Thursday, October 11, 2012

Lectionary Ruminations for Sunday, October 14, 2012, the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)


Posted each Thursday, Lectionary Ruminations focuses on the Scripture Readings, taken from the New Revised Standard Version, for the following Sunday per the Revised Common Lectionary. Comments and questions are intended to encourage reflection for readers preparing to teach, preach, or hear the Word. Reader comments are invited and encouraged. All lectionary links are to the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible via the PC(USA) Devotions and Readings website, but if you prefer another translation, feel free to use that instead. (Other references may be linked to the NRSV via the oremus Bible Browser.)  Lectionary Ruminations is also cross-posted on my personal blog, Summit to Shore

23:1 Whom is Job answering?

23:2 What is Job’s complaint?  What is a “bitter” complaint?  Whose hand is heavy?

23:3 Whom does Job not know where to find?

23:4 Job is sounding like a trial attorney.

23:6 Why does Job think he would not be contended with?

23:8 Has Job really gone in all directions?  Like the Khan character in The Wrath of Khan, Job is a two dimensional thinker.  In a Copernican universe, three dimensions might be enough, but in a post-Einstein universe, we must posit at least four dimensions.  Where do we look for God in a four or more dimensional world?

23:9 Is Job’s terror anything like Rudolph Otto’s Mysterium Tremendum?

23:16 Does Job’s “if only” indicate the futility of trying to hide from God?

22:1 Where have we heard this before, every one to three years?

22:2 How many times have you felt this way?

22:3 I think this “yet” is a one word statement of faith.

22:6 But I am not like my ancestors?

22:9 God takes us from the womb?

22:10 This reads as if life begins at birth, not conception.

22:12 What is a bull of Bashan?

22:14 Mixed metaphors/images?

22: 15 Give this Psalmist a drink of cool, refreshing water of life.

4:12 How can a word, any word, be living and active?  What does it mean to separate soul from spirit?

4:13 Were Adam and Eve still naked even after they attempted to cover themselves?

4:14 What is a high priest?  What is a great high priest? Why the plural “heavens”?  How many heavens are there? What confession?

4:15 Are there high priests who are unable to sympathize with our weaknesses?  Is there a difference between being tested and being tempted?

4:16 In the context of this verse, how do you define “boldness”?

10:17 Who was setting out, where was he setting out from, and where was he heading to? Is there any significance to the many using the word “inherit”?  What words, other than “inherit”, do we usually hear associated with “eternal life”?

10:18 What has the Church and Christian community not learned from this verse?

10:19 Why does Jesus refer only to the second tablet of the law rather than both tablets?

10:20 This man is a saint!

10:21 The conundrum: give away your riches and you will have what you lack.

10:22 Was he grieving because he gave up eternal life for riches, or because he gave up riches for eternal life?

10:23 Do you hear this, 1%?

10:24 The kingdom of heaven must be like flying with all one’s possessions in a carry on.

10:25 It is easier to drive a car through the Queens Blvd. overpass on the Jackie Robinson Pkwy than it is for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

10:26  Is the answer not obvious?  The poor can be saved.

10:27 So even God can enable a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God?

10:28  Peter, also known as “open mouth, insert foot”.

10:29 What relative is not mentioned?

10:30 I can do without the persecution part.

10:31 The classical Christian inversion.

ADDENDUM

In addition to serving as the half time Pastor of North Church Queens and writing Lectionary Ruminations, I also tutor part time.  If you or someone you know needs a tutor, or if you would like to be a tutor, check out my WyzAnt  page and follow the appropriate links.

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