These poems for Year B are all in my new book by Wipf and Stock, Lectionary Poems, Year B: More Surprising Grace for Pulpit and Pew. It will give you not just all the poems for the year, including five new hymn texts, but also an index of all 128 biblical references, plus a title index. Just $13.80 (check or Venmo)(and cheaper than Amazon) includes tax and mailing for a signed/inscribed copy. Buying multiple quantities reduces mailing cost. Let me know what I can send you: scott.l.barton["at" symbol]gmail.com.
Exodus 20:1-17
Marc Chagall: Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Law
1966; Saint-paul-de-vence, France
The World's Economy and God's
The thing about markets is this:
You get what you pay for;
The more you pay, the more you get,
The wise all know the score.
But watch that you don't read this text
As if it's tit for tat,
As if the nature of our God
Is, "You do this, and I give that."
The only God who's worth the time
Of day is One who gave;
The only reason this God had
To free our forebear slaves
Was just because that's how God is,
Who gives a heav'n for you;
So focus not on third and fourth
Removes as parents' due;
That line's a set up for the next
To make you drop your jaw—
The thousandth generation get
God's steadfast love! The law
We need to know is how for us
God wants the very best!
You get the world when you find out
By love you are possessed.
Scott L. Barton
Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
+ + +
John 2:13-22
Greco: Christ Expelling the Money Changers in the Temple (1600)
Call Security!
I wonder why they don't shout out,
And call the cops on him who flouts
Decorum with his whipping ways!
Can you imagine him today,
Without a permit for such raucous acts
Which peaceful moderation lacks?
Perhaps it's theater, you think;
Would Jesus really raise such stink?
Or, demonstrations 'cross the globe
Which now, white consciences have probed
To say police brutality
Must stop! Plus the mentality
Where lives of African descent
Have mattered not, demands "Repent!"
Sometimes, a spark at the right time
Can make, for all, a change sublime.
How 'bout the students who deplore
The politicians who now whore
Their way to office with no spine,
And claim some right, almost divine,
To have an automatic gun,
Belongs to each and everyone?
I cheer their anger born of grief
To finally bring us all relief.
This Jesus was no Caspar Milquetoast
And hated Temple profits foremost,
And students activated now
Will whip machines of death, somehow.
Scott L. Barton
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
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