Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for June 14, 2020

First Reading (Track One): Genesis 18:1-15,(21:1-7)


The long season after Pentecost with its green vestments and liturgical colors now begins. From now until Advent starts in November, our Sunday readings will take us through the life of Jesus in the Gospel according to Matthew.

The Angel Appears to Sarah (1726-28), fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770). Museum Palazzo Patriarcale, Udine, Italy. (Click image to enlarge.)

The Lectionary offers a choice of two separate tracks of First Readings and Psalms during this season. Churches that follow Track One will hear the Hebrew Bible’s narrative of God’s chosen people, from the patriarch Abraham through Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Joshua. Sunday’s first reading begins that story as Abraham welcomes and offers hospitality to three mysterious strangers, who foretell that he and Sarah will have a son and that their offspring will inherit the Promised Land. Sarah finds this hilarious because of their great age, but God’s promise is fulfilled in their son, Isaac.

First Reading (Track Two): Exodus 19:2-8a


This Sunday we start the season after Pentecost, featuring the green liturgical colors that will continue until Advent begins at the end of November. During this time churches may choose to follow either of two Lectionary tracks, each with its own First Readings and Psalms. In Track Two, the Hebrew Bible readings usually show some relationship with the week’s Gospel in theme or theological point. This Sunday, for example, we see Moses bringing God’s words to the elders of the people, asking and receiving their agreement to be in lasting covenant with God. Listen for a distant kinship in Sunday’s Gospel, as Jesus gathers his 12 disciples, sending them out to heal the sick, raise the dead, and proclaim the good news.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 116:1, 10-17

This Track One Psalm comes again after only a short break, as we heard it on the Third Sunday of Easter just about two months ago. In the verses designated for this reading, we sing of the transforming joy that comes with recovery and resurrection after a frightening illness. In the joy of restored life, the Psalmist offers thanks to God who frees us from the snares of death.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 100

This joyful hymn is familiar to many Episcopalians as the Jubilate, one of the readings that the Book of Common Prayer offers us for use in the “Invitatory and Psalter” near the beginning of Morning Prayer of the service. It draws its joyous theme from the truth that Moses gave to the elders: We are God’s creation, God’s own people, and – using the metaphor that we know and love in Psalm 23 – the sheep of God’s pasture.

Second Reading: Romans 5:1-8


Our second readings for the next three months will be excerpted from Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which we hear him beautifully working out his evolving theology of Christ, the Spirit and salvation. Paul writes to a community that he had not yet met, at a time when Rome’s Jewish Christians were returning from exile, while the city’s formerly pagan Christians had faced persecution at home. In a theme that recurs, Paul encourages all the Christians of Rome, regardless of their heritage, to love one another other and heal their differences in spite of their own suffering. Reminding them that Jesus was tortured and died on the cross, he urges them to learn endurance in their own pain, remembering that even though they are sinners, they are justified through faith and saved through the cross.

Gospel: Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)


After having spent much of Lent and all of Eastertide hearing readings from John’s Gospel, we now return to Matthew for the rest of the Lectionary year. Earlier in the year we heard portions of the Sermon on the Mount. Now we find Jesus, who had been teaching and healing on his own, selecting 12 apostles to help. He gives them power to heal and exorcise and even raise the dead, then charges them to go out to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. His rules for them are strict: Accept no pay. Take only the most basic possessions along. Don’t stay with those who don’t welcome you. Be prepared for persecution and hate, but know that the Son of Man is coming soon.