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A compelling devotional by Day1 host Peter Wallace, designed to help people of all ages connect meaningfully with God as revealed in the Psalms.
Topic Features About Provision
Small and White, Clean and Bright
Exodus 16:2-15
14th Sunday after Pentecost - Year A
September 18, 2011
The Rev. Dr. James C. Howell (UMC)Seems like yesterday I was sitting in my undergraduate religion class--professor seemed to be taking perverse delight in debunking doggedly held truths learned in Sunday School. My fellow students from the Bible Belt were trembling with discomfort, a few near the edge of apologetic rage. Not only had he denied Moses credit for writing Genesis and Exodus, not only had he pointed to older Ancient Near Eastern creation stories, not only had he nixed the Cecil B. DeMille image of giant walls of water through which Israel, led by Charlton Heston, fled Egypt. Now he was explaining away the miracle of the manna. Evidently you can obtain manna souvenirs in the Sinai: insects suck off honey-like deposits of the tamarisk, deposit the surplus on branches--the residue just loaded with carbohydrates and sugars crystallizes and falls--ants eventually eat the stuff as the day grows hot.
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God Will Provide
Genesis 22:1-14
2nd Sunday after Pentecost - Year A
June 26, 2011
The Rev. Canon Charles K. Robertson (TEC)I hate to admit this up front, but the fact is that I have never, ever liked that passage about Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac. Now, I know that is not what people expect to hear from the preacher, but it's true. When I was a child and heard this passage read in church, I wanted to cry out, "Run, Isaac, run! Don't let him get you!" I even found myself getting angry with the boy. I mean, how dense can he be? He's carrying the wood to the sacrifice. "Wake up, kid! You're the sacrifice!" Years later, when I became a parent myself, I found myself even more disturbed by the story. After all, what kind of father would entertain such a proposition? As Bob Dylan once sang, "God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son.' Abe said to God, 'You must be puttin' me on!'" It did not help that in my liturgical tradition this passage has always been accorded an important place in the Christian calendar, read each year during the Easter Vigil service. The long-standing theological connection with the sacrifice of God's own Son for a fallen humanity did not make the particulars of this story any more palatable to this protective parent.
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