Author Archives: NextSunday Reflections

Job 42:12-17 Every Sunday morning as the hymns are called, a church matriarch will leave her hymnal in the pew rack and sing from her incredible memory. She can recount sermons, Sunday school lessons, and precious moments within our faith community’s life. She weaves us together through her care, love, and attention to detail. I […]

Job 42:10-11 Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech outlines the wrongful injuries that result from racism, laying a foundation that could be used for righteous anger against a nation that falsely promises equality. Yet, King does not build a future of revenge, but frames America’s debt to “the Negro people [as] […]

Job 42:7-9 Whenever you turn on the television, there always seems to be some fictional detective or legal team working to bring a perpetrator to justice. The casts of these urban dramas often include cliché characters like overworked police officers, peculiar judges, and burdened attorneys.  At the center of the drama are the victim and […]

Job 42:1-6 Primary speech isn’t necessarily about words. Primary speech refers to a person’s development of language, both in forming words and in recognizing who is communicating. It’s the cooing of a child in her mother’s arms, the eye-to-eye contact that says you’re recognized, listened to, and valued. Primary speech establishes necessary connections that sustain […]

Job 41:26-34 None on earth can compare to him; he is made to be without fear. He looks on all the proud; he is king over all proud beasts (vv. 33-34, CEB).  Leviathan may fear no other, but by his thrashing all other proud beings in the Leviathan’s world will know fear. And humanity may […]

Job 41:12-25 I was driving my three-year old granddaughter home when she asked me, “Lolo (her name for grandfather), what are all those signs?” I was puzzled. What were the “signs” she saw? Upon further investigation, I discerned that she was talking about the gravestones in the cemetery that we’d passed on the way back […]

Job 41:1-11 With a hushed tone my grandfather whispered tales of the mythical “Leviathan of the deep” into the imaginations of all his grandchildren. From the description of Leviathan’s scales, fins, and massive jaws, we imagined a great and powerful beast that must be both respected and avoided with all our being. This beast, for […]

Job 40:6-14 On this Independence Day, as ideas about liberty and justice for all echo in the atmosphere, we read this continuing conversation between God and Job about whether or not God is truly just.  Job’s own righteousness has been an absolute certainty of his life. Now, after his life has fallen apart despite his […]

Job 40:1-5 After God responds to Job, God asks Job for his response. The Almighty gave Job ample reasons to reframe his response to the suffering he’s experienced. God explained the complexities of creation, and the chaos within the created order. God seems surprised at the way Job succumbed to disillusionment.  Job responds to God […]

Job 39:1-12 God continues to respond to Job’s questions by describing divine concern for all the animals in creation. In Job’s ancient Near East agrarian society, people who kept sheep and goats necessarily knew the important details about their livestock, such as when the birth seasons occurred and the length of the gestation periods. But […]