Boy, we’ve got our hands full with this week’s Revised Common Lectionary readings. So many choices!

Where do we even go this week? Do we preach from the military epic that is David’s defeat of Goliath? Do we talk about Saul’s mental health and paranoia regarding the burgeoning young king David? On this Father’s Day (in the U.S.), do we delve into daddy issues and David’s adjustment to his new royal family? Do we continue that family focus by examining David’s relationship with Jonathan?

Or is Job’s story and God’s terrible challenge to him from the whirlwind sparking our prophetic imagination?

Back to Father’s Day — is Paul’s address to the church at Corinth as if they were “children” presenting us with some paternal preaching possibilities? Alliteration is everything today, by the way.

And what about Jesus calming the storm and then throwing some slight shade at his disciples for their lack of faith?

I’m not sure how big your church is on Father’s Day (most churches aren’t, it seems), but I feel like there’s a lot of “Because I said so!” in this week’s texts. There is a beckoning to trust, follow, and obey that to me feels very paternal/parental this week. That might invoke problematic feelings and images for some parishioners (and preachers), so perhaps we consider that as we go forward. But then there are the Psalms. We have 133 which celebrates unity (family, much?) and 107 which praises God for provision, protection, and steadfast love — all things that can be parental as well.

I hadn’t planned on incorporating Father’s Day much in my sermon, but now I’m reconsidering. Where are you being led with these texts? What threads are you seeing?

9 thoughts on “Revised Common Lectionary: Fighters, Fathers, and Followers”

  1. Hi, Denise! Thanks for starting the conversation. I want to share a link to a participatory reading of this week’s gospel lesson at my blog: http://marthaspong.com/2015/06/16/who-this/
    This version uses 2 voices plus congregation. There is also a link to a version using 4 voices plus congregation. (I don’t have as many readers available in my current setting.)
    My favorite thing about this passage is the REVEAL! This man is GOD!!!! I never use all caps, so this is telling you how much I love the way it unfolds as story. I am very likely adapting an old sermon given the way my week looks, so here’s a link to that as well. It builds toward the reveal by talking about literal and figurative storms in life. http://marthaspong.com/2012/06/23/that-moment-when/
    I’m limping toward vacation at this point and really glad to have a good one in the files.

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  2. We have Sunday School prizegiving and I have chosen children’s bible versions of both David and Goliath and Jesus calming the storm and am thinking that I will be talking about using what we have and our own talents – David using the slingshot rather than a sword but also placing it in the context of faith before he begins, and The disciples using Jesus (even if they didn’t seem to realise how that would work) and Jesus using his abilities. I think that should tie into the prizegiving – I hope

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  4. I’m going with the storms of life. In addition to the gospel storm we will be reading Psalm 107. We will have groups reading the various sections of the psalm to give a sense of other challenges we face and God’s faithfulness seeing us through them. The verses are assigned as follows:
    Leader v. 1—3
    Group 1 v. 4—9
    Group 2 v. 10 –16
    Group 3 v. 17—22
    Group 4 v. 23—32
    All v. 33—43

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