Built four Sundays ahead, as usual. No Preacher is listed against this week in the lectionary spreadsheet yet — normal for a week this far out, worth a check nearer the time. The spreadsheet’s margin note this week just asks “Is it in Adelaide?” — a follow-on from last week’s COP31 question. Short answer, already covered in full in last week’s prep: no, it isn’t. Antalya, Turkey has it, 9–20 November 2026.
1. Hello, Richard
This week the lectionary hands you a woman who lies to her own father’s face to save her husband’s life, and then, two books later in the canon, a letter telling young women to be submissive to their husbands as a matter of good order. Put those two next to each other and something sparks. Michal doesn’t ask anyone’s permission to save David — she lowers him out a window, stuffs a household idol under the blankets with a wig of goat hair, and lies straight to Saul’s face without blinking. Titus 2 wants a much quieter kind of woman. The lectionary, whether by accident or design, has given you a live wire and a rulebook in the same week.
No Preacher or Notes are listed against 25 October in the lectionary spreadsheet beyond that COP31 aside — plain default this far out, nothing else to flag.
If you want an opening: don’t lead with the theology, lead with the scene. A father sends men to watch his daughter’s house so they can kill his son-in-law the moment he leaves for work. His daughter helps her husband out a window in the middle of the night, dresses a household idol up as him in the bed, and when the soldiers come knocking, looks them dead in the eye and lies. Let that sit for a second before you say a word about what kind of woman gets asked, two books later, to be quiet and manage the house. This is a pure narrative hook — no audience prop needed, no show of hands to misfire in a room that’s already burned you once this year. Just tell it straight and let the contrast do the work.
2. This Week’s Readings
Old Testament — 1 Samuel 19:11-17 — Michal. Read on Bible Gateway (NRSVUE).
“Michal, David’s wife, told him, ‘If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.’ So Michal let David down through the window; he fled away and escaped… Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed… When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, ‘He is sick.’” (abridged, 1 Samuel 19:11-14)
New Testament — Titus 2:1-10 — Household Roles. Read on Bible Gateway (NRSVUE).
“Tell the older women… to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled… and to be submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.” (abridged, Titus 2:3-5)
Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Where each sits in its bigger story. This is the middle of the long David-and-Saul chase that runs from Saul’s jealousy first flaring (1 Samuel 18) through years of pursuit across the Judean wilderness to Saul’s death (1 Samuel 31). Michal doesn’t vanish after this episode — Saul later gives her to another man out of spite (25:44), David reclaims her as a political condition years later (2 Samuel 3:13-16, over the objections of the second husband, who weeps the whole way), and her story ends at 2 Samuel 6:16-23, watching David dance before the ark, despising him for it, and dying childless. This week’s rescue is the high point of a marriage that curdles badly by the end — worth knowing where the arc goes, even preaching only this scene. On the epistle side, Titus is the shortest of the three Pastoral Epistles (with 1 and 2 Timothy), addressed to a delegate left in charge of the church in Crete; this household code sits between an opening warning against false teachers (ch. 1) and a closing reminder to be subject to rulers and authorities (ch. 3) — a letter primarily concerned with the church looking orderly and respectable to a watching outside world.
3. What Have I Done Before
Nothing on 1 Samuel 19, on Michal by name, or on Titus 2 — checked across all five Searchable Sermon Log sheets (Year A parts 1–2, Year B parts 1, 2a and 2b, Year C), a title search of all 120 PDFs in the Sermons folder, and the Sermon Reference Log. As always, the logs index by reference rather than occasion, so a topical or commemorative service could in principle have touched either text without being filed here — but nothing turned up, and there’s no reason to hedge further than that.
1 Samuel, more broadly, has come up once. On 14 January 2024 you preached 1 Samuel 3 (the call of the boy Samuel), reading it through your own vocation story and landing on the line “somewhere along the way, I changed from Samuel to Eli.” That’s the same book, a different generation of the same royal-and-priestly world Michal’s story sits inside, but no direct overlap in character or theme.
The Voice Profile’s “women who resist power” thread fits Michal about as squarely as it ever has — more so than most of the figures it’s been applied to this year, since Michal’s resistance is direct, physical and immediately effective (Vashti and Hagar resist and pay for it; Michal resists and it works, at least for one night). Worth naming her alongside those names if the sermon wants the callback. The other recurring thread, “who gets remembered vs. who is erased,” applies differently here: Michal isn’t erased from the record so much as slowly diminished by it — a resourceful rescuer in chapter 19, a political pawn traded between two husbands in chapter 25 and chapter 3, and finally a childless, contemptuous footnote in chapter 6. The text keeps her name the whole way; it’s her agency that disappears by instalments.
4. Commentary & Reflection Links
Re-fetched Websites I Use fresh. As expected for a Women’s Lectionary pairing with no RCL equivalent, Working Preacher, Rex Hunt, Bill Loader, Journey with Jesus and Sacredise all came back empty for this exact pairing — the standing date mismatch, not a comment on the sites.
- J. Cheryl Exum, “Michal: Bible,” Jewish Women’s Archive — the strongest single piece found. Exum reframes the household-idol scene as courageous deception rather than religious failing (“the teraphim are in David’s house,” not evidence of Michal’s own idolatry), and reads Michal’s two moments of action — here, and later scorning David’s dance — as both “framed by scenes in which she is acted upon” by her father first and her husband second. The essay’s closing point is the sharpest: Michal’s eventual childlessness functions in the text as a political tool, foreclosing any rival claim to David’s throne through Saul’s bloodline — her body doing service to a dynasty she has no stake in. Read at JWA.
- Marg Mowczko, “The Household Codes Are Primarily about Power” — written about the parallel household codes in Ephesians and Colossians rather than Titus 2 specifically, but directly illuminating for the same genre of text. Mowczko’s case: these codes address power, not gender — the same structure of “submit” language applied to wives, children and enslaved people alike, because the common factor is who holds less power in the relationship, not who is female. Her sharpest line for Titus 2 by extension: nothing asked of the more powerful party in these codes actually requires headship — only love, restraint, and giving up power’s harsher uses. Read at margmowczko.com.
Queer reading — searched separately, and genuinely thin this week. Danya Ruttenberg’s Life Is a Sacred Text archive, Laurel Dykstra, Q Christian Fellowship and Queer Theology all came back empty on Michal specifically. The one adjacent piece worth knowing about is a queer reading of David and Jonathan’s covenant bond (1 Samuel 18–23) that treats their relationship as genuinely erotic and divinely sanctioned against Saul’s opposition — Michal appears in it only in passing, as the bride-price Saul sets hoping David will die trying to earn her (18:25), and briefly again as the wife through whom “God protects David” a second time after Jonathan. That’s a real thread in the wider Saul-household story, but it isn’t a queer reading of Michal’s own story, and it would be dishonest to present it as one. Said plainly rather than stretched.
Two ways in. Lead angle — “the wife who out-lied her father”: Michal’s rescue read straight, as courage and quick thinking under a direct threat to someone she loves, supported by Exum’s reframing of the teraphim scene and the Voice Profile’s “women who resist power” thread. Live alternative — “whose house, whose rules”: read the two texts against each other — a household code asking young women to be quiet and manageable, next to a story about exactly the kind of woman that code is designed to prevent, supported by Mowczko on power and the article in section 6 below.
5. From My Library
All six Library Catalogue parts searched, though the return-size limits on a couple of the wider sheets meant this run’s search was not as exhaustive as usual — worth a fuller pass on the refresh if time allows. No dedicated Wisdom Commentary volume for 1–2 Samuel is on the shelf (a gap already flagged in last week’s prep for Hannah); what is confirmed there from that search: Walter Brueggemann’s First and Second Samuel (Interpretation series), a solid general commentary, and Robert Alter’s The David Story. Alter has now been leaned on twice in as many weeks (Hannah, last week) on top of the Genesis 24 sermon earlier this year — if you reach for him at all this week, keep him well in the background rather than up front. Lead with Brueggemann instead, or with Exum’s own essay above, which does more actual work on Michal specifically than either commentary is likely to.
For Titus 2: Annette Bourland Huizenga’s 1–2 Timothy, Titus (Wisdom Commentary) is on the shelf and directly on point, but this is now its third appearance in three weeks of prep (Lois and Eunice, then Claudia and Prisca, now the household code itself). It’s the right book for the text and it would be strange to pretend otherwise, but it’s worth naming the repetition rather than presenting it as a fresh find each time.
Fiction pairing — flagged honestly as unresolved this run. The kind of pairing this week wants — a story about someone deceiving a parent or authority figure to protect a spouse, or about a household that looks orderly from outside and isn’t — is exactly the sort of oblique connection the shelf usually turns up, but the six-part search this run hit its size limits before a confident match could be found. Rather than force a weak connection, this is one to revisit properly on the refresh pass closer to the date.
Nothing in what was searched turned up under queer or gender-studies subject headings specifically for either passage this week.
6. From My Articles
The clearest and most substantial find this week, and one I opened and read rather than just indexed: Shane Clifton, “Spirit, submission, power, and abuse: A response to teaching on female submission and the scourge of domestic violence,” in St Mark’s Review No. 243 (March 2018), a special issue titled When Women Speak: Domestic Violence in Australian Churches. Clifton’s argument, responding directly to Julia Baird and Hayley Gleeson’s 2017 ABC investigation (see section 10): the issue isn’t whether Christian teaching condemns violence — it plainly does — but whether teaching and structures that hand men authority and women submission create the “gendered hierarchies of power” that let abuse go unseen and unchallenged. His sharpest line: “the symbolic message of male power and female powerlessness are given divine warrant, which no ancillary teaching against violence… can overcome.” It’s a direct, denominationally-aware companion to Titus 2’s own household code, and to the whole question this week’s pairing raises about what a “good” household is actually meant to protect. Read on Drive (the Clifton essay runs from page 72 of the PDF).
Nothing turned up specifically on Michal in either the Articles Index (Drive) or the Mac-only index this week — a genuine gap rather than a missed search, and one worth another look on the refresh.
7. Liturgical Resources
Spill the Beans has no entry for this pairing — checked directly against the Scripture Readings column; a whole-folder search for “Michal” across every reference sheet in the Sermon Prep Reference folder also came back with nothing, which is a fairly firm confirmation rather than a guess. Words for Worship and L3 weren’t separately checked against this specific pairing this run — a time-budget call rather than a considered “nothing there,” worth a proper pass nearer the date, especially since both index by liturgical week rather than reading and this Sunday’s own liturgical-week label wasn’t confirmed either.
Songs. Neither text has been preached before, so there’s no usage history in the Searchable Sermon Logs to lead with — said plainly rather than implied. No confident match was found in a search of the Songs Log or Song List this run either. One suggestion found via general knowledge rather than the congregation’s own records, offered honestly as that: “Bring Many Names” (Brian Wren) — a hymn that deliberately widens the images available for God and household beyond a single patriarchal frame, which sits well against Titus 2’s very narrow household picture. Worth checking against the Songs folder before printing an order of service, since it isn’t confirmed as something the congregation currently holds sheet music for.
What the service is already doing. No 25.10.26 folder exists yet in Current Worship Season, and no matching folder in Previous Worship Services — both expected four Sundays out. Standing prompt as always: check the actual liturgy and centring music nearer the date, since that’s repeatedly turned out to be a better guide to the sermon’s real thesis than the lectionary alone.
Themes emerging. Power, protection, and whose rules a household actually serves — a week that can go toward celebrating a woman’s quick courage, or toward a harder look at what “good order” in a household has historically cost the people with the least power in it. Probably worth choosing one rather than trying to hold both at full weight.
8. Coming Up: Other Commemorations
One clear entry in the seven days from 25 to 31 October: 31 October, Reformation Day (reformers of the Church) — the day Protestants mark the church-reforming movements of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and their emphasis on grace, Christ’s centrality, and the authority of scripture. The Calendar’s own note points out that Reformation Day, All Saints’ Day (1 November, just outside this week’s window) and All Souls’ Day (2 November) form a natural three-day sequence at the turn of the church year — worth knowing even if only Reformation Day itself falls inside this Sunday’s own week. Nothing here carries a denominational dimension beyond the general Reformation history, so no UCA Core Document connection to flag this week.
9. A Piece of Music
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “Cover Me Up,” from Southeastern (2013) — verified clean, no swearing. A song about being sheltered by someone and choosing, in turn, to become someone worth sheltering — a person on the run who finds one person who will stand between them and whatever’s coming. It goes with the lead angle: not a literal retelling of the window and the goat-hair wig, but the same shape underneath — someone deciding, without being asked twice, to put their own body between another person and danger.
10. In the News
The most direct connection this week isn’t a fresh news story so much as the reporting that sits behind this week’s article find: “‘Submit to your husbands’: Women told to endure domestic violence in the name of God” (ABC News, Julia Baird and Hayley Gleeson, 2017) — the original investigation Shane Clifton’s essay in section 6 responds to directly, and still the clearest single account of how Titus 2-style submission teaching has been used in Australian churches. More current: ABC News has run two pieces this month on the same underlying issue — “Are we doing enough to prevent domestic violence?” (20 September 2026), prompted by three women killed in family-violence-related incidents in NSW over a single weekend, and “New threats testing Australia’s plan to end violence against women” (30 August 2026). Neither mentions the church specifically, but both confirm the underlying problem Clifton was writing about in 2018 hasn’t gone away.
On uniting.church‘s national feed, nothing from the past fortnight ties directly to this week’s readings or to Reformation Day, but worth knowing regardless: a call for nominations for President-elect and 18th Assembly representatives, stories from Feast of Faith 2026, and a piece on Pacific women calling for climate action grounded in their own communities.
11. Just for You
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt, from her 1960 memoir You Learn by Living (verified via Quote Investigator against the original text, rather than the many looser paraphrases that circulate under her name).
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