Reflecting on the Seventeenth
Sunday after Pentecost
Year B

Daily Readings for Monday
September 20, 2021

Prayer

God of unsearchable mystery and light, 

your weakness is greater than our strength, 

your foolishness brings all our cleverness to naught, 

your gentleness confounds the power we would claim. 

You call first to be last and last to be first, 

servant to be leader and ruler to be underling of all. 

Pour into our hearts the wisdom of your Word and Spirit, 

that we may know your purpose and live to your glory. Amen.

 

Psalm 128

Your wife like a fruitful vine

 

Happy is everyone who fears the Lord,

who walks in his ways.

You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;

you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine

within your house;

your children will be like olive shoots

around your table.

Thus shall the man be blessed

who fears the Lord.

The Lord bless you from Zion.

May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem

all the days of your life.

May you see your children’s children.

Peace be upon Israel!

 

Proverbs 27:1-27

Don't brag about tomorrow

 

Do not boast about tomorrow,

for you do not know what a day may bring.

Let another praise you, and not your own mouth—

a stranger, and not your own lips.

A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty,

but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.

Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming,

but who is able to stand before jealousy?

Better is open rebuke

than hidden love.

Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts,

but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

The sated appetite spurns honey,

but to a ravenous appetite even the bitter is sweet.

Like a bird that strays from its nest

is one who strays from home.

Perfume and incense make the heart glad,

but the soul is torn by trouble.

Do not forsake your friend or the friend of your parent;

do not go to the house of your kindred in the day of your calamity.

Better is a neighbor who is nearby

than kindred who are far away.

Be wise, my child, and make my heart glad,

so that I may answer whoever reproaches me.

The clever see danger and hide;

but the simple go on, and suffer for it.

Take the garment of one who has given surety for a stranger;

seize the pledge given as surety for foreigners.

Whoever blesses a neighbor with a loud voice,

rising early in the morning,

will be counted as cursing.

A continual dripping on a rainy day

and a contentious wife are alike;

to restrain her is to restrain the wind

or to grasp oil in the right hand.

Iron sharpens iron,

and one person sharpens the wits of another.

Anyone who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit,

and anyone who takes care of a master will be honored.

Just as water reflects the face,

so one human heart reflects another.

Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,

and human eyes are never satisfied.

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,

so a person is tested by being praised.

Crush a fool in a mortar with a pestle

along with crushed grain,

but the folly will not be driven out.

Know well the condition of your flocks,

and give attention to your herds;

for riches do not last forever,

nor a crown for all generations.

When the grass is gone, and new growth appears,

and the herbage of the mountains is gathered,

the lambs will provide your clothing,

and the goats the price of a field;

there will be enough goats’ milk for your food,

for the food of your household

and nourishment for your servant-girls.

 

James 4:8-17

Draw near to God

 

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

 

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?

 

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

 

 

Prayer

O God, our teacher and guide, 

you draw us to yourself 

and welcome us as beloved children. 

Help us to lay aside our envy and selfish ambition, 

that we may walk in your ways of wisdom and understanding 

as servants of your peace. Amen.

 

Psalm 139:1-18

Formed in my mother’s womb

 

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them—they are more than the sand;

I come to the end—I am still with you.

 

2 Kings 5:1-14

The girl servant saves her master

 

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

 

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

 

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

 

James 4:8-17

Draw near to God

 

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

 

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?

 

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

 

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Prayer reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, © 2002 Consultation on Common Texts. Reproduced by permission.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts admin. Augsburg Fortress. Reproduced by permission. No further reproduction allowed without the written permission of Augsburg Fortress.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


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