Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 29th:  1 Samuel 16:11-13; Psalm 31:9-16; and Philippians 1:1-11.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

I enjoy the lesson shared in the story of David’s anointing.  Samuel has a rather familiar relationship with Yahweh.  Just prior to today’s 1 Samuel passage, the prophet has been sent to the household of Jesse to anoint a replacement king for the discredited King Saul.  Jesse presents his eldest son Eliab to the prophet.  When Samuel sees Eliab’s appearance and the height of his stature, he assumes that this must be the one Yahweh has chosen to lead Israel.  But he is not.  Jesse processes six of his other sons before Samuel for a total of seven.  Seven is a biblical figure of completeness.  But again, none of these are Yahweh’s chosen one.

Samuel is confused because every son of Jesse, he assumed, had appeared and was rejected by Yahweh.  Samuel thought one of these must have been the one.  Yahweh needed to remind his prophet that as familiar as they were in conversation that God will always see differently than do we.  I love this message that God sees differently.  So our confused prophet asks Jesse if these are all his sons.  (How amazing it would have been if instead of sons the prophet had asked, “Are these all your children?” and how startled and affronted would everyone have been if Yahweh had chosen a daughter to rule over God’s people?  This would have amplified the message that God sees differently but to a decibel point that would have been deafening for a people of that age, and well, I guess many of this age too.)  Jesse informs the prophet that there is one more, the youngest, but he was not even invited to join the family to meet Samuel.  The youngest boy was left to his chores; he was tending the sheep.  This unexpected son, the almost forgotten one, is the person Yahweh had chosen to be Israel’s next king.

What a glorious message this is.  The fullness of seven sons had come and gone – complete, and yet Yahweh was far from done.  God sees differently than do we.  When we imagine there is no more, when we are ready to give in to hopelessness, Yahweh still sees what is possible.  This is a message of encouragement when we may feel at wit’s end.  This is also a message that we not rush toward judgment.  In the context of Lent, we are following after a Saviour who was judged an utter failure.  Jesus was betrayed and deserted, crucified as a failed insurrectionist by the Romans and rejected by most all of His people as a failed Messiah.  This is what people saw, but this is definitely not what God saw.  When we judge others, we should be warned away from superficial views by remembering how Jesus looked on Golgotha.

Paul writes to the Christians at Philippi:  “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best.”  Paul is asking the members of his church to lead with love not with judgment, and that this love benefit from increased knowledge and insight so that we may “determine what is best.”  What is best will not be rash or prejudiced attitudes absent love, knowledge or insight.  Lent asks us to be cautious and patient in our judgment of others, and it expects that others will do the same.  In this way, we may even begin to see as God sees, as God sees through the eyes of the one crucified.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 28th:  2 Kings 4:18-37; Psalm 143; and Ephesians 2:1-10.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

One of Paul’s essential teachings is that salvation is granted through faith not works.  Before his conversion, Paul was trained as a Pharisee, a strict observer and teacher of the Mosaic Law.  It is said that there are 613 commandments in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Laws affected not only the spiritual and worship practices of observant Jews, but nearly every aspect of daily life, as well.  Righteousness, in a certain sense, could be gauged by how a person followed the Law, what a person did.

Paul’s conversion was a powerfully mystical encounter with the glorified Christ of heaven.  Paul had done nothing to deserve this special vision of Jesus.  As a matter of fact, Paul was working against the followers of Jesus when he experienced his conversion.  As the account is shared in Acts of the Apostles, the heavenly Jesus appears to “a disciple in Damascus named Ananias.”  (9:10)  Ananias protests being sent to Paul because of “how much evil he [Paul] has done to your saints.” (9:13)  The Lord answers Ananias saying, “‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel …’” (9:15)  Paul did nothing to deserve a revelation from heaven and Paul was basically named an apostle by the heavenly Jesus based on what only the glorified Christ could see as Paul’s potential, what Paul would do not what Paul had done. 

Works are completely absent from Paul’s experience of Jesus.  Rather, Paul experiences Jesus as a gift from God.  No payment is expected for a gift that is offered, but neither should it be treated disrespectfully.  Accordingly, Paul worked tirelessly to share Jesus with others.  He traveled far and wide throughout the Roman Empire planting church communities, establishing local leadership groups, and then moving on to another location to do the same.  He stayed in contact with these various communities through correspondence, some of which survived and made it into the New Testament canon. 

In today’s selection from Ephesians, we read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”  Salvation through faith as a gift from God is a teaching that flows from Paul’s own experiences.  This is Paul’s first-person testimony based on his encounter on the Road to Damascus. 

There is also the message in this passage that we are created “for good works,” and that these should be “our way of life.”  Works do not earn faith and thus salvation, but works flow from faith.  Salvation is a gift from Christ that we can never repay.  The character Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory hated gifts.  He felt indebted to the gift giver.  He tried to calculate an exact equivalent to return to the gift giver to get out of the feeling of indebtedness.  This was a comedy on television, but it is an impossibility when it comes to the gift of salvation.  We are forever indebted to Jesus.

Salvation cost Jesus His life.  There is nothing in any of our lives, or even in all our lives combined that can repay Jesus for this gift.  It is an impossibility.  However, Jesus offers salvation as a free gift.  This would upset terribly Sheldon, but for us as people of faith, it is meant to inspire good works as a way of life.  Not to repay Jesus, but to pay it forward.

May Lent help us to appreciate better the gift of salvation that cost Jesus the cross, and may this then inspire us to live our lives in appreciation of that free, priceless gift.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 27th:  1 Kings 17:17-24; Psalm 143; and Acts 20:7-12.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

I think every seminarian has heard about Eutychus.  He comes up in homiletics classes, the classes basically about sermons.  No matter the importance of what you are saying – for remember this is Paul who is talking – there is always the danger of simply saying too much. 

Early Christians from the start were honouring the first day of the week, Sunday, as their special day of worship.  Sunday in the church is always a celebration of Easter Sunday’s resurrection.  This is why Lenten Sundays are not counted as part of Lent’s 40 days.  Christians were gathering to be in the presence of the one who was raised from the dead on the first day of the week.  With Jesus not confined to death’s tomb, His followers congregated on the first day of the week to celebrate His presence among them.

Those earliest Christians, however, were not morning people.  Our weekly worship is a morning event.  Theirs tended to be an evening gathering.  This was based on the institution of Holy Communion at the Last Supper.  This was the evening Passover dinner that Jesus shared with His disciples.  At this table, Jesus broke bread and shared it with the Twelve telling them that this was His body.  He shared the cup, telling them this was His blood.  He commanded also, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Accordingly, those first Christians gathered for an evening meal together, and during the actual meal, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread (Holy Communion) and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42) 

The Jewish day is from evening to evening.  When we read today “On the first day of the week …,” this is Sunday, but in our reckoning it may actually be Saturday evening.  Regardless, Paul is among them on Sunday, the first day of the week.  Paul has plans to leave the next day.  Before he leaves, he wants to make sure that the believers in Troas have as good a hold on the faith as possible.  So Paul preaches and teaches them from the sunset breaking of bread until midnight.  Let’s just call that six hours.

The room, says the text, is well lit, but still Paul has been preaching/teaching for six hours.  (Sort of puts my sermons in perspective.)  At this six hour point, Eutychus begins to nod off “while Paul talked still longer.”  At some point, Eutychus could not fight off sleep any longer.  He gives in to exhaustion.  The problem is that he fell asleep on the sill of a third-story window.  He tumbles out the window and is pronounced dead on the ground below.  Paul goes down, picks Eutychus up, and tells everyone that he will be just fine.  Then, amazingly, Paul goes back up to the third-floor room and just starts preaching/teaching all over again, and he does so until the sun rises.  Added all together, this sounds like a twelve hour sermon.  (Now my 12-15 minutes in the pulpit are really in perspective.)

It makes me smirk when I then read of Paul, “Then he left.”  Paul breaks away from his preaching to check on Eutychus, declares him fine, returns to preaching, “then he left,” and only then do we hear that Eutychus was just fine.  This was a pretty dramatic event in Troas, not to mention for Eutychus, but for Paul it was rather run-of-the-mill.  Not even Eutychus falling out a window to his supposed death was as important to Paul as the Word of God. 

In homiletics, the story of Eutychus carries the warning about saying too much, but it also shares the example of Paul who held the Word of God to be most extraordinary.  We have entered the final stretch of our Lenten journey.  There is only this week and next.  I hope that if you have made these posts a part of your journey that you have grown accustomed to reading the Bible daily, to reading the Word of God.  I hope that you see in the biblical words the extraordinary Word.  And I do hope that you will continue the practice of daily Bible reading even after Lent has passed to the glories of that particularly amazing first day of the week when the women went to the tomb ... well, that’s for another time.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 25th:  Psalm 130; Ezekiel 36:8-15; and Luke 24:44-53.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is nine months until Christmas.  This would be the putative day the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she would bear a child.  Well, this sure seems to be a non sequitur for a Lenten Blog.  But what about today’s Gospel selection.  It’s an Easter story.  This seems equally out of place.  I was speaking with a friend at one of the Lenten Discussions.  He told me of working on a commission that consisted of an ecumenical array of members.  Part of the commission was made up of Quakers. 

Quakers emphasize the holiness of each day.  As such, they do not observe a liturgical calendar as we do.  They do not divide the year into seasons such as the one we are now in – Lent.  They do not express heightened solemnity on any given Christmas or Easter, for example.  All days are holy days.  If I understand this correctly, and I can’t guarantee that I do, since Jesus resurrected there is no need to recall in a liturgical setting events such as Christmas or Good Friday.  Those belong to the past.  The resurrection makes Jesus a forever dweller in the present.  In this sense, it is not strange to talk about Christmas or Easter during Lent because they are of the past.  They are all a received part of our shared present with Jesus.

This is true.  The actual Christmas and the actual Easter are a part of the past, but these historical events are also mysteries that transcend time.  I believe that it serves us well as believers to proceed again and again with Jesus through His life story.  This does not repeat those events so much as it reaffirms them.  Religion is not only an intellectual exercise.  It is an emotional one, as well.  The changing church seasons take us through the changing emotions of how we interact with Jesus through the different aspects of His life and ministry. 

So Christmas and Easter are in one sense non sequiturs for a Lenten blog, but in another sense this mixed bag of emotions reminds us of the timelessness of Christ.  Jesus once was born and once did die on the cross, but Jesus now lives among and within us.  We cannot be witnesses to those historical events, but in today’s Gospel passage about Jesus’ appearance to His disciples, it is the resurrected Jesus who is speaking.  The resurrected Jesus is just as real to them as Jesus is to any of us today.  When Jesus says, “‘You are witnesses,’” in a very important sense He is speaking about the historical witness of the unique generation of eye-witnesses, but this is not to make it impossible for Jesus to say to each and every one of us as well that we are witnesses to the resurrection because the resurrected Jesus does not belong to 2,000 years ago.  The resurrected Jesus is forever present.

Tomorrow we will gather for the Fifth Sunday of Lent worship Service.  I hope that our worship lifts our souls, that it is of personal worth.  However, let us not ignore the fact that our attendance gives witness in a very public way to Jesus in the present.  It is one of the most effective ways of sharing Jesus with others.  It conveys in no uncertain terms that something of spiritual value takes place at worship.  I invite you to share in our Sunday worship Service tomorrow.  As I said, I hope it is meaningful to you, but also may it serve as an effective witness for the Jesus among and within us still in the present.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.  

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 24th:  Psalm 130; Ezekiel 33:10-16; and Revelation 11:15-19.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is our fifth Lenten Friday, especially solemn days within the solemn Season of Lent.  The Prophet Ezekiel says to us today, “The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness.”  This is a liberating revelation.  It frees each person from a supposed inherited punishment for the sins of his or her forebears. 

I presume that the message conveyed in the Torah is intended to speak to the munificence of God when it is written:  “For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Deuteronomy 5:9-10)  This obviously is hyperbole.  If it is not, if it is literal, it creates mathematical contradictions that cannot be erased.  As hyperbole, it conveys the seriousness of God’s judgment, but puts it in the context of the extraordinariness of God’s faithful love.

Even so, there is the lingering message that the consequences of sin outlast the lifetime of the sinner.  Such a notion may have arisen from the practical observations that a parent’s life choices do affect the life situation of the next generation(s).  These consequences can persist within a manageable, finite period.  There are many families where great grandchildren are held in the arms of great grandparents, which is the observable fourth generation of the biblical text.  This manageable, observable, finite, period is contrasted with the divine span of “the thousandth generation,” an incomprehensibly extended period.  The message may be that our sins do leave a practical, lasting effect on the generations that follow us, but that God’s “steadfast love” is effectively timeless.

Ezekiel, however, is in a particular situation where even this message is fraught.  The nation of Israel/Judah has been destroyed, the king dethroned, the Temple gone, and the people sent into exile in a foreign land.  These are the people of Ezekiel’s prophecy.  The generations that had come before them had failed and now they were living with the consequences.  Ezekiel must speak encouragement to them.  He must let them know of this new revelation that in the utter destruction they are enduring there is hope.  The sins of the past are past.  The consequences of good or evil take effect immediately.  A person cannot rely on the goodness of the past to cover the sins of the present, and alternatively and probably more to the prophet’s point, a person must not worry that the sins of the past prevent the blessings of righteousness to take hold in the present.

To a people defeated, deported and demoralized Ezekiel offers the hope of a fresh start.  Change is possible.  No one is locked into their story.  Each person is free to become.

On this fifth Lenten Friday, maybe take some time to think about the example of the good thief on a cross adjacent to Jesus’.  He admits that he has been “condemned justly,” but he turns to the crucified Saviour and says, “‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’” (Luke 23:41, 42)  There is not much life left in this man’s lifetime, but the instant that conversion takes place it takes effect.  Jesus consoles the repentant man by saying, “‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’” (Luke 23:43)  No one is bound by their past in the eyes of Jesus.  He sees the person as they are, not as they were.  What a blessed liberation this is for anyone who feels entrapped by the past; and what a call for people of faith, for the followers of Jesus, to not be a harshly judgmental people.  This is something to consider as we approach Calvary and the crucified Saviour.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.  

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 23rd:  Psalm 130; Ezekiel 1:1-3; 2:8 - 3:3; and Revelation 10:1-11.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

The Book of Revelation is written after the composition of the Pauline Epistles.  In those writings, there are offices of bishops, deacons, presbyters and apostles.  The Pauline churches have created structure.  This structure was originally charismatic, based on recognized gifts of the Spirit.  As time moved forward, those offices took on a more formalized pattern.  In that same area, however, Revelation refers to only two offices:  apostles and prophets.  Apostles are referred to as belonging to the past.  Their time has come to a close.  They have laid the foundations on which the church is built (cf. 21:14). 

Prophets, on the other hand, have a role and an importance in the book’s present. Jurgen Roloff writes in the volume “Revelation” in the series “A Continental Commentary,” “He [John, the author of Revelation] makes their [the prophets’] task and mission in 10:1-11 into a theme of detailed reflection, by which it is clear that he is referring to his own role.  It may be concluded from this that John was presumably the leading member of a group of prophets that saw its purpose in influencing directly the churches with the testimony entrusted to them.” (p. 8-9)  This is the passage the church shares with us today in the Lectionary.

The church of the Book of Revelation is well aware of the local Pauline churches, but they have chosen to approach the idea of church differently.  Theirs remains a thoroughly charismatic church.  Authority comes from the Spirit mediated through the prophets, which is what is visualized for us in today’s passage. 

Revelation almost didn’t make into the New Testament canon because its writings are uniquely strange.  The style is apocalyptic.  It is a writing for when things are so bad that little to no hope exists that change is possible.  The only avenue imaginable for God’s victory is the total collapse of the known world and its replacement by the reign of God.  There is a problem though.  An apocalyptic like the Book of Revelation envisions God’s conquest, but it is written during extremely hostile and dangerous times.  This is the reason for the strangeness of the prophecies.  Their message must be hidden in a sense.  John cannot come out against the rule and worship of Caesars while writing during the time of the rule and worship of Caesars – not if he wants to remain alive and more importantly if his writings are to have a chance to be shared.

Roloff and other scholars argue for a composition date late in the 90’s for Revelation.  The totality of the Roman state is expressed in the imperial cult of the Caesars, that the Roman ruler is a manifestation of a Roman god.  This cult was not systematically propagated until late in the reign of the Emperor Domitian, which would be the late 90’s.  Revelation is not some coded prediction for the far distant future, even if it is used like this still today.  Revelation has been used to demonize many an evil state throughout history, and yet history continues.  The reign of God did not intervene.  Please take any Revelation-based predictions with a grain of salt.

What we have in Revelation is a church guided by Christian prophets.  They are dealing with an imperial cult that seems all-powerful.  The Caesar demands to be called “our Lord and God.”  Christians and the church of the Book of Revelation are trying to live their faith in Jesus in this threatening environment.  The prophet shares that to receive the prophecy is at first as the taste of honey in the mouth, but then the message of the prophecy is as bitter as an upset stomach.  To interact with God, in other words, is a joy, but the message God shares is a burden.

Our Lenten closeness to Christ is a blessing, but the remembrance of Jesus’ suffering is bitter.  The awesome love of God that is no clearer than at the cross cannot obscure the reality of Jesus’ pain and suffering.  We should not dull the torture that Jesus endured physically, nor His psychological distress from the denial and abandonment of those closest to Him, nor even His spiritual struggle as He tries to fathom the will of God in all this, for remember in the earliest Gospel Jesus dies with nothing but a loud scream. (Mark 15:37)  Lent calls upon us to savour the sweetness of God’s loving salvation at the cross, but we cannot simply ignore or rush past the devastation of the cross.

We are getting closer to Golgotha.  I hope and pray that our Lenten journey is preparing us to meet up with the crucified Saviour and the ineffable love His cross proves.   
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.  

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 22nd:  Psalm 146; Isaiah 60:17-22; and Matthew 9:27-34.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

This evening is another of our Lenten Discussions.  This is the 26th year that we have held these gatherings.  Various local congregations come together to try and deepen the Lenten experience.  The general theme of this year’s Discussion Series is “On the Outside Looking In.”  I have my chance to lead one of these discussions tonight at 7:00pm at the Shelburne Congregational Church.  It will be in person and a Zoom link is also available.  I invite you to come and join us tonight.  In person if you choose, or online by sending me an email (randyc1897@gmail.com) so that I can send you the Zoom link. 

In today’s Gospel, we hear that two blind men are following after Jesus.  When Jesus reached the house where He was staying, they even entered, still following after Jesus.  To be blind and to follow after Jesus must have presented unique difficulties, but they were determined.  Jesus makes this clear when in the house He asks them, “‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’”  They answer in the affirmative and are healed.  The two blind men made a conscious and concerted effort to follow after Jesus.

The other miracle story today is different.  There is no “follow after.”  The blindness of the two men was a physical hindrance to following after Jesus, but it doesn’t prevent them from doing so.  The inability to speak in the second miracle story does not present such a hurdle.  However, the one who is mute does not follow after Jesus.  Rather, he was brought to Jesus.  And if you noticed, in this second miracle of healing, there is included the notion of demonic possession.  This is not only a physical ailment.  This is a spiritual ailment. 

In the first miracle, Jesus asks if the men believe, they answer in the affirmative, and Jesus replies, “‘According to your faith let it be done to you.’”  Their belief is at the heart of the miracle.  In the second miracle, the one who is mute is brought, can we read compelled, to Jesus.  There is no belief evident here in the afflicted one.  Jesus does not cure the muteness per se.  Instead, Jesus exorcises the demon, and with that the man is able to speak. 

In the first story, to believe makes wonders possible in Jesus.  To not believe is what needs to be healed in the second story.  I think the language of demons is bound to that ancient time, but behind the imagery lies an important message.  Faith in Jesus opens doors to many things otherwise impossible so it is just as powerful to grant a physical cure such as sight returned as it is to expel disbelief. 

During Lent, we follow after Jesus, and amazing things can happen.  During Lent we also have the chance to bring others to Jesus as did those who brought the one who was mute to Jesus, not to dispel demons, but to offer the chance of discovering faith.  This was the original hope of our Lenten Discussion Series.  Rev. George Cory, Rev. Dr. Richard Killough and I thought it would be a beneficial Lenten practice to offer discussions rather than another mid-week worship.  We hoped that we would be able to deepen the faith of those who already were following after Jesus, and we wanted to create a space for those who were not following after Jesus, who were not active church members, who were seeking to ask questions, who were not comfortable with formal church worship but could sit in the informality of a discussion group.  Those hopes are expressed in today’s Gospel of two of Jesus’ miracle stories.

In this same spirit, I again invite you to join us this evening for our Lenten Discussion. 
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.  

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 21st:  Psalm 146; Isaiah 42:14-21; and Colossians 1:9-14.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

One of the hopes of Lent is that it broadens our perspective, that it helps us to realize that we are not bound by the temporal, that we are bound for the eternal.  However, it’s not easy to plan for eternity when we seem reluctant to plan for tomorrow. 

It’s not easy to look beyond immediate needs if a lot of individuals and families barely survive paycheck to paycheck, and many others can’t even manage that.  They don’t have the luxury of thinking beyond the immediate.

Or I watch the unnecessary banking crisis start to rear its head again.  These corporations want to make a profit, the bigger the better, and the sooner the better.  Something as predictable as rising interest rates being used to tamp down inflation has threatened not only their immediate goals of profit, but their very long-term survival, not to mention the world economy.  They had the luxury of thinking beyond the immediate, but they chose not to do so, which is a management scandal if not a crime.

Yesterday the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report that found the world is likely to miss its most ambitious climate target and that humans have caused irreversible damage to communities and ecosystems.  The report synthesizes years of studies on the causes and consequences of rising temperatures, leading the U.N. secretary general to demand that developed countries eliminate carbon emissions by 2040 — a decade earlier than the rest of the world.  The facts reveal that we have caused “irreversible” damage and yet we can’t seem to put ourselves into the shoes of our older selves, our children and grandchildren, not to mention the flora and fauna we are threatening or eliminating.  In this case we simply refuse to think beyond the immediate.

Faith tries to push back against this myopia that is forced upon us, chosen or denied.  In today’s Psalm, we read, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.  …  Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry.”  These are words from the liturgy of the Jerusalem Temple some 3,000 years ago, and they remain meaningful today.  They call upon us to look beyond the immediate and think about the forever.

This forever does not begin when we enter into the eternal; it begins when we realize we are already part of, preparing for, the eternal.  The Psalmist writes that “our hope is in the Lord.”  Faith extends our worldview and our personal view while we are still firmly within the here and now.  Faith is our hope for the future that acts in the present.  And in this way, it not only makes us aware that what we do now plays a part in our eternity, it also helps us to think beyond the immediate in how we lead our lives.  Faith broadens our scope so that we can think beyond immediate satisfaction and concentrate instead on long-term goals, which protect us from the dangers of forgetting that what we do today bears on the world we inherit or pass on to our descendants tomorrow.

Faith’s long-term outlook is not only a vision of eternity.  It is a vision of tomorrow and that we have a responsibility today to think about those who come after us.  May Lent’s emphasis upon selflessness help us to better appreciate the long-term blessings of thinking beyond all that we can grab for ourselves in the present at the expense of what we or others will have to pay in the future.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.  

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 20th:  Psalm 146; Isaiah 59:9-19; and Acts 9:1-20.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

This story is from a number of years ago and I cannot remember all the details.  It was a listing of the most influential people in history.  On that list, Saul of Tarsus, who will assume the name Paul, was listed above Jesus of Nazareth.  This seems strange in the context of a Lenten Blog, but in a data driven survey Saul of Tarsus had a much larger footprint than Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus’ ministry concentrated on Galilee, Samaria and Judah.  He did gain followers, but He dies alone as a crucified insurrectionist.  Saul of Tarsus, on the other hand, takes the life and message of Jesus and spreads it throughout the Roman Empire, and lays the groundwork for an organized church that continues to share Jesus worldwide.  It is hard to imagine Christianity without Paul. 

The twelve disciples are not nearly as active in missionary work as Saul of Tarsus.  It is even rather difficult to explain their ministry.  They may have remained as some sort of the whole in Jerusalem.  This was the earliest center of Jesus’ followers, but the Twelve were not the leader of the Jerusalem community.  The Jerusalem community was rather traditional.  As such, authority was thought to be best expressed through heredity.  Remember that the Gospels go to great length to arrange for Jesus to be born within the lineage of David so that Jesus could assume the mantle of Messiah, an hereditary title based on the tradition of the Messiah as the Son of David.  The leader of the Jerusalem church, and an authority for the most traditional faction of the earliest church, was James, the brother of Jesus.  The eponymous New Testament Epistle is credited to James’ hand. 

The Twelve almost seem to have assumed an otherworldly authority.  They were the living connection with the historical Jesus.  Their presence was valued.  However, as a group they never approach the energy or success of Saul of Tarsus – which is amazing.  In today’s reading from Acts, we have the story of how Saul meets Jesus.  They never cross paths during Jesus’ lifetime.  Saul, trained as a Pharisee, is actually opposing the followers of Jesus.  In his enthusiasm for destroying the church, he is traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus on a mule when the heavenly Jesus knocks him off his ass and onto his … well, you know. 

This is a personal, spiritual encounter.  As such, it is beyond verification.  Saul of Tarsus claims that the heavenly Jesus has chosen him for a ministry to the Gentiles.  His proof is his word.  Imagine how this must have gone over with the Jerusalem church authorities and the Twelve.  They know Saul only as an enemy.  They know that Saul has no connection with the historical Jesus as they did.  This, and understandably so, has forged their faith as tradition bound, conservative.  Jesus is understood in the Jewish context of Jesus of Nazareth, and again as understandably so.  Now Saul comes along as a stranger and a known enemy, and he begins talking about breaking away from tradition, about reaching out to the Gentiles, about redefining the ministry of Jesus.  Who is this man?

Throughout his ministry, and you can read it for yourselves in his Epistles, Saul of Tarsus was opposed by a very conservative faction of the church that insisted on maintaining a Jewish tradition within Christianity.  Paul answered with a gospel that focused on salvation through belief in Jesus as the only essential.  And it all started on the Road to Damascus.

One of the first titles for the church was “the Way.”  We hear it in today’s reading.  The Way expresses the belief that we are followers of Jesus.  Jesus leads and His path is the Way.  It is nomenclature that embodies the vitality and movement of our faith.  The Way is the antithesis of any notion of stagnation.  We are not called to protect where we are in the faith; we are called to follow the Way.  Ours is a faith constantly expecting change.  We arrive at a faith that fulfills us, but it is an oasis not a destination.  In the oasis, we are refreshed and recharged.  We are readied to move forward again, to our next oasis.  This is what the Way implies, and in the New Testament we encounter it for the first time when we meet Saul on the way to Damascus to confront the people of the Way.

Saul of Tarsus was an extraordinary evangelist, more successful than any other New Testament person, and he came out of nowhere.  The unexpected is always a part of our faith.  Don’t be surprised by it.  Be surprised if surprises disappear.  Let Lent surprise you.  Be honest enough to challenge your suppositions.  Be like Ananias:  “I’m not going to Saul.  He’s an enemy.”  But Ananias listens to the heavenly Jesus, goes to Saul, and greets him as “Brother.”  What an unexpected turn of events this must have been for Ananias, but look at its results.  Again, may Lent surprise us as we continue to follow the Way, a path laid out for us by a crucified Saviour.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.