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Showing posts from June, 2018

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8, 1 July 2018

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The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8, 1 July 2018 Track One: II Samuel 1:1, 17-27 Psalm 130 Or Track Two: Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23-24 Lamentations 3:21-33, or Psalm 30 II Corinthians 8:7-15 St. Mark 5:21-43 Background: Lament In both Tracks for this proper we have examples of the lament. Laments were either said, but most usually sung as a poem or in song form. Often the lament is an expression of loss either through personal misfortune or loss in death. The oldest laments we know of were formed in Sumer with  The Lament for Sumer and Ur.  We see them in the  Iliad  and the  Odyssey,  and they are known in a great deal of literature from the Ancient Near East. Laments seem to have been the special provenance of women, who performed them in song and in moaning. We know them in the Hebrew Scriptures in Lamentations, the Book of Job, and in some of the psalms (see  Psalm 3 or  44 ) as well. In the Hebrew Scriptures laments are often