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 14th:  Genesis 14:17-24; Psalm 27; and Philippians 3:17-20.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is Pi-day because the first three digits of Pi are 3.14.  Pi refers to the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.  Diameter is the straight line maximum width of a circle.  A circle’s circumference can be imagined as an infinite number of straight lines coming together to form a circle’s curve.  The straight lines must be infinitely small to curve, thus they are only theoretical.  Since Pi is the ratio of the one straight line of a definite length and the infinite number of purely theoretical lines of the circumference, it can never, ever be exactly defined.  Pi has been calculated out to 105 trillion digits, and it never repeats, it never concludes.  Pi is extremely exact, just imagine 105 trillion digits of exactness, but it can never, ever be exactly calculated – even after another 105 trillion digits.

On this second Lenten Friday, as focus narrows even more on the cross, I think of it in similar ways to that of Pi.  Jesus’ enemies testify to the crucifixion.  This is testimony beyond the control of believers.  They mock Him as a common criminal executed by the Romans.  The possibly oldest image of Christ crucified is the Alexamenos graffito on display at the Palatine Museum in Rome.  This crude drawing depicts Jesus with an ass’ head on the cross and is intended to insult the Christian faith of Alexamenos.  Such testimony of Jesus’ crucifixion is hard to dispute because it is obviously not intended to advance the faith. 

Additionally, it makes no sense for believers to make-up the crucifixion.  It was a scandal.  It was so horrific that it would take centuries before believers would depict Jesus on the cross in any form of public artwork.  The earliest example is one panel of the wooden doors to the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome that dates to the 5th century.  That’s 400 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.  Crucifixion remained a form of Roman public execution.  It remained too vivid and sacrilegious for believers to show Jesus crucified.  It happened.  It’s an historical fact.  It can be defined.

The cross, however, is so much more than how Jesus died.  The cross moves beyond description when we ask why Jesus died.  This has been the work of Christian theologians, mystics and the faithful for 2,000 years; and just like the lines of the circle can get smaller and smaller even down to 105 trillion segments but never define the circle, so the cross will always remain a mystery.  This does not mean it is unknowable, just like Pi is extremely accurate, but the cross will never be limited to facts.  The cross partakes of the infinite love of God, it’s like going out to 105 trillion digits and realizing you’re no closer to the end than when you began.

This is why Paul is so disturbed when believers try to limit the mystery of God.  Today he calls them “enemies of the cross of Christ.”  They focus on symbols such as dietary laws and circumcision so that “their minds are set on earthly things.”  Any time in any generation that believers or religious institutions put God’s mystery into a cage, no matter their intentions, it is to define what is undefinable.  It is to limit what is limitless.  It is to replace God’s infinity with earthly things. 

Work toward a better definition of what the cross means to you, but always with the humility that mystery is beyond definition.  The cross happened, but Lent is far too short, and a lifetime of Lents is far too short, to run out of wonder at what it means.  But let us keep working at it always for the cross is the omnipotent power and glory of God, and the ineffable love of God.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 13th:  Genesis 13:1-7, 14-18; Psalm 27; and Philippians 3:2-12.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Abraham was a nomadic herder.  At the same time, there were city-dwellers.  The latter were stationary.  If they lived in larger cities, they would live behind walls.  Their place was definite and defined.  Abraham was not one of these.  Abraham was constantly on the move.  His flocks determined his travels.  His home was wherever he pitched his tent, which is mentioned in today’s first reading when it states:  “To the place where his tent had been …”  He marks locations that are important to him, viewed as sacred, by building altars, stone heaps that were durable and could withstand the elements.  There are two in just today’s Genesis selection, one at Bethel and the other at Hebron. 

This is only a distance of about 35 miles and can be traversed by remaining in the hills, which are less densely populated and offer places to graze the flocks.  Additionally, the hills are separated from the plains where the city-dwellers live.  There was tension between these two groups of peoples.  This is reflected in the earlier Genesis story of Cain and Abel.  Cain is the farmer, the sedentary one.  Abel is the shepherd, the nomad.  Cain’s gift is rejected by God and Abel’s welcomed, which causes Cain to react with anger and he murders his  brother.  This story is told from the perspective of someone like Abraham.

When Yahweh promises to give the land to Abraham, what does that mean?  When Yahweh, says, “‘Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you,’” isn’t this the terminology of a wandering nomad?  This does not necessarily mean deeded and owned land.  It more likely is referring to the freedom to pass through the land as a one who herds flocks.  This may not be all that different from the land understandings of the Native American and Settler populations in Colonial America.  Settlers owned the land; Native Americans lived on the land.

This reveals that God is not bound by place; God is bound to people.  Wherever Abraham the nomadic herder is, God is with him.  “Look from the place where you are, northwards and southwards and eastwards and westwards,” wherever you are and wherever you go, God promises to be there, for God is everywhere.  Abraham needs to build his altars as markers, but wherever he goes, and whenever he builds an altar, the altar does not bring God to that place, it acknowledges that God is already there.

Paul takes great pride in his place among Abraham’s descendants.  He is from the tribe that gave Israel its first king and accordingly is named Saul.  He not only followed the ordinary religious practices of the Jews, he chose to become a Pharisee, one who separated from others by an extremely strict observance of the Law.  And yet, Paul says of this life:  “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.”  The God who is on the move, the God who is bound to people not place, is incarnate in Jesus Christ.  His full and natural humanity makes Jesus one with all other humans, wherever they may be, wherever they may go. 

And Paul is willing to suffer any insult or injury “because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”  May our Lenten days help us to better understand and hopefully replicate this powerful relationship that Paul feels with Jesus so that each of us may say, “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” 

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 12th:  Job 1:1-22; Psalm 17; and Luke 21:34—22:6.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

In today’s Gospel selection, Jesus warns of the consequences of continuing down the path of power and privilege.  They will not be avoidable:  “For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.”  The people listen, but the ones of power and privilege consort against Jesus.  They bribe one of His closest followers, one of the Twelve, and Judas accepts the money.  Judas agrees to betray Jesus.  All Jesus hoped to do was offer us a better life, one based on the broader perspective that we have a moral responsibility to the common good.  The consequence was that Jesus lost His life.

My friend Rev. Dr. Richard Killough shared with me one Lent a D. H. Lawrence short novel entitled “The Man Who Died.”  It tells a different, fictitious, Lenten story.  In Lawrence’s tale, Jesus does not die on the cross.  His near-death body is placed in a cave-tomb.  Jesus awakes in that tomb and then flees leaving it empty.  The tale presents the quite logical choice of this once crucified Jesus to walk away when He has the chance.  After all, look at what resulted from all His good works and kindness.  This short novel is offensive in a sense, but I have come to read it as sort of a back-handed compliment.  Lawrence presents a very convincing story of why Jesus should have left us to our own choice and course.  He had done everything He could and ended up on the cross because of it.  So the Man Who Died wasn’t going to hang around and let them try a second time to complete what they failed to do the first time.  Humanity was judged incorrigible so why bother.

I don’t think Lawrence’s story was intended to bolster a traditional Christian faith, but in a back-handed compliment kind of way it does.  It points to the foolishness in terms of human logic of Jesus’ unflinching dedication to the counter-cultural and obviously idealistic program of the gospel.  Yet, as Paul tells the Corinthians, “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)  The cross is a bald failure according to the wisdom of the world, to “those who are perishing,” but faith opens our eyes to the wisdom of God that offers us a chance to save us from ourselves.  It is Jesus’ last and most profound proclamation that we either treat one another as we wish to be treated or we face the real possibility of constant war and even one final, civilization-ending calamity.  It didn’t make any sense for Jesus to sacrifice His life to try and convince us to see this divine logic, but He did because the cross is the purity of Jesus’ love for us and the unbreakable commitment to creation.

The cross is not the end of Jesus’ life in isolation.  The cross is the end of His lived ministry and proclamation.  It is Jesus withstanding the temptation to walk away and save Himself because He cared more about saving us.  Jesus has not thrown in the towel on humanity’s future.  He believes in us.  This may be seen as foolishness to the human mind, but God help us if we don’t accept it as the wisdom of God.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 11th:  Psalm 17;  Zechariah 3:1-10; and 2 Peter 2:4-21.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Rudolf Bultmann was a prominent and challenging New Testament scholar.  He died in 1976.  The word I associate with Bultmann is “demythologize.”  He argues that the content of New Testament proclamation presumes a mythical world view and language. (This would be even more true for the writings of the older Hebrew Bible.)  This was appropriate for the first-century community of the nascent church.  What eventually became our New Testament was written in the language of its first-century authors and audience.  This is to be expected.

The original New Testament was written in Koine Greek because that was the universal language of the time.  Koine Greek may be limited to the rarified assembly of biblical scholars today, but 2,000 years ago it was the uniting language of the Roman Empire.  The authors spoke to the people of their day in the most accessible language of their day.

As Latin became the common language of the Empire, however, the Greek Bible was translated into what is now called the Vulgate version of the Bible.  Then again, as Latin became the elite language limited to scholars and clergy, reformers began to share the Holy Scripture in the vernacular of their day so that all believers could again have direct access to the inspired text.

The King James Version of the English language Bible was published in 1611.  When we dive into the text in Bible study this evening, however, we don’t use that 400-year-old translation because its English is difficult for a modern reader. 

Bultmann’s innovation was to recognize that it wasn’t only the language that needed to be translated.  It was also the ancient, mythical world view, and this he termed demythologizing.  This meant that a scientific world view “finished” the mythical world view that was filled and dominated by supernatural forces constantly interrupting the natural order and needing to be constantly placated in an almost magical way.

Bultmann’s scholarly work was to respect the meaning of the myth and its proclamation, and to then interpret it for a non-mythical generation.  He sought to keep the truth of what was being revealed without the hindrance of the mythical vehicle of its revelation. 

Bultmann argued that the vehicle of New Testament proclamation was apocalyptic.  This means it was suffused with imagery expecting the imminent end of the world following a supernatural struggle between the forces of good and evil.  The earliest Christian writings expected a quick return of Jesus, even within their own lifetimes.  2,000 years and counting requires that the revealed truth be expressed in a non-apocalyptic way if that truth is to be meaningful.

To read today’s passages literally is difficult and for me distracting.  It is also dangerous.  It can be misused to justify atrocities and inhumanity.  Take this one passage:  “These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed.”  This leads to further deprecations.  Such passages read without the insight of demythologizing sanction acts of violence against those who are judged ungodly.  It is the realm of fanatics rather than the faithful.

Lent is a time to appreciate the love of God that motivates the cross of Christ, but for much of dominant Christian history Lent has been a time to threaten and harass those called the enemies of the cross.  Jesus’ perfect example of pacifism, of the absolute rejection of violence, has been turned too often into the justification for violence.  This is why the sacred text needs to be interpreted so that its overarching truth is not limited to the forms in which that truth has been conveyed. 

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 10th:  1 Chronicles 21:1-17; Psalm 17; 1 John 2:1-6.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Over the past weekend I attended part of the Conference’s Super Saturday event.  I was mainly interested in hearing Bp. William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign.  I have seen him interviewed several times on national broadcasts.  He is the author of five books.  He has received twelve honourary degrees.  And has done the work of Christ through his service as a pastor, through the NAACP, and through numerous other social justice organizations.  Due to health issues, he was unable to speak to us in person.  Therefore, I changed my plans and traveled to the Shelburne Church’s watch party instead of traveling to the host church in Shrewsbury to also watch Bp. Barber on a screen.  The good bishop was inspired and inspiring on Zoom.  I can only imagine what it must be to hear him in person.  I told the two Reverends sitting with me that I’m not preaching on Sunday after hearing this man preach.  He is that good.  He fed me and I needed to be fed.  If you ever have the chance to hear him online or I can only imagine in person, don’t pass-up the opportunity.

Bp. Barber spoke to us of the danger of worshiping God without a conscience.  He listed numerous occasions where “the Bible was in the room,” but those gathered acted without conscience.  The Bible was in the room, he said, when the men of the Constitutional Convention declared black people to be but 3/5’s of a person.  The Bible was in the room, when the Confederacy decided to secede and declare war to protect owning other people.  The Bible was in the room when the Supreme Court decide after the Civil War in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine was Constitutional.  And other examples all the way up to the present Congress beginning with prayer as they cut massive amounts of money from programs to help the poor and desperate so that larger tax cuts could be offered to the rich.  He quipped that we can print “In God we trust” on our currency, but that doesn’t stop us from treating the currency itself like our god. 

The good bishop chastised the church for thinking that an occasional collection for the poor is the equivalent of continuing the work of Jesus’ ministry.  He preached about the fact that the Bible shares Jesus’ first and last sermon as focusing on ministry to the poor.  Both times it led to attacks on His life.  The first time God ushered Him to safety because it was not His time.  The last time it led to Jesus’ crucifixion.  To prioritize the needs and rights of the cast-off’s will always enrage the ones with power and money who have no problem casting-off others to protect their power and money.  I remember driving behind a panel truck in Cambridge.  It belonged to a charitable organization that cared for the poor and hungry.  The entire back of the truck included this quote of Bp. Helder Camara:  “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

One of today’s readings is from the First Epistle of John.  John’s community was extremely charismatic.  It was guided by the Spirit.  It had teachers, but no hierarchical leaders.  It was intentionally egalitarian.  Anyone could speak if it was recognized as speaking with the Spirit’s authority.  In such a community, leadership was by example not position or title, and the overriding example was that of Jesus Himself.  Thus, the Johannine author instructs:  “By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, ‘I abide in him’, ought to walk just as he walked.”

“To walk just as he walked.”  This is not merely to talk as Jesus talked.  It is to walk the walk, to live our faith in imitation of Jesus.  As the good bishop so powerfully preached, that example is one of ministry to the poor, to the disenfranchised, to the displaced.  It is to not only recognize the familiar sounds of the words, but to live into this definite saying of Jesus of Nazareth:  “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

Jesus preached this so fearlessly that they needed to execute Him.  As we take time this Lent to consider what it means to believe in and to follow a crucified Saviour, let us listen to Bp. Barber’s words that ministry in the world to the world’s must desperate cannot be ancillary to the faith and to the church.  It must be an essential part of both.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 8th:  Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; and John 12:27-36.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Tomorrow’s Gospel selection shares Luke’s account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  I find the variations of this account fascinating and so intriguing that I am left stunned by them every Lent.  I read them as Jesus’ psychological/spiritual struggles that are put into mythical language.  I do not believe that there was an actual wilderness dialogue between Jesus and Satan where the devil tempts Jesus and also interrogates Him to see if Jesus is the actual Messiah:  “‘If you are …’”  I think Jesus’ personal struggles with the growing realization of His identity and His call are far more profound than conversations with a fallen angel.  I think the internal struggle preserves Jesus’ authentic human nature in a way that supernatural conversations cannot. 

Luke is rather tactile in his words.  For example, he writes just prior to the temptation that “the Holy Spirit descended upon [Jesus] in bodily form like a dove.” (3:22)  Do we really need to accept that a warm-blooded, feathery friend landed on Jesus to believe that the Holy Spirit was present, he asked rhetorically.  Likewise, do we really need to accept that Satan “led [Jesus] up” (4:5) and showed him every worldly kingdom.  At least Matthew gives us a mountain.  Is Luke implying something akin to floating in the sky?  Do we really need to accept that Satan drags Jesus down from the sky and places the two of them balancing “on the pinnacle of the temple” (4:9)?  Such things distract me from the greater meaning they are trying to convey of Jesus’ inner struggles, which had to be mightily challenging, and which bring His example closer to our own.

In this context, it is interesting to imagine that Satan can quote biblical verse.  You won’t find this anywhere else than the temptation story that Matthew and Luke share and adapt.  The passage the devil quotes is from today’s Psalm (cf. Luke 4:10, 11).  This is a Psalm of the assurance of God’s protection that promises the faithful “no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.” 

In other words, Satan is depicted as testing Jesus’ faith by quoting God’s words back at Him that the good will not suffer evil.  Oh if faith were only so straightforward.  The obvious truth, however, to anyone who bothers to look, is that life is random.  The good can suffer and the bad can succeed.  This is such a blatant and timeless and repeated threat to the faith of those who believe that this is the way God should work that it comes out of Satan’s mouth. 

Jesus hears these words, possibly struggling with them spiritually as He ponders the goodness of God in the face of so much evil and accident, and Jesus comes to realize that faith is not akin to hiring a supernatural bodyguard.  Jesus knows these words of promised protection, that God is present always and even in the worst of times, but that does not equal God’s favourtism.  Nor will it protect Jesus from His enemies and what they will do to Him. 

As we prepare for the First Sunday of Lent worship, this Gospel offers the faithful the chance to ask and struggle with the idea that God’s love and care are defined in maybe unexpected ways, but they are not denied.  If you would like to join us at church for another take on this Gospel passage, we gather at 9:30am and all are welcome.  If you would prefer to join online, send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom login.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 7th:  Exodus 6:1-13; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; and Acts 7:35-42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is our first Lenten Friday.  Lent is an austere time.  We are asked to sacrifice, or as it is more commonly expressed, we may give-up some treat or pleasure.  Or still in the vein of sacrifice but from a different perspective, we may undertake some charitable or spiritual practice we would not do otherwise.  This is true of Lent’s 40 days, but on Lenten Fridays it is even more so.  These are days that bring Good Friday closer to the front of our mind’s attention.  The cross is larger.  We stand nearer.  Jesus’ suffering is more real.  These are not meant to be maudlin.  They are meant to impress upon us the unwavering commitment of Jesus to each of us and to all.

I intentionally added “to all” at the end of the above paragraph because Jesus does not endure the cross only for believers or even only for good, decent folk.  Jesus suffers and dies for all people.  This is sometimes difficult for believers and good folk to process.  And this is nothing new.  Evidence for this is found right in the biblical text that has been handed down to us. 

Scholars argue about the biblical text to this day because there are inherited variations.  The earliest copies are not complete, are left to us as fragments or even as secondhand quotations.  Scribes even changed the text sometimes in an attempt to make a reading more clear and other times because they wished to reverse its meaning. 

One of those disputed verses is Luke 23:34.  The argument among the scholars of the NRSV of the Bible was so contested that the verse is printed in the Bible, but within double brackets.  Here are the contested words as they appear in print:  [[Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’]]  To me these words sound so authentically Jesus, to His last breath offering forgiveness even to those who intentionally prolong His suffering execution.  However, I understand the reservation of some early biblical scribe(s) who could not muster the capacity to exonerate those who killed the Saviour, leading him/them to excise this verse from their copy (copies) of Luke’s Gospel.  This verse is one of the reasons why I added “to all” above.  Jesus’ life that culminates at Golgotha is lived and offered-up for everyone.  Neither saint nor sinner deserves what Jesus offers, but it is offered freely “to all.”

I wish I could express this promise more convincingly.  I meet people who disregard Christ and church because they don’t believe our preaching of “to all.”  There are some who have been so hurt, even traumatized, by the meanness and/or randomness of this world that Christ and church are the opposite of “to all.”  To many of them it feels more like “to none.”  It’s like the account shared today from Exodus:  “Moses told this to the Israelites; but they would not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.”  They could not hear and hope because life deafened them.  To them I wish I knew how to better share the Good News that the cross is not about judgment and “Look what we did to Jesus.”  The cross is about the ineffable love of Christ offered “to all.”  And when Jesus could not snap His fingers and change the world, He shared life with us, even more of its meanness than I hope any of us ever will experience, all so that He could be with us always including times that are good, normal and frightenly horrible, and this is a promise offered “to all.”

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 6th:  Exodus 5:10-23; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; and Acts 7:30-34.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Dr. Martin Marty, a former Lutheran pastor and a longtime professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, died in late February.  He was a prolific author having more than 60 books published.  He wrote about religion and public life, and how the two interacted.  He studied and advocated for religious pluralism.  In this work, he avoided the word “tolerance” because it implied a superior religion abiding a lesser one.  Rather, Dr. Marty emphasized the principle of hospitality, of welcoming others to share cordially at the same table. 

In his obituary, he is quoted with a statement that sounds an awful lot like some of the first advice I received upon entering the seminary.  I was told that in the religious life I would meet some of the finest people I would ever know and some of the worst.  Dr. Marty put it like this:  “‘Religion makes good people good and bad people bad,’ he once told a group of journalists, warning them against ‘being too soft on religious leaders,’ according to a 1995 profile in the Dallas Morning News.  ‘If you’re a son of a bitch, you can be born again and you’re still a son of a bitch with a different angle of vision.  Lives can be transformed, but don’t take it for granted.’” (Boston Globe, 3/2/2025) 

Religion in and of itself does not make a person religious.  Religion, as a matter of fact, can be used to justify some of the least religious beliefs and behaviours imaginable.  Religion can sanction deplorable acts of inhumanity because religion is able to eliminate the humanity in the other.  It is able to cover cruelty and callousness with religion’s veneer.  We have entered a season where relationships are transactional rather than transcendent, that means we look for what we can take rather than following Jesus’ lived and preached gospel of what we can give. 

In today’s passage from Acts of the Apostles, Stephen is about halfway through his defense of ministering and preaching in the name of Jesus.  For his candour, Stephen will be the first Christian martyr, the first person to die because of their faith in Jesus.  Martyr is derived from the Greek word for witness.  Stephen’s ultimate witness to Jesus, his execution by stoning, is today’s example of the transcendent and the absolute rejection of the transactional when it comes to practicing our Christian faith.
The tradition that Stephen quotes draws upon today’s Exodus text.  Yahweh has sent Moses back into Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves.  Moses’ provocation of the Egyptians causes them to make the slaves’ tasks even more arduous.  The slaves understandably speak out against Moses and his seemingly foolhardy hope and trust in God’s liberation:  “As they left Pharaoh, they came upon Moses and Aaron who were waiting to meet them. They said to them, ‘The Lord look upon you and judge! You have brought us into bad odour with Pharaoh and his officials, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.’” 

While understandable, this account also serves to remind the faithful in all generations that the good works of God are not usually spontaneous miracles, but rather long-term commitments.  This, again, speaks against the transactional mentality of act for payment, and speaks for the transcendent that the work of God must be trusted by individuals and generations so that it may be accomplished in “kairos,” in God’s time.  We need to do our part to live up to Jesus’ standards of sacrifice and ministry by trusting in the long-term consequences and results to which we contribute, but of which we may not see fulfillment.

Lent is the time to look at Jesus and Him crucified as the model of our religious lives and not accept the cover of religion as a sufficient alternative.  Let our faith be ministry and let it be for the long-term.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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 5th:  Psalm 51:1-17; Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10; and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

For the past few days we have been puppy sitting my daughter’s dog.  Our dog is nine years old.  When it comes time to feed the beast and mini-beast, the puppy gets puppy chow and our dog gets his adult dog food.  Both are plain old dog food, nothing exceptional.  Each time we fed them, though, the puppy would walk away from his food and our dog from his.  Unexcited.  But man they loved the other’s food.  Wolfed it down like it was filet mignon.  The two dogs in our house wanted what the other had.  I doubt that one was better than the other, but the other was different.
 
I think this can be an analogy for temptation.  Jesus counters temptation with treasure.  What does this mean?

Today we begin the Season of Lent.  These 40 days are given to us as an intentional time to refocus our attention on our spiritual selves and our relationship with God through Jesus, and also, and essentially, cumulatively as a society.  Like Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, Lent is a time to explore what it means to count God as essential in our lives, and this then as preparation for how to live our lives as part of the world.  Today’s Gospel passage ends with Jesus saying, “‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’”  Do we treasure God, Jesus is asking.  Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus teaches that everything else can be sacrificed in order to attain the treasure that is being a part of the reign of God. (Matthew 13:44-46)  Do we look upon our faith in such terms?  If we don’t, are we willing to ask why we are tempted by the other whatever it may be?  This question is the work of Lent. 

The Gospel ended with treasure.  The Joel passage ends with “‘Where is their God?’”  As mentioned, Lent’s 40 days are based on Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness.  What we traditionally refer to as Jesus’ temptation is the time when Jesus refines His expectations of His calling.  How will He serve God in His life?  What does God need Jesus to do?  The 40 days are not akin to single-cell bacteria; rather, the 40 days are one cell in the larger body.  They came about as a reaction to Jesus’ earlier life and they influence the rest of Jesus’ life.

Jesus flees into the wilderness after His exposure to John the Baptist’s message of judgment.  In the wilderness, Jesus is tempted by traditional expectations of what the Messiah should be and do.  Then Jesus emerges changed, and that change results in the lived and proclaimed gospel, the good news that God loves more than God judges.  The 40 days of introspection led Jesus to the treasure of His new faith, and that led to a ministry that literally altered the world.

Lent is most definitely about introspection, but it leads to changes in how we should live our lives.  It is not a single-cell bacteria; Lent is part of the spiritual body of each of our lives and of our lives lived together.  It should result in our closer imitation of Jesus’ gospel and result cooperatively in a deeper appreciation of the treasure of the reign of God on earth of which we are “ambassadors for Christ.”  If, however, the world grows increasingly self-centered and cruel, unconcerned about the welfare of others whomever they may be, then Joel’s question becomes our own: “‘Where is their God?’”  (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/health/usaid-cuts-deaths-infections.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)

On this first day of Lent, I invite you to our Mid-Week Pause Prayer Service on March 19th at 7:00pm at the Hatfield Church for a time to look inward, and to our Lenten Retreat “Christ and the State / Christians and the State” on April 6th from 2- 5:00pm at the Sunderland Church to look outward.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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.