November 8, 2009

November 8, 2009

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 27)

Series 1:
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

Series 2:
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

Sermon Seeds

Focus Scripture:
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Weekly Theme:
Risk and Restoration

Reflection followed by a stewardship sermon:
by Kate Huey

If last week's passage from the Book of Ruth was about making a commitment, this week's passage is about living out a commitment of concern for another's welfare. These two women, Naomi and Ruth, an unlikely pair as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, live on the edge of survival in a patriarchal culture that has at least made some provisions for them. There are certain practices like gleaning, where young women can follow the harvesters and take the leftovers in the field, the hard-to-reach pieces easily left behind. And there are laws like the one about levirate marriage, which provides a husband from the family of one who has died. Of course, another way to look at it is that the surviving relative has the "right" to claim both the property and the wife of the deceased one; this is actually a factor in the story of Ruth, if one reads the entire narrative. In chapter four, Boaz announces that he has "acquired" the property of Elimelech and his sons, as well as Ruth, the widow of one of those sons (4:9-10).

Even so, it takes Naomi's concern and initiative to make better arrangements for Ruth's future than the hand-to-mouth dependence on gleaning. This concern in itself is significant, since Naomi (whose name, ironically, means "pleasant") has spent most of the story being understandably bitter and sad; we remember that when she returned to her circle of friends back home, she told them that she had a new name, Mara, or "bitter." However, at this moment, as on that dusty road when she told her daughters-in-law to go back home rather than tie their futures to hers, Naomi wants to make sure that "it will go well" with Ruth. She's able to extend herself, to put another person's welfare first, and she's also able to think about the future, even though she feels she has none herself.

Much of the story, even though it's short, has been cut out of today's passage, but the summary assures us that Ruth and Boaz, the next-of-kin candidate for marriage and security, get together and have a child. First, however, a little dramatic tension is provided by the technicality that another, closer relative has the right of first refusal on both the property and the widow; fortunately, he gives up his rights to both, and Boaz can step in as the redeemer of the two widows. That in itself would be happy ending enough, but as often happens in Scripture, there is still something too wonderful for us to have imagined: the baby will be the grandfather of David, the greatest king in the history of Israel!

Walter Brueggemann has written in The Prophetic Imagination about hopelessness as lack of a future, and Naomi appears early on, with the death of her sons, to see no hope of a future for herself. This may explain why she urges her sons' widows to return to their homes so they can fashion some other future for themselves (with the help of their families, no doubt). But Ruth makes the stand, on the lonely and perilous road to Bethlehem, upon which the story turns. What a surprise: the pagan foreign widow images a not-to-be-deterred love and commitment that remind us of God's own love for us. And the birth of this baby, grandfather to the greatest king in the history of Israel, represents hope for the future, not just for this old woman and her daughter-in-law, but for all Israel itself.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, the women must make a way to survival; they have to work the system they have, use the tools and abilities they have, and make do the best they can. Martin Copenhaver observes that "these two women have become for one another a kind of safe harbor" (Feasting on the Word). Perhaps there are two kinds of people in our society: those who live on the edge of survival, and those who don't. It must certainly affect our outlook and our theology, and our reading of this story even more. How many women and children ("the widow and orphan") have lived on the edge of survival through the centuries? How many have "fallen off" that edge? How well connected are we to the day-to-day experience of women and children today who struggle to survive? Are they people with names and stories, like Ruth and Naomi, or are they "the faceless poor"? Aren't women and children today often required to take the leftovers in the field?

The methods and means of Ruth and Naomi may sound a bit strange, but are not unknown in our own age, if we think of the way marriage has represented security for women right up until the last generation or two. Even now, women are not treated equally in many workplaces and schools, or in subtle ways, they are not given the same respect and opportunities. Is it really so unreasonable, however regrettable, that women, consciously or unconsciously, find it necessary to offer themselves, or let themselves be given by another, in order to secure their future?

Brueggemann calls the threshing floor, where Ruth "goes to" Boaz (many commentators see a sexual component to the story at this point) as "a most generative arena in which radical newness is given that opens futures for Israel." He once again connects hope and the future by claiming that the power of "human courage and divine hiddenness cause Israel to entertain futures beyond any patriarchal or ethnocentric present tense" (An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination). Brueggemann's grand description of this future for Israel is rooted in the simple things of this story: faithfulness, love, loyalty, trust, hard work, interdependence, sharing, mourning and rejoicing, community, the promise that each new child represents. Through these very real experiences of everyday people, God works wonders and moves along the grander story of which we are all a part, as we learn at the end of this one, when we meet Obed, the grandfather of David and the ancestor of Jesus.

There was one important but perhaps easy-to-miss moment in the story that commentators have not focused on, and that is the basis of Boaz's compassion toward Ruth. In reading only a few verses chosen by the lectionary editors, we miss the part of the story where Boaz first sees Ruth and tells his workers to look after her and provide as much grain as she needs. What got his attention? Maybe Ruth is extraordinarily beautiful, as the happy ending suggests. But that telling of the story misses an important moment, when Ruth asks Boaz why he is being so kind to her, "a foreigner." Boaz replies that he has heard all about Ruth's kindness and steadfast care for her mother-in-law (2:10-12). It is not insignificant that Boaz was inspired by Ruth's goodness to do something good himself. Her fidelity inspired his fidelity, way before they met on the threshing floor.

Perhaps, in many ways, it is still a man's world, but women have managed nevertheless in every age to bear children, raise families, take care of business, farm the land, and give expression to their artistic longings. In fact, throughout the ages, most women (except the very wealthiest, and the wives of the wealthiest men) have had to do physical labor all day in order to survive. Naomi and Ruth's survival skills are less important than the depth of their concern for each other, for that kind of concern, called hesed in this story, is something to build churches, communities, and a better world upon. The covenant of care is a place, and an experience, where we can understand a little better how steadfast and life-giving is the love of God for us. In Ruth, we might even say that we understand just a little better what it means to be created in the image of God, an image we encounter in the most unexpected of people.

Many commentators connect this story of Ruth with our own experience of community in the church. Ruth, after all, left her birth family behind and went on to a new place and a new family, and a new community as well (we see them gathered around her at the end, describing her as Naomi's "daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons" (4:15b). And that draws our attention to our life within the community of faith, a people of ancient roots and stories, practices and laws. Martin Copenhaver observes, "The family and the church are both places where we have the opportunity to learn to live with people we did not choose. Our fidelity to those we are stuck with can be a reflection of the fidelity of a God who is stuck with us all" (The Lectionary Commentary). This is a beautiful ideal, but one that is painfully lost on those in our congregations who have been ejected from their families. For example, within the gay and lesbian community there is something called a "family of choice," when a person who has lost their birth family (a family that did not feel "stuck with" them) gathers around them a group of loving friends with which to share their lives, a new family in which to live in fidelity. We remember that even Ruth had a choice to stay with her family; others may not have that possibility open to them, and the only road is the road ahead, to a new and different community. The church indeed has the invitation, the call, to offer hospitality to those who have not known hospitality in their own homes. I once had the privilege of watching Martin Copenhaver baptize a baby and then carry the child around the church, saying, "In this family of faith, water is thicker than blood." I remember those moving words to this day as a reminder of our baptismal ties to one another, and the covenant with one another in which we live.

And the covenant of care and fidelity is at the heart of who we are as the church. G. Malcolm Sinclair has written a powerful commentary on this text in Feasting on the Word. He describes Ruth as "not a holy book in which ecclesiastical structures and systems abound. God, mentioned only in passing, is assumed to be the glue in life rather than some extraneous royal being before whom all ordinary conversation stops." We might say that God is between the lines of this story, just as God is always present in our own lives, whether we recognize it or not. For example, in last week's reflection, we noted that Ruth represented the Moabite people who were often seen as the enemy, and there were laws as well against marrying foreign women (Ezra 9-10). The priestly tradition in the Bible is very concerned with purity issues; ironically, the greatest king, David, "was not a purebred Israelite," Lawrence Farris writes, "but had a Moabite great-grandmother of astonishing faith and love" (The Lectionary Commentary).

What, then, is the stillspeaking God saying here? Marcia Mount Shoop sees more in this story than simply a happy ending: "Ruth," Shoop writes, "helps us to tune into the rhythm of the canon's conversation with itself. Her story enlarges and deepens the story of God's habit of welcoming the stranger and of setting the bar high for the way humanity encounters the other." We don't ordinarily think of the Bible as a conversation, and yet that explains four Gospels instead of one, and the contrast between the law against marrying foreigners and this story of a pagan foreigner as both heroine and ancestor of David. Shoop claims that Ruth's story of unexpected welcome and faithfulness "shines a light on the nature of God's relational grace in its generous capacity to expand into new situations and problems," and that the "artfulness of covenant law is just flexible enough to welcome and provide for" Ruth (Feasting on the Word).

Malcolm Sinclair expands on this tension between the burdens and the blessings of what many call organized religion. The setting for this little story is very different from the grand story of the kingdom and the temple, after the wandering people of Israel settled down. In the wilderness, "leadership has arisen from among the people as they go, and the daily journey provided grist for life and faith," but in the time of "kingship and empire….it is more and more a case of rule imposed from above, the thickening of tradition, the abuses of power and privilege, and the silencing of all but official voices. The Ruth story is a firebreak between the lush, green aspirations of the whole tribe and the consuming flames of the powerful few." Presumably, as we build our communities of faith, we will stay mobile and free of distractions enough to spot the way that "God weaves simple gestures, feelings, decisions, and actions in ways that bring good things….[and] elevates the tender and dirt-real lives of the many" (Feasting on the Word).

Speaking of the “tender and dirt-real lives of the many”: in October and November, it seems that we’re inundated with commercials, posters, and robo-calls urging us to vote for one measure or another, most of which affect our economic well-being. We recall the worn-out question from an election season years ago, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Such a self-centered question might be better replaced with, “Are the widow and the orphan better off today?” Or perhaps we might care so much about one another and our shared life that simply asking, “Are we all better off today?” would lead us to see our futures as inextricably entwined, like those of Naomi and Ruth, and of all Israel itself.

A stewardship sermon based on this week's reading from Ruth:

Background that can be read before the reading itself: Our second reading this morning is from the lectionary for this thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, but it is only a portion of the very short Book of Ruth from the Hebrew Scriptures. A little background to set the stage: A long time ago, even before there were kings of Israel, a woman of Bethlehem, Naomi, and her husband left their hometown during a famine to live in the land of Moab where they could find food. Their sons married Moabite women, but tragedy struck the family when the father and both sons died. The three widows were bereft with no husbands to look after them, and Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. At first, the daughters-in-law went with her, but on the road, Naomi urged them to go home and build new futures for themselves by finding new husbands. One woman, Orpah, wept but turned back. Ruth, however, has been remembered down through the ages not only for her devotion to Naomi but for her exquisitely beautiful words in expressing it: "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God; where you die, I will die, there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me and more as well, if even death parts me from you!"

Naomi gives in and lets Ruth return with her, but she is bitter, bitter, bitter, and full of despair. She even tells the women back home to call her "Mara," which means bitter. But Ruth loves Naomi anyway, and looks after her needs. Now Naomi has an in-law, Boaz, a cousin of her dead husband, and he is a rich landowner. Ruth goes out with the other women into the fields Boaz owns and "gleans," following the harvesters and taking the grain they leave behind. Boaz notices Ruth working hard, and makes special arrangements for these distant relatives to have extra grain. Things are starting to look up for Ruth and Naomi. A reading from the Book of Ruth:

(Reading)

It's amazing what love can do. Recently, I had the privilege of talking with a member of Pilgrim Church who was going through a difficult time. But she wasn't alone. Folks right here at Pilgrim, her church family, were looking after her, walking with her along the way, helping out and caring for her. She said to me, "Pastor Kate, this is the place where I'm loved." It humbles me that this woman who does so much for all of us and for so many others is full of gratitude for what God is doing for her here, as a member of this church family.

Last week, Pastor Patty spoke of a "roundabout" of God's blessings, where we share, one with another, around and around, all the wonderful gifts that God has given us. It seems to me that Ruth had a little trouble getting Naomi to feel like she was part of a roundabout of blessings. And who can blame Naomi? First she has to leave her home just to survive during a famine, and she has to go to the land of Israel's enemies, the Moabites, who were hated by the Israelites. How can I describe how much the Moabites were hated? If there were a tsunami or a big hurricane, some religious extremist would have blamed it on the Moabites, who were pagans and worshipped a false god. Things worsened dramatically for Naomi when her husband and two sons died. She was – officially – a nobody. So she packed up and headed home, and landed there with only her pagan foreigner daughter-in-law, Ruth, the one who had refused to leave her on that dusty road to Bethlehem. How ironic is that: a pagan foreign widow, about as low as it gets, provides a glimpse of undeterred, faithful, stubborn love – someone once described it as "the kind of fierce, firey love by which God pursues us." The Bible is just full of that sort of love from God.

So these two widows are living on the edge of survival. They're not aspiring to luxury or riches; they're struggling just to get through each day alive. As you heard, Ruth goes out and works hard in the fields to provide food for Naomi, and under that kind of consistent, persistent love, Naomi's heart slowly begins to open up. She actually starts to think of Ruth, and of Ruth's future. Now I don't think you can begin to think about the future unless you have hope that there is going to be one. When you're really trapped in depression and despair, you can only think about yourself and "the right now" in front of you, the now that you're sinking in. There is no future and there is no hope. But it's amazing what love can do in the face of hopelessness and despair.

Naomi says what mothers have said to their daughters throughout the centuries: "We need to find you a man." When I was a young woman in graduate school and more interested in books than in cooking, my mother once said to me, "No man will ever want you." She was trying to be loving and concerned about my future, so you can see that things hadn't changed that much in several thousand years. In a male-centered culture, marriage is the path to security, and we can appreciate Naomi's selfless concern even if we are less than enthusiastic about patriarchy. And the ancient Israelite society did make provisions for the widows and orphans: there was, after all, that thing about gleaning the leftovers from the fields, and there was also the practice of a man marrying his dead relative's widow and looking after her, even raising up children in his dead relative's name. (This suggests that marriage throughout the ages has taken different shapes to meet the needs of the people in a given time and a given culture.)

In any case, Naomi is taking initiative; she's looking ahead, she's reaching out and caring for the welfare of another. When she says to Ruth that she wants to make sure that "it will go well" for her, she's not giving up on the future anymore.

Much of the story of Ruth, even though it's short, has been cut out of today's passage, but we are assured that Ruth and Boaz, the next-of-kin candidate for marriage and security, get together and have a child. That in itself would be happy ending enough, but as often happens in Scripture, there's still more, something too wonderful for us to have imagined: the baby will be the grandfather of David, the greatest king in the history of Israel! And so little Obed, father of Jesse and grandson, in a way, of Naomi the-no-longer-bitter, represents hope for the future, not just for this old woman and her daughter-in-law, but for all Israel itself, and for us, today.

What a great Bible story this is for Consecration Sunday, when we dedicate our gifts for the coming year of ministry here at Pilgrim Church! If it's true that love can do amazing things – and we know it can – then generosity is the way we make that love real: generosity with our time, our talents, our money, our hearts, our selves. Generosity inspired Ruth to follow Naomi and to give her loyalty and love even when Naomi was cranky and mean. Generosity inspired Boaz to make sure the two widows had more than enough grain to live on. Generosity inspired the women of the town to rejoice at Naomi's blessing of a daughter-in-law who was more to her than seven sons. The depth of concern that Ruth and Naomi and Boaz (and the village around them) had for one another is the kind of concern to build churches, communities, and a better world upon.

But let's begin with the church, because it's here that we shape and share the vision of a better world, where we nurture that vision and work together to bring it to reality. Here in church is where we renew our spirits, and receive love, and hear God's call. If we are too comfortable, we get challenged here. If we are too challenged by life and its hardships, we get comfort here. The hardest thing for me in preaching a stewardship sermon is knowing that I'm looking out at a congregation that is diverse in many ways, including a diversity of need and resources. You might say that there are two ways of life: on the edge of survival, and not on the edge of survival. Worrying each day about just getting by must surely affect us every moment of the day. How many women and children ("the widow and orphan"), and how many men, all God's children, have lived on the edge of survival through the centuries? How many have fallen off that edge? I don't worry about where my next meal will come from, but I do worry that I will lose touch with those who worry about their next meal. I don't want to lose touch with the reality of the widows and orphans of our day – men, women, and children, who are required to live on our leftovers, what we leave in the field. But Pilgrim United Church of Christ won't let me forget about them. Here is where I learn and practice generosity so I will be better at it out there, in the world God loves so well.

And that's not all. Here, in church, I think about the future. Sure, it's obvious that we have a great past, and this magnificent building is just the physical reminder of those who came before us and thought about us and provided a home for us. But the spirit here is also a reminder of what we have received from our ancestors: the blessing of being a church full of all kinds of people with all kinds of stories and all kinds of gifts, sharing the same hope of being a blessing to the world. And I think about the present, that roundabout of blessings that makes each one of us feel that we are loved and cared for today, by God, through the love and generosity of this community. Remember that dumb question the politicians asked years ago, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" That's a self-centered question that should be replaced with, "Are the widow and the orphan better off today?" Or perhaps we might care so much about one another and share our life so well that we would simply ask, "Are we all better off today?"

And so I say something that I've never said from the pulpit before. It has weighed on my mind every time I preached about money and giving to the church. What an awesome responsibility it is to know that in this church right now are those of us who don't know where our next meal will come from, or the cost of our baby's formula, or the price of our expensive prescriptions, or next month's rent. And in this same sanctuary are those of us who need to be challenged to greater generosity so that no one here will worry about such things. And so, it is important for those who are worried this day about survival to know that this church, your church family, is here to help you. This is where we are loved. This is where we seek the answer to the question, "Are we all better off today?" Just as we have been blessed by the generosity of those who came before us, we reach out today to those in need around us, and we reach forward, too, to those who will come after us, our own heirs, people we may never meet but who will be blessed by our generosity. We see all our futures as inextricably entwined, like those of Naomi and Ruth, and of all Israel itself.

I think about those who will come after us not only as generations in the future but as those who will come through our doors next Sunday, in search of a home. A few weeks ago, I received an email from someone who said she had stumbled upon our website and, in her words, "fell in love." The subject line of her message said simply, "I want to come home." She has come home, and she is preparing to join our church, and has already been a tremendous blessing to all of us who have gotten to know her. My friends, our giving to the church is not simply paying bills, although that is a good and honorable thing. But "paying the bills" just doesn't express what our giving is all about. I recall the story of the man who stopped to ask two workers what they were doing. One man said, "I'm laying bricks." The other said, "I'm building a cathedral." Our giving is providing a home for those who are searching for what we have, what we want to share – God's abundant blessings in this community of care.

Our God is an awesome God of abundance and generosity, not a God of scarcity. Scarcity happens when we don't trust in God's abundance and generosity, when we think that we – not the community, and certainly not God – are the source of our own security. Scarcity happens when we lose hope and turn inward toward ourselves and forget about the future. Scarcity happens when we fail to notice and appreciate the abundance right before our eyes, here in the love and care of this church, like Ruth standing before Naomi, offering persistent, unfailing, generous love.

In my own life, I have been so blessed. One of the greatest blessings has been the ability in recent years to give a portion, a first-fruits gift of ten percent, to God through the ministry of this Pilgrim United Church of Christ. There was a time, when I was in seminary, when that portion had to be much smaller. I increased it after I graduated, but then, one day four years ago, I doubled it when I felt that God was challenging me, calling me to do more. If today you hear God calling you to move to greater giving, I encourage you to listen. It has changed my life to practice a higher level of giving to the church. It has led me to love this church even more, and to experience even more joy in its ministry. So I invite you, in a few moments, to bring forward your offering for today and/or your pledge for the next year. There are pledge cards in the pews if you need one, or the ushers have extra pledge cards in the back. If, however, you know that you are unable to give a monetary pledge or gift today, then take out the pledge card from the pew and just write, "Thank you, God, for Pilgrim Church" and bring it forward and place it in the basket. And know that your church family loves you and is here to help you.

Just yesterday morning, the newest member of Pilgrim Church was born. We haven't even seen her yet, but we are thinking about her when we pledge a generous and challenging portion of our blessings in the coming year so that a church home will be here for her, a home and a family where she will learn to think not only of her own welfare but of the welfare of others. We will teach her to dream of a better world for all of God's children. I invite you this morning to come forward with your gift, your pledge, your gratitude for God's blessings, and to hear the voices of God's children singing, "This little light of mine" – and thank God for the future, for hope, and for all that is yet to be. Amen.

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Lectionary texts

Series 1

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do.” She said to her, “All that you tell me I will do.”

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Psalm 127

Unless God builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.

Unless God guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
   eating the bread of anxious toil;
for God gives sleep to God's beloved.

Sons and daughters are indeed a heritage
    from God,
the fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the offspring of one’s youth.

Happy is the person whose quiver
   is full of them.
   who shall not be put to shame
    speaking with enemies in the gate.

Hebrews 9:24-28

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgement, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Mark 12:38-44

As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Series 2

1 Kings 17:8-16

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

Psalm 146

Praise be to God!
   Praise God, O my soul!

I will praise God as long as I live;
   I will sing praises to my God
   all my life long.

Do not put your trust in nobles,
   in mortals, in whom there is no help.

When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
   on that very day their plans shall perish.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
   whose hope is in the Sovereign their God,

who made heaven and earth, the sea,
   and all that is in them;
   who keeps faith forever;

who executes justice for the oppressed;
   who gives food to the hungry.

God sets the prisoners free;
   God opens the eyes of those who cannot see.

God lifts up those who are bowed down;
   God loves the righteous.

God watches over the strangers
   and upholds the orphan and the widow,
   but the way of the wicked God brings to ruin.

The Sovereign will reign forever,
   your God, O Zion, for all generations.
   Praise be to God!

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Liturgical notes on the Readings

In ecumenical liturgical practice, there are normally three readings and one psalm at each Sunday service, in this order:

First Reading: Hebrew Scripture
Response: Psalm (or Canticle) from the Bible
Second Reading: Epistle (or Acts or Revelation)
Third Reading: Gospel

The first two lessons are normally read by laypeople, the Gospel by a Minister of the Word or a layperson. In Roman Catholic, Anglican and liturgical Protestant churches, it is uncommon for an ordained minister to read all of the lessons.

The psalm is not a reading but a congregational response following the lesson from Hebrew Scripture: it is normally sung with a refrain or recited by the congregation as poetry. Occasionally, a canticle is appointed in place of a psalm; it is sung or recited in the same way. The New Century Hymnal provides a complete liturgical psalter with refrains and music.

A hymn may be sung as an introduction to the proclamation of the Gospel.

During Ordinary Time (seasons after Epiphany and Pentecost) two alternative sets of OT readings with responsorial psalms are provided. The first option is a semi-continuous reading (Series 1) through a book of Hebrew Scripture; the second is thematically related to the other readings (Series 2). It is suggested that a congregation choose one option and follow it.

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 27)

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 27)