Lectionary Reflections

God promised that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. But the ancestral legends of the chosen people show us that this outcome won’t be easy.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons
July 12, 2026 (Pentecost 7A/Proper 10)

First Reading (Track One): Genesis 25:19-34
God promised that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. But the ancestral legends of the chosen people show us that this outcome won’t be easy. Abraham and Sarah would not celebrate Isaac’s birth until she was 90 years old. In this first reading, we remember that Isaac and Rebekah, too, suffered through 20 barren years before their twins, Esau and Jacob, were born. Jacob, who would grow up as a notorious trickster, would persuade his moments-older twin to give up his rights as firstborn in exchange for a bit of bread and a pot of lentil stew. God, we see again and again, does not choose perfect people but works through flawed and broken humans.

First Reading (Track Two): Isaiah 55:10-13
This reading contains the concluding verses from the second of the three ancient prophets who Bible scholars believe wrote separate prophecies that were eventually combined in this memorable book. Taken as a whole, the full book of Isaiah tells of the exile to Babylon and the people’s eventual return home to Jerusalem, where they build a restored temple. In this passage, Isaiah, having assured the people that God has forgiven their failures of justice, paints a beautiful image of God as the giver of life and sustenance and all that is good. His image of seeds and the sower and Earth’s bounty sets the stage for the parable of the sower that we hear in the Gospel.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 119:105-112
We hear parts of Psalm 119 a dozen times during the three-year cycle of Lectionary readings, so it will probably come as no surprise to hear that its 176 verses make it the longest of all the Psalms. All of those verses are devoted to a long, loving celebration of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. The psalms usually translate “Torah” in this context as “law,” “ordinance,” or “decree.” It might be better expressed as “teaching,” a point of view that reveals God’s loving desire for us to live in good relationship with God and each other. Following God’s decrees – God’s teaching – brings joy even in darkness and time of trouble, the Psalmist sings.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14
This psalm of praise and thanksgiving beautifully mirrors Isaiah’s portrayal of God as the generous creator who made the world and all that is in it, and who provides bountiful water and grain, pastures, and flocks. Perhaps originally sung as a harvest thanksgiving, it expresses praise for the overflowing richness of God’s gifts and for the joy this provides to those who receive it. This abundant seed, the Psalmist sings, has fallen on good soil and yielded a hundredfold.

Second Reading: Romans 8:1-11
The love of God’s law expressed in Torah and the Psalms would have had deep meaning for Paul, who declared himself a devout Pharisee and Torah scholar, righteous and blameless under the law. In his writings, we see Paul evolved a new understanding of that law in his letter to the Romans: Christ’s resurrection has freed us from the law of sin and death, not the law of Torah but of the world. When we are in the world and living in its way of sinful flesh, Paul reasoned, we remain subject to sin and death. But when we turn and accept God’s Spirit through Jesus – when the Spirit dwells in us because Christ is in us – we gain life and peace.

Gospel: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
For the rest of the season after Pentecost, we will follow Matthew’s account of Jesus’ final journey with the apostles from Galilee to Jerusalem. In many of these Gospels, Jesus will teach by using parables as colorful, attention-getting metaphors. This week, we hear the parable of the sower, the first parable that Jesus tells in Matthew’s Gospel and the only one that Jesus goes on to explain. The seeds, it seems, are Jesus’s proclamation of God’s coming kingdom on Earth. Although Jesus proclaims it widely, it often falls on inhospitable ground and fails to take root. Only those who hear the word and understand it will indeed bear fruit and yield bountifully.

Pentecost 7A/Proper 10 God promised that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. But the ancestral legends of the chosen people show us that this outcome won’t be easy.

Fifty days after the first Easter and a week after Jesus was taken up into the clouds, the Holy Spirit arrives like a violent wind and rests on each of apostles as a tongue of fire!

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons
May 17, 2026 (Easter 7A)

First Reading (or alternate Second Reading): Acts 2:1-21
Fifty days after the first Easter and a week or so after the apostles watched in amazement as the resurrected Jesus was taken up into the clouds, they have gathered to celebrate Shavuot, the Jewish spring harvest festival also known as Pentecost. Suddenly the Holy Spirit arrives like a violent wind and rests on each of them as a tongue of fire! All at once, Jesus’s promise at the Ascension is fulfilled: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.” The apostles start shouting the Good News in many languages, prompting a startled crowd to wonder if they are drunk. Not so, says Peter. Quoting the Prophet Joel, he assures the crowd that the Spirit will be poured out for all.

First Reading (alternate): Numbers 11:24-30
Seven weeks after Easter, we celebrate Pentecost, the third major church holiday of the year. On Christmas, we remembered the birth of Jesus. On Easter, we recalled Jesus’s death and resurrection. Pentecost completes the circle with God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, inspiring us to take the Gospel out to the world in Jesus’s name. This alternate first reading tells about God’s spirit empowering Moses and 70 of his elders, and adds that the spirit also came to Eldad and Medad, two of Moses’s elders who weren’t there with the other 70. That didn’t seem fair to Moses’s assistant, Joshua, but Moses reassured him: “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

Psalm 104:25-35
This psalm of praise exults in all the works of God’s creation, memorably observing that God made some creations, like Leviathan, the giant whale, just for fun, “for the sport of it.” Perhaps the Pentecost message in this portion of Psalm 104 comes in these prophetic words in Verse 31: “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.” Since the first words of Scripture, when God’s spirit breath blew over the face of the waters like a mighty wind and all creation came to be, God’s mighty work of creative world-building continues all around us.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Through the Spirit, we all are as one in baptism, Paul tells the Christian community of Corinth in this much-loved passage. Nationality, economic status, gender, enslaved or free: None of these things matter, Paul says. Just as the body is made up of different parts that serve different functions, we each bring our individual gifts as we work together, guided by the Spirit, for the common good. Through it all, Paul assures us, we are all moved by the Spirit as members of the body of Christ.

Gospel: John 20:19-23
Think about what it must have been like for Jesus’s disciples on that first Easter morning. Grieving the crucifixion and death of their leader, they surely felt both wild hope and fearful uncertainty when Mary Magdalene came running in shouting “I have seen the Lord!” The tomb was empty, she said, and she had met a man in white there. But how? Why? What does it all mean? Uncertain, they stay in the locked room as darkness falls. Suddenly, mysteriously, Jesus appears among them. He wishes them peace, then shows them his wounds. Then he breathes on them, empowering them with the Holy Spirit who will take them out into the world.

Gospel (alternate): John 7:37-39
Pentecost is one of the feast days designated as especially appropriate for baptism. In fact, one of its traditional English names, “Whitsunday,” or “White Sunday,” refers to the white garments that those being baptized wore in ancient times. Whenever we welcome new members into Christ’s Body in the church, the celebrant blesses the water in the font, reminding us that “In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection, and through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” In this short alternative gospel, Jesus tells how rivers of living water will flow from the hearts of those who believe. Through the living water of baptism, our hearts join in pouring out the good news of the Gospel.

Pentecost A Illuminations on the Lectionary readings for May 24, 2026 (Pentecost A)