Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: July 26 and August 2
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
Editor’s note: Should you be inspired by last week’s essays on Mary Magdalene, many mainline denominations suggest the following for the celebration of her feast day (celebrate it on the Sunday preceding or following, as is appropriate to your setting): Ruth 1:16–18; Psalm 42:1-7; 2 Corinthians 5:14-18; John 20:1-2,11-18.
For hymns, you might consider For All The Faithful Women (Evangelical Lutheran Worship #419) or By All Your Saints (ELW #420 & #421), or perhaps a throwback to a once-popular and now nearly lost hymn by the name Resting From His Work Today to its original tune, Redhead, which you may recognize more familiarly by the more popular text Go To Dark Gethsemane.
We’d also commend Myrrh-bearing Mary from Magdala, from Selah Publishing, as a unique song and text, which presciently linked Mary from Magdala with Mary of Bethany!
Sunday, July 26, 2026 – Proper 12
For those congregations using the Semicontinuous Old Testament readings this summer, it may be wise for preachers to refer to Rev. Dr. Dorothy Wells’ two-part series on Abraham and family trauma.
Semicontinuous: Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “An Unwelcome Read of History”
The forty-five verses of Psalm 105, with a powerful cumulative effect, is a long recital of the glorious transformative deeds of YHWH that offer a review of the entire sweep of Israel’s “canonical” memory. According to this memory, the long journey from Abraham (v. 9) to the land of promise (v. 44) is all accomplished by the compelling power of YHWH.
Paired: 1 Kings 3:5-12
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “It’s the Economy, Stupid”
It is likely that King Solomon is the connecting link between the memory of Pharaoh and the later oppressive king in Jerusalem (see I Kings 3:1, 7:8, 9:24, 11:1). This sequence from Pharaoh to Solomon to Jehoiakim tells the tale of ruthless exploitative money and power exercised at the expense of vulnerable workers.
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Sunday, August 2, 2026 – Proper 13
Semicontinuous: Genesis 32:22-31
Rev. Natalia Terfa, “Midnight Wrestlings”
I think this moment is all one we’ve felt before. The night before a big event. A meeting, confrontation, interview, life change. You know the kind of night I’m talking about. Where we go through all the choices and moments that brought us to where we are. To second guess and doubt and struggle. To hope and pray and beg that whatever comes next will be ok.
Paired: Isaiah 55:1-13
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “From Chaos to Homecoming”
The poet executes a stunning rhetorical maneuver. On the one hand, the poet makes this sweeping cosmic claim for the decree as the sovereign rule of God. On the other hand, however, that word is given specific historical fleshly content. … For all the grand lyric of the poem, we should not miss the astonishing historical import of the poetry.
This poetic utterance is offered while the Babylonian empire is still the master of estrangement for these displaced Jews to whom the poetry is addressed. In prophetic imagination that refuses to give in to Babylon, the word of God outruns and contradicts the will of the Babylonian empire.
