Lectionary Readings for Sunday, February 24, 2008
Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Life has a language.
And Scripture has a word for us.
These two thoughts frame our LCL Lectionary reflections. We have been given a Word of life that connects us with God and each other, a Word that has the power to order chaos, a Word that calls us to action, a Word that carries us in hope and a Word that we receive as a blessing.
The Gospel reading for this third Sunday of Lent is one of the longer readings in the Lectionary cycle. Many of us may be tempted to read just part of the 37 verses, knowing that although the story is dramatic it is not easy to keep the attention of a congregation during such a long reading. Indeed if we do so, we will still be left with a string of remarkable insights, each one of which would inspire a meaningful sermon. For example:
There is a sermon that asks us to speak with people we do not know and people we have been taught to avoid. If Jesus dares cross cultural, social and theological boundaries, should we not follow suit?
There is a sermon about thirst. For what do we thirst? How many times do we keep returning to the same well only to find out we must return yet again a few hours later? What are the waters that leave us thirsty?
There is a sermon about worship. Have we confused place with Spirit? Have we tried to own God by saying God is mostly present “here,” and then discovering that the “here” just happens to be a place we own?
There is a sermon about hospitality as an estranged people invite Jesus to stay with them and he accepts their offer.
There is a sermon about ministry moving from a private conversation into a public space as the woman goes and tells all her neighbors what she has heard. Have we privatized worship at the expense of public space?
There is a sermon about ministry as a collective effort as we, like the disciples, join the efforts of others who have labored.
There is a sermon about identity . . . if Jesus says, “I am he,” who do we say we are? It is essential that Jesus say who he is, just as it is essential for us to reveal our true calling.
And there is a remarkable sermon about history. I am indebted to the Rev. Ted Erickson for pointing out in his sermon for this Sunday that Jesus' noting that the woman's five husbands, and the man she is currently with, tells not the story of an individual but the story of Samaria. Her five husbands were Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Judea. The man she is currently with is Rome. There has been nothing stable in her life, or in the life of her people for some 700 years.
If that weren't enough, it turns out that, unlike the Jews, the Samaritans held only five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - to be sacred. The fact that she has gone beyond them to find another source of spiritual support is another indication that truly there has been nothing stable in her life. She would like to be homeward bound, but there have been so many homes one comes close to losing hope.
We realize that Jesus is not talking just to a woman. In our lives, how many churches have we been to; how many jobs have occupied out time and imagination; how many new interpretations have we relied on to give us a sense of direction? He is, as always, talking to us as well, asking us to recognize and love the remarkable boundary between water and living water, between food and food of the soul. Which is to say we have been given a story brings order to chaos. It is all about finding coherence that has the power to transcend the flow of history.
One of the most beautiful aspects to the Gospel of John is that he takes time to unpack the stories he tells. In Mark we are virtually left breathless as Jesus immediately leaves one place and immediately arrives in another where something immediately happens. There is no time to spare. But John takes time to let the story unfold. The word “water” will not work unless we differentiate the difference between life giving water and living water. The word 'worship” will not suffice unless practice is framed in spirit and truth. The word “messiah” will not work until it is given a name. John takes his time to tell the story.
Recently I was in a small circle of people and we were asked to tell our stories. We were given 20 minutes. It was, one might say, a “Mark” format. I left the circle feeling a bit empty, as though I had perhaps betrayed the stories that resisted being timed. I wanted to share them, and their actors, with more care. You have noticed that the conversations you have as a pastor with people before church are quite different from the conversations you have with them when the service draws to an end. Before church there is an openness, a signaling of what is important that is then surrendered to worship. We go into worship with a story that frames and reframes itself in prayer, in the singing of hymns, in scripture, in the windows, in the sacraments. After church time resumes its normal curtailing function.
I've wondered if perhaps a message from the long readings is that we must recognize it takes time to hear each other's stories. The person in the third pew, how do they hear “water?” The usher, what are the chapters of his life? It is not a story to be immediately told. It will take a full 37 verses.
Listen then . . . to a story it takes time to tell and a lifetime to live.
John 4:5-42
So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink", you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'
Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back.' The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!' The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming' (who is called Christ). 'When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.' Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do you want?' or, 'Why are you speaking with her?' Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?' They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, eat something.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Surely no one has brought him something to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest"? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labour.'
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’
The next morning, the Samaritan women went once again to the well. She heard the bucket splash in the pool at the bottom of Jacob's well. She drew the water up, thankful it was there and knowing her thirst for life had been slaked by different kind of water drawn from a well that said, “I am he.”
And so let's take the long story to heart and take time to tell the stories Paul so beautifully writes about in this week's Epistle.
Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Larry
I welcome your response to these columns. I may be reached at:
larry@leadingcausesoflife.org
Or
larrypray@gmail.com
Friday, February 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Lectionary Readings for Sunday, February 17, 2008
Lectionary Readings for Sunday, February 17, 2008
Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 12:1-4a with Psalm 121 and
Romans 4:1-5,13-17 and
John 3:1-17 or Matthew 17:1-9
Life has a language.
And Scripture has a word for us.
The story of our lives and the story of our congregations can be meaningfully framed as story of connections both made and lost; of meaning that brings order into our lives and times when chaos seemed to reign supreme. Or we can look through the lens of activities, sometimes prompted by our own endeavors, and sometimes born of a response to an ever-changing world. We would soon find, however, that our stories cannot be told without giving the ebb and flow of hope its proper attention. Towards the end of the tale we will undoubtedly take time to count our blessings and give thanks for their power to augment our lives.
Scripture gives us a well-focused lens through which we deepen our insights into the abiding mystery of life, just as John Calvin said it would be. It is not, however, a predictable journey. Time and again it turns our attention to improbable places. If we are to understand liberation we must first hear the cry of the Hebrew people as they endured slavery. If we are celebrate what God can do, we are likely to be drawn not to paragons of health and financial success, but to a group of lepers, a paralytic who has yet to walk, and women who know the meaning of “shun.” The Lenten trek begins not with a celebration, but with the “imposition” of ashes that reminds us of our mortality.
So it is with this week's reading from the Gospel of John. The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus takes place not in broad daylight but in the depth of night in which daytime boundaries have lost their power to frame simple arguments. What happens at night is complex, somewhat confusing, and mysterious as life itself. We enter the discussion with verses that are chock full of territorial expectations that one would expect might point the way. But instead of solving a problem they simply reframe it.
“There was a Pharisee,” the text reads. The Pharisees knew that worship is not a one day affair, but a daily observance. One of their goals was to extend the sense of the holy so deeply felt on the Sabbath throughout the week. In a bible study last week one man who was not persuaded that Lent's would make an actual difference in the lives of those who observed it said, “From what I've seen everybody just goes back to what they were doing after Easter.” The Pharisees organized to help prevent just such a scenario. There are things you do when God is given primacy in your life; and there are things you do not do. A wise person learns and observes the difference and then shares that knowledge with others. It is essential to recognize that Nicodemus is part of a group. Birds of a feather do flock together when given an opportunity to do so. And when we get together we talk.
This morning I visited an Altzheimer's unit and noticed two chairs at the end of a long hallway. Both were occupied; and three people had drifted that way as well to share gentle conversation blessed by one-word sentences, nods of the head and occasional smiles. At the other end of the hallway a brightly lit dayroom also provided a gathering space. It is our nature to get together, and the patients had created a dayroom annex at the end of the long hallway. When Nicodemus speaks he will note not that he has noticed Jesus' healings, but that 'we” know the healings must be from God. In like manner Jesus notes that “we speak of what we know.” The world of coherence always seeks its adherents. It is in the boundary between coherence and connection that we find life full of wonderful, and inevitable, tension.
There are many layers of meaning in the landscape of coherence that introduces the text.
First we are introduced to a Pharisee.
Then the Pharisee is given a name. He isn't anybody; and he isn't somebody.
Next we learn he is a leader.
Next the leader meets Jesus, whose name reveals his saving mission that an esteemed leader might, or might not, need.
Next Jesus is referred to as “Rabbi.” Clearly the passage will be about learning and teaching. But learning and teaching about what? Coherence invariably asks, “What are you learning? And what are you teaching?”
Finally two men who raised in the same faith make it clear that God is the true focus of their conversation. Whereas Nicodemus pins his words to the world of experience, “No one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God,” Jesus pins his words to an understanding of God that transcends events. Nicodemus is impressed with and curious about signs; Jesus is otherwise inclined. The signs are what they are, but there is more, he seems to say. “Tell me about this,” Nicodemus seems to say and suddenly the teacher named Jesus becomes a teacher. And so it is that two worlds of meaning gently collide. It is not surprising that this happens in the dead of night where we must search carefully to get our true bearings.
Listen carefully to the text. I have highlighted those words that designate boundaries that are such an essential part of coherence.
John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
The text comes full circle in its understandings of life. What began as one man's question ends with a sermon addressed to everyone. What began with Jesus gently dismissing the power of signs ends with a reference to a serpent in the wilderness, a sign that once saved a snake-bitten people. What begins with reference to Israel ends with an embrace of the world. Although the world “believe” dominates the last two verses, it is clear that essential though belief may be, birth is not something we do. Instead we are born and then find our lives to be an extended conversation about the nature life to which we are called.
As we prepare to preach this text, it will inevitably spark memories of those times you thought something was “real” and then found it to be something else entirely. I have been to many committee meetings in my life as a pastor in which there were also many agendas present at the table and when we left the meeting and headed into the night only sometimes did we find daylight after the meeting. Most of the time these agendas were somewhat hidden, making the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus remarkable for its candor, its naming of boundaries, and its willingness to engage in a conversation about life.
Or, it may be that you recall a place of apparent confusion that revealed stunning clarity. Such an incident happened to me this week. I was working with a group of dementia/ patients. As we began worship it was clear the congregation was on the move. Some needed to travel, and did. Some clapped to the rhythm of the hymn I played on my banjo, others seemed to drift away as the window framed a tableau of beautifully falling snow. Every once in a while one would speak, his or her words seeking to lay claim to some hidden world of meaning. There could not be, or would not be, an explanation as to why those words were spoken. Suffice it to say the short sentences, or counting over and over again, marked a boundary just as surely as your sermon will this Sunday.
Several days before I underwent yet another round of surgery on my left eye. The hospital asked me to wear a green wristband until a nitrogen bubble is absorbed into whatever cells will receive it. The wristband caught the attention of one woman whose only speech up to that point had been somewhat outside the realm of “normal” conversation. She pointed to the band, wanting to know what happened.
“It's for my eye,” I said. “There's a bubble in it. When the bubble goes away I can take this off.” She smiled.
“Your eye is going to be okay,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “You have given me a blessing, and I thank you.”
As so often happen, if we are to look for life we are wise to not avoid conversations born of an Alzheimer's night or an encounter between a wise leader named Nicodemus and a teacher named Jesus.
Larry
I welcome your response to these columns. I may be reached at:
larry@leadingcausesoflife.org
Or
larrypray@gmail.com
Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 12:1-4a with Psalm 121 and
Romans 4:1-5,13-17 and
John 3:1-17 or Matthew 17:1-9
Life has a language.
And Scripture has a word for us.
The story of our lives and the story of our congregations can be meaningfully framed as story of connections both made and lost; of meaning that brings order into our lives and times when chaos seemed to reign supreme. Or we can look through the lens of activities, sometimes prompted by our own endeavors, and sometimes born of a response to an ever-changing world. We would soon find, however, that our stories cannot be told without giving the ebb and flow of hope its proper attention. Towards the end of the tale we will undoubtedly take time to count our blessings and give thanks for their power to augment our lives.
Scripture gives us a well-focused lens through which we deepen our insights into the abiding mystery of life, just as John Calvin said it would be. It is not, however, a predictable journey. Time and again it turns our attention to improbable places. If we are to understand liberation we must first hear the cry of the Hebrew people as they endured slavery. If we are celebrate what God can do, we are likely to be drawn not to paragons of health and financial success, but to a group of lepers, a paralytic who has yet to walk, and women who know the meaning of “shun.” The Lenten trek begins not with a celebration, but with the “imposition” of ashes that reminds us of our mortality.
So it is with this week's reading from the Gospel of John. The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus takes place not in broad daylight but in the depth of night in which daytime boundaries have lost their power to frame simple arguments. What happens at night is complex, somewhat confusing, and mysterious as life itself. We enter the discussion with verses that are chock full of territorial expectations that one would expect might point the way. But instead of solving a problem they simply reframe it.
“There was a Pharisee,” the text reads. The Pharisees knew that worship is not a one day affair, but a daily observance. One of their goals was to extend the sense of the holy so deeply felt on the Sabbath throughout the week. In a bible study last week one man who was not persuaded that Lent's would make an actual difference in the lives of those who observed it said, “From what I've seen everybody just goes back to what they were doing after Easter.” The Pharisees organized to help prevent just such a scenario. There are things you do when God is given primacy in your life; and there are things you do not do. A wise person learns and observes the difference and then shares that knowledge with others. It is essential to recognize that Nicodemus is part of a group. Birds of a feather do flock together when given an opportunity to do so. And when we get together we talk.
This morning I visited an Altzheimer's unit and noticed two chairs at the end of a long hallway. Both were occupied; and three people had drifted that way as well to share gentle conversation blessed by one-word sentences, nods of the head and occasional smiles. At the other end of the hallway a brightly lit dayroom also provided a gathering space. It is our nature to get together, and the patients had created a dayroom annex at the end of the long hallway. When Nicodemus speaks he will note not that he has noticed Jesus' healings, but that 'we” know the healings must be from God. In like manner Jesus notes that “we speak of what we know.” The world of coherence always seeks its adherents. It is in the boundary between coherence and connection that we find life full of wonderful, and inevitable, tension.
There are many layers of meaning in the landscape of coherence that introduces the text.
First we are introduced to a Pharisee.
Then the Pharisee is given a name. He isn't anybody; and he isn't somebody.
Next we learn he is a leader.
Next the leader meets Jesus, whose name reveals his saving mission that an esteemed leader might, or might not, need.
Next Jesus is referred to as “Rabbi.” Clearly the passage will be about learning and teaching. But learning and teaching about what? Coherence invariably asks, “What are you learning? And what are you teaching?”
Finally two men who raised in the same faith make it clear that God is the true focus of their conversation. Whereas Nicodemus pins his words to the world of experience, “No one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God,” Jesus pins his words to an understanding of God that transcends events. Nicodemus is impressed with and curious about signs; Jesus is otherwise inclined. The signs are what they are, but there is more, he seems to say. “Tell me about this,” Nicodemus seems to say and suddenly the teacher named Jesus becomes a teacher. And so it is that two worlds of meaning gently collide. It is not surprising that this happens in the dead of night where we must search carefully to get our true bearings.
Listen carefully to the text. I have highlighted those words that designate boundaries that are such an essential part of coherence.
John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
The text comes full circle in its understandings of life. What began as one man's question ends with a sermon addressed to everyone. What began with Jesus gently dismissing the power of signs ends with a reference to a serpent in the wilderness, a sign that once saved a snake-bitten people. What begins with reference to Israel ends with an embrace of the world. Although the world “believe” dominates the last two verses, it is clear that essential though belief may be, birth is not something we do. Instead we are born and then find our lives to be an extended conversation about the nature life to which we are called.
As we prepare to preach this text, it will inevitably spark memories of those times you thought something was “real” and then found it to be something else entirely. I have been to many committee meetings in my life as a pastor in which there were also many agendas present at the table and when we left the meeting and headed into the night only sometimes did we find daylight after the meeting. Most of the time these agendas were somewhat hidden, making the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus remarkable for its candor, its naming of boundaries, and its willingness to engage in a conversation about life.
Or, it may be that you recall a place of apparent confusion that revealed stunning clarity. Such an incident happened to me this week. I was working with a group of dementia/ patients. As we began worship it was clear the congregation was on the move. Some needed to travel, and did. Some clapped to the rhythm of the hymn I played on my banjo, others seemed to drift away as the window framed a tableau of beautifully falling snow. Every once in a while one would speak, his or her words seeking to lay claim to some hidden world of meaning. There could not be, or would not be, an explanation as to why those words were spoken. Suffice it to say the short sentences, or counting over and over again, marked a boundary just as surely as your sermon will this Sunday.
Several days before I underwent yet another round of surgery on my left eye. The hospital asked me to wear a green wristband until a nitrogen bubble is absorbed into whatever cells will receive it. The wristband caught the attention of one woman whose only speech up to that point had been somewhat outside the realm of “normal” conversation. She pointed to the band, wanting to know what happened.
“It's for my eye,” I said. “There's a bubble in it. When the bubble goes away I can take this off.” She smiled.
“Your eye is going to be okay,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “You have given me a blessing, and I thank you.”
As so often happen, if we are to look for life we are wise to not avoid conversations born of an Alzheimer's night or an encounter between a wise leader named Nicodemus and a teacher named Jesus.
Larry
I welcome your response to these columns. I may be reached at:
larry@leadingcausesoflife.org
Or
larrypray@gmail.com
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