Elements from this morning’s gathering

Lectionary Readings

A Reading from Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked us for joyful hymns.

They said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

But how could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?

A Reading from Lamentations 1 & 3

How lonely sits the city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become subject to forced labor.

Judah has gone into exile with suffering
and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations,
and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.

For all these things I weep…
Lord, see my anguish!
My heart is broken
and my soul despairs,
for I have rebelled against you…
The thought of my suffering and homelessness
is bitter beyond words.

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness…

It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord.
Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands
to God in heaven.

A Reading from Jeremiah 32

The following message came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah:

Jerusalem was then under siege from the Babylonian army, and Jeremiah was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace.

King Zedekiah had put him there, asking why he kept giving this prophecy: “This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to hand this city over to the king of Babylon, and he will take it.’

At that time the Lord sent me, Jeremiah, a message:

Prepare yourself! Hanamel, your uncle Shallum’s son, is on his way to see you. He is going to say, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth. You have the legal right to buy it.’

“And sure enough, just as God had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me while I was in jail and said, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth.’ Then I knew that the message I had heard was from the Lord.

So I bought the field at Anathoth.

Then I took the sealed deed and an unsealed copy of the deed, which contained the terms and conditions of the purchase, and I handed them to Baruch.

Then I said to Baruch as everyone listened, ‘Take both this sealed deed and the unsealed copy, and put them into a pottery jar to preserve them for a long time.’

For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says:

‘Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’

A Reading from Habakkuk 1 & 2

This is the message that the prophet Habakkuk received in a vision:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?

Destruction and violence are before me;
I am surrounded by people
who love to argue and fight.
So the law has become paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked far outnumber the righteous,
so that justice has become perverted.

I will stand at my watch-post,
and station myself on the rampart.
I will keep watch to see what the Lord says to me
and how he will respond to my complaint.

Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently,
for it will surely take place.
It will not be delayed.