The three faithful members of the congregation I serve came out on a drizzly cold evening once again to discuss the passages for this Sunday, the fifth Sunday in Lent.
Together we agreed that we could listen to Jeremiah's Book of Comfort all day long! There was some discussion of the use of the word "husband" in verse 32, which one member of the group wisely surmised was there to signify God's desire to be intimately connected with us--without any prompting from me! The hopefulness of this passage, and its description of a people so in love with it's God that it will make the law a part of its very being was truly comforting in this age of skepticism and detachment from deep relationship.
The Mystic Fourth Apostle, such a contrast from Mark with his Suffering Servant, sure packs a lot into a pericope! Once again, as a few weeks ago, we were talking about the idea of losing one's life in order to gain it. One gentleman said this,"Are we willing to let go of the status quo in order to serve God's purposes, or do we grasp it tighter, hoping that God will see things our way?"
I couldn't have said it better myself!
What's on your mind as you approach this last Sunday before Palm/Passion Sunday?
John paints some wonderful pictures dosen't he. We have been challenged recently on what it means to be church in 21st century...what needs to die in order for the seed to bear fruit. If the grain is ripe to the point where it needs to fall and start the lifecycle all over again ....how dare we stand in the way insisting that we hang on refusing to die and allowing the seed to rot on the stalk!!!
ReplyDeleteI've posted on some of our struggles to come to terms with this recently...
In our church, we're doing a Lenten series on phrases from the liturgy (we're using a new-ish Eucharistic prayer...) so my pharse this week is "cleanse our hearts", even though its not really new language. Anyway, I think I'm going to talk about God wanting us to work on have clean hearts so that God can write the covenant their instead of all the other junk we fill it up with... I have an idea about using an easel to show how a clean slate to work from makes it easier to write a message... but i'm still working on that :)
ReplyDeleteWhat's it all about, Alfie? That's what's on my mind. This relationship, this covenant, what does it have to do with our obsession with rituals and buildings and Trustees and Christmas pageants? How can we find what is essential (which as a fan of Le Petit Prince I know is invisible to the eye, but I've used that quote in more than one sermon in the past 3.5 years already), really and truly essential, when we've forgotten why we come together in the first place?
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling challenged.
,"Are we willing to let go of the status quo in order to serve God's purposes, or do we grasp it tighter, hoping that God will see things our way?"
ReplyDeleteThis is a GREAT quote. I think I'll be blogging about that. If not preaching for the forseeable future.
I, too, will probably be incorporating that gentleman's wise words into my preaching on Sunday!
ReplyDeleteI'm still thinking about the seed falling to earth -- funny how at different times of life the lectionary readings will pull a different thing out -- last time this lection came around I was thinking about "the Greeks" and what on earth that meant to me.
ReplyDelete