visiting Jerusalem?
2:6 When was the last time
you were bewildered?
2:7 When was the last time
worship where you usually attend left you or anyone else amazed and astonished?
2:8-11 Why are all these
but no other places mentioned?
2:10 What is the difference
between a Jew and a proselyte?
2:11 What are God’s deeds
of power?
2:12When was the last time
your sermon or Bible study amazed and perplexed anyone? I would settle for
people simply asking “What does this mean?”
2:13 What is the difference
between new wine and old wine? Cannot both intoxicate?
2:14 Why Peter?
2:16 Off all the Prophets,
why Joel?
2:17-21 Do you think Peter really said this, or are some
words being put into his mouth at a later time?
2:17-18 If God poured out
the Spirit on all flesh, sons as well as daughters, both male and female slaves
inverse, then why does Peter address only “men” in verse 14?
37:1-14 Remember that this
is only a vision, not an historical account.
37:1 What does it mean for
“the hand of the LORD” to come upon a person?
Has the handoff the LORD ever come upon you or upon someone you
know? What does it mean to “be brought
out by the spirit”? I interpret this reading as a vision experienced by
Ezekiel, certainly not an account of anything that happened in real time and
space, but only within the psyche of Ezekiel.
37:2 What might the valley
of dry bones symbolize?
37:3 Is there any
significance to the fact that the LORD addresses Ezekiel as “Mortal” rather
than by name? Is the LORD asking a
rhetorical question? I think the
“mortal” passes the buck with his answer.
37:4 Can bones hear?
37:5-6 What linguistic and
theological moves are being made by connecting breath with life
37:7 Apparently bones CAN
hear!
37:8 Oh no! No breath!
37:9 Can the breath hear? What
do you know about the four winds? I
cannot read this passage without thinking of the four winds of Native American
spirituality. When was the last time you heard a minister refer to the four
winds in a prayer or use it liturgy?
37:10 Was the breath the
last, or the most essential ingredient?
37:11 Oh, so these were not
bones at all, but a living nation feeling dried up, proof positive that this is
a vision not to be taken literally.
37:12 Is this verse about a
physical resurrection or a spiritual resurrection, physical graves or
metaphorical graves?
37:13 What sort of grave
bound people is the mortal prophesying to?
37:14 What are the
linguistic and theological connections among wind, breath, and spirit? IMHO,
this is a verse that many aging congregations and congregations of the aging,
often feeling “very dry” and completely cut off, almost in the grave, need to
hear and reflect upon. Are they willing,
REALLY willing, to have the LORD put the spirit within them?
104:24 What works?
104:25 The sea may be a
metaphor or even symbol of uncreated chaos left over from the creation.
104:26 Is this Hobbes’
Leviathan? Shamu? The Kraken? Nessie?
104:27-28 So God sustains
even sea monsters?
104:29 What does it mean
for God to hide the divine face? What does it mean to take away the breath? How
else might the Hebrew word for breath be translated?
104:30 Does this verse
alone justify pairing this Psalm with the Acts passage and to read on Pentecost
Sunday?
104:31 What does it mean
for the LORD to rejoice?
104:32 Earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions, Oh My! Is it bad science, and bad theology, to associate
natural geologic phenomena with God?
104:33 Is this talking
about continuous song?
104:34 What does meditation
refer to?
8:22 Who is “we”? Read this verse in light of Psalm 104:32.
Does this verse legitimize Christians speaking of “mother earth”?
8:23 What does it mean to
groan inwardly?
8:24-25 Is Paul making the
distinction between hope and truth? Faith and fact?
8:26 Why do we not know how
to pray as we ought? Can prayer be
taught? Is there any comparison between
“sighs too deep for words” and glossolalia? Might this verse be used to
theologically explain Contemplative Prayer?
8:27 Does this verse suggest
that the Spirit resides in individuals in the heart (rather than the mind)?
What does it mean that the Spirit has a mind?
See the ruminations above
and note that the Acts Reading can be used either as the First Reading or the
Second Reading, meaning one would use either Ezekiel 37:1-14 or Romans 8:22-27
but not both.
15:26 Is the Fourth Gospel
the only New Testament writing to refer to the Spirit as the Advocate. How do you reconcile this verse with the
filioque clause of the Nicene Creed?
15:7 Why can the Advocate
not come to believers until after Jesus leaves them?
15:11 Who is “the ruler of
this world”?
15:12 What else do you
think Jesus wanted to say that he did not say?
15:13 Where does the Spirit
of Truth hear what he (or she?) speaks?
ADDENDUM
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