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Get reading for Worship!


Did you know that most of the time we follow a pattern of scripture readings in our worship services? It’s called “following the lectionary” and it is based upon a three-year cycle of Bible readings. Many churches follow this pattern — Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic, etc. Sometimes, we set aside the lectionary readings in order to do a sermon series based upon other Scripture readings that we would not otherwise hear in worship.

We invite you to spend some time each week “reading ahead” and pondering the readings that you will hear in upcoming worship services. If you take this challenge, think about how it will change how you hear the word in worship after you have spent reading it during the week. It’s a great way to get ready for worship by reading for worship! 

 



Sun. February 16 — 6th Sunday after Epiphany

  • Jeremiah 17:5-10
    Blessed are those who trust the Lord, they are like trees by water
  • Psalm 1
    They are like trees planted by streams of water. (Ps. 1:3)
  • 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
    Christ has been raised, the first fruits of those who have died
  • Luke 6:17-26
    Jesus speaks blessings on the poor and hungry; woes on the rich and full

Overview

A fundamental decision is placed before us this day: Will we choose the way of blessing or the way of woe? The death and resurrection of Jesus is the pivot on which the decision turns. To be in Christ means that we get planted by streams of water and are rooted among those who thirst for God’s reign. The mystery of our faith points the path to life: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Sun. February 23 — Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Overview 

The promise and its fulfillment may not look at all alike, even though they are intimately connected. Paul speaks about seeds and plants as he tries to picture resurrection life. Joseph’s brothers never thought they would see him alive again, so how shocking he must have appeared to them as an Egyptian leader! Jesus invites us to sow seeds of new life by loving enemies.

 

Sun. March 2 — Transfiguration of Our Lord/Last Sunday after Epiphany



Overview

Lifting the Veil

The transfiguration is frustrating for disciples—past and present—who long for an unmediated experience of God. Jesus’ glory is revealed, and then, just as suddenly, a cloud descends and the vision fades. And even though Paul contrasts the Christian’s experience of God with Moses’s veiled experience of God, he notes that we see the glory of the Lord “as though reflected in a mirror” (2 Cor. 3:18). Even with unveiled faces, we don’t see directly, or even clearly. Even when God is revealed in shining glory, much remains veiled and hidden.

As he witnesses Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter’s understanding remains veiled; ours does too. The glimpses we get of God’s glory—through the veil or reflected in the mirror—are expectation-shattering, alarming, overwhelming, and awesome. The love of God shines too brightly to view directly, and yet we do have the privilege of directly experiencing that love in baptism, in communion, in service to God, and in relationship with God’s creation and our neighbors in need. The veils we contend with daily are the barriers that prevent us from truly loving those neighbors, caring for creation, and seeing the shining face of Jesus in the faces of people who are different, hungry, difficult, enemy, invisible, or poor. God is always revealed in ways that surprise and confuse us, whether shining on the mountaintop or dying on the cross.

Sun. March 9 — First Sunday in Lent

  • Deuteronomy 26:1-11
    The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
  • Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
    God will give the angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways. (Ps. 91:11)
  • Romans 10:8b-13
    If you confess that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved
  • Luke 4:1-13
    The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness for forty days


Overview 

An Identity on Which We Can Rely

In Luke’s gospel, the story of Jesus’ temptation comes immediately after his baptism and a lengthy listing of his ancestors. Both help confirm the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. Now Jesus is led into the wilderness, where his identity is put to the test by the devil. The specific temptations are in some ways secondary to the question that introduces two of them. Twice the devil asks, “If you are the Son of God . . .” (Luke 4:3, 9), perhaps implying that the devil believes he knows better than Jesus what it means to be God’s Son. But Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit,” is able to stand firm in his identity and deny the devil’s attempts to redefine who he is.

In our baptisms, we too are given the identity of God’s child, and we are given the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our baptisms do not protect us from temptation, even as Jesus himself endured temptation. However, in our baptisms we are given an identity that can help us endure the temptations and the challenges that our lives are bound to include. Baptism gives us the confidence to trust that our identity is defined by our relationship to God, and not by anything else. In this confidence, we can accept our failures and shortcomings and live boldly in a manner that seeks to emulate Christ’s own life.

 

Sun. March 16 — Second Sunday in Lent

Readings and Psalm



Overview

Purpose and Perseverance

This week’s gospel text from Luke presents another temptation for Jesus. The Pharisees approach Jesus with a warning about his safety, telling him to “get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you” (Luke 13:31). Not only do the Pharisees want Jesus to leave, but one can assume they also want Jesus to stop doing what he was doing: speaking against the Pharisees, teaching about God, and healing on the sabbath. We know the Pharisees are “very hostile” (Luke 11:53) toward Jesus, so we can conclude that their warning is not a genuine expression of concern but rather an attempt to stop his mission and ministry.

However, Jesus will not be distracted or turned away from his purpose, even if that includes moving toward his own death in Jerusalem. In Jesus’ ability to fulfill his purpose, even in the midst of opposition, we find inspiration as we seek to live our lives in concert with God’s purposes. As Christians, Jesus’ purpose is our purpose. The church, the body of Christ, doesn’t exist for itself. Rather, the church exists to be a partner with God in God’s mission to love, bless, and reconcile the world.

Sun. March 23 — Third Sunday in Lent

  • Isaiah 55:1-9
    Everyone who thirsts, come to the water; seek the Lord
  • Psalm 63:1-8
    O God, eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you. (Ps. 63:1)
  • 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
    Israel, baptized in cloud and seas, ate the same spiritual food as Christians
  • Luke 13:1-9
    Unless you repent, you will perish: parable of the fig tree


Overview 

Fertilized, Fruitful, and Free

God’s word for us today is nutritious and wholesome, though hard to digest. The gospel reading seems oddly brutal alongside the abundance and comfort of the texts from Isaiah (“delight yourselves in rich food”) and Psalm 63 (“My spirit is content as with the richest of foods”). Even Paul finds himself using physical sustenance as a metaphor (“they drank from the spiritual rock, . . . and the rock was Christ”). Surrounded by this food imagery, we now find Jesus using some horrific events as illustrations. After the mingled blood and fallen towers, it may be hard to hear the fig-tree parable as the grace-full story it really is. But here is Christ himself as gardener: digging, fertilizing, protecting, and nurturing us. We are fragile creatures, living in a world of tragedy and terror, but God does not punish fragility with death. On the contrary, God sent Jesus to us so that we may live.

Living in that nurtured garden of Christ, tended to and cared for as we grow in that love, how can we keep from blossoming? Live, yes, and live fruitfully, our gospel proclaims! Grow, yes, and grow gloriously! Now the good news of Christ’s redeeming mercy becomes clear: we are each treated with boundless mercy, not impartial justice. While the world may want to blame the withering tree for its inability to be productive, our Savior and Lord reaches into our lives, reminds us of our roots, nourishes us with grace, and allows us to bloom, to flourish, to freely share our gifts with the world.

 

Sun. March 30 — 4th Sunday in Lent

Overview

Less Grumbling, More Humbling

Grumbling! The crowd around Jesus—the “in” crowd, that is—was grumbling. Grumbling because Jesus welcomed those who traditionally had been set apart: tax collectors and sinners. Who are those who cause us to grumble? Whose seemingly undeserved handout or unearned status change filled our hearts with resentment this week? Jesus speaks to us today because we too often see life as a game with winners and losers, points and playbooks, offense and defense. Can we open our hearts and minds to hear today’s humbling good news? God’s love is freely shared with all: we cannot earn it, we cannot deserve it. When we attend worship, we do so out of thanksgiving and praise for God’s glory, hunger and thirst for God’s word and sacrament. We do not attend worship to achieve some status within God’s kingdom. When we help a neighbor, share with a stranger, assist the afflicted, or acknowledge the overlooked we do so because Christ first did the same for us. We respond to God’s grace and mercy with our own feeble attempts to emulate God’s perfect love. It is challenging, exhausting, never-ending, perspective-altering, radically humbling work. It’s work that is impossible to do without the inspiration of Christ, the nourishment of wine and bread, and the strength of the saints who have gone before us and with whom we walk Christ’s path today. Let us find those in our world who teach us about Christ’s unending reconciliation, so that we can all celebrate and rejoice as the family of God.

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