Theme: The difficulty of entering the kingdom of heaven when material things have a hold on you.

COMMENTARY

Old Testament: Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Job responds to Eliaphaz, one of Job's friends and supposed comforters. Job wants to talk with God face to face, to make his case and hear God's response. But Job experiences only God's absence and it upsets him. Job's arguments sounds like what humanistic philosophers of the twentieth century have said about the so-called death of God. Yet the absence of God is a feeling that even the most pious individual has felt at times in life.

Old Testament: Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

Epistle: Hebrews 4:12-16
The lection begins with an exhortation to diligence, girded by the reminder that the Word of God is mighty, able to discern thoughts and the intention of the h…