Commencing with Lent in March, 2011 we will be using the gospel text for each week instead. Visitors will be helped by reading through the text as listed in each case before engaging the prayer. We hope in this way to both stimulate thought on textual themes and encourage devotional engagement week by week in each text's implications for life as we know it today.
Ash Wednesday, March 9 (First Week in Lent) - Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
It's all here, O God. Reminders as ashes are placed on our foreheads that we are but dust and to dust we shall one day return. Not bad news, but good if, in response to Jesus teaching, we heed it.
We need to be warned against practicing our piety--a good thing in itself--not before God first but before others. So also are warnings issued here against pride in such matters as the giving of alms and even praying and fasting--not to mention storeing up treasures for ourselves on earth.
O God, save us from all self-seeking by planting deep within us the Spirit of our Lord. Teach us your will and way, and help us in our living to serve first the interests of your Kingdom. Amen.
Sunday, March 13 (First in Lent) - Matthew 4:1-11
What must it have been like, O God, for your Son to be tempted? Any why did the Spirit lead him out over forty days and nights into the wilderness to fast before he was thus enticed by the tempter?
Surely here we are at the heart of both the trauma and triumph of redemption. The battlers here engaged are no minor characters. This is a cosmic battle between your beloved Son and a fallen, once-angelic pretender to your throne.
Thank you, O God, that you sent Jesus thus to do battle for the likes of us. And thank you for the encourgaement of knowing he won that battle by using your Word.
Teach us to speak that same Word to all our lesser temptions, O God. Free us from the fantasy that we can deliver ourselves from evil thoughts, ways, and acts. Help us to so hide your Word in our hearts that we, following Jesus, may not sin against you. Amen.
Sunday, March 20 (Second in Lent) - Matthew 17:1-9
It all appears to come together in Jesus, O God--your beloved Son. Cosmic light, your voice of approval, and the appearing of Moses and Elijah--their lineage thus passed on to Peter, James, and John. No wonder the latter fell to their knees in awe and worship--rising at your invitation to see "noone except Jesus himself alone."
This was the first text assigned me to preach on in homiletics as a freshman in seminary. Well do I remember my own fear and trembling, trying to understand why Jesus, on coming down from the mountain, instructed his disciples to "tell no one about the vision until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
Like the early disciples, we need to truly be with Jesus over time, O God--to see and affirm who he truly is. Thank you for your patience with us as we follow him--both up the mountain where he is transfigured before us and down into the valley where he leads us toward Jerusalem and his suffering and death.
And yes, O God, bring us to see him on Easter Morn, as Peter, James, John, and others did, resurrected from the dead, true Lord of life and death. Remind us daily that Jesus, once come among us, now ascended into heaven, is coming again soon to establish forever your Kingdom he announced and began among us. Amen.
March 27 (Third in Lent) - John 4:5-42
Thank you, O God, that there isn't any "no man's land" to you, as there is so often to us. Like your ancient people, who never wanted to go through Samaria, we have places ourselves where we would rather never go. But every place for you is sacred, just as it was for Jesus. He had to go through Samaria, Scripture says, and he was tired. Yet even there in that hated place we note that "he sat down by Jacob's well."
How significant that was in all that followed, Lord, as he engaged in conversation with a Samaritan woman. What was in her little life became tied to what more there was to life--in Jesus, of course, but also in the whole biblical saga going back in this case to Jacob.
Thank you, Lord, how you catch all of us unaware, whatever our name, no matter where we live or what we have done and are doing. And thank you for the heart of love with which you both are aware of our inner soul and long to heal our whole being.
Make us like Jesus, so living in you and aware of your mighty acts in history that living by your Spirit we will learn to see opportunities for witness wherever we are and go. Send us even to places we would rathwer not go and help us find there both the rest in you that is always present in sacred memory and the love for people you intend us to win for the Kingdom. Amen.
