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Lectionary Notes
- Second Sunday in
Lent
(view
sermon or sermon for this text)
Readings for
Second Sunday in Lent, 2/17/08:
Genesis 12:1-4a, Psalm 121, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, John
3:1-17
Genesis 12:1-4a:
- "So Abram went" - ah, I can't
imagine just up and going like Abram did. What courage he must have had.
- Why did he go? God laid out a
vision and a promise to him, which Abram found compelling enough to take risks
for. As a church, perhaps that is also what we need to do: lay out a
compelling vision for where we are going. Then, perhaps, people will have the
courage to go with us as we seek to follow God.
- "I will bless those who bless
you, and the one who curses you I will curse." Not sure how I feel about this.
But God is protecting God's promise here, however you look at it. Protecting
the vision God wants to see come into fullness.
Psalm 121:
- "I lift up my eyes to the
hills." This is one of the best known psalms, next to the 23rd. Indeed, just
hearing the first line makes me want to chime in with the rest. I find it most
comforting, more so, perhaps, than the 23rd. God's constant, non-stop care.
Nothing we can do to be outside of God's reach. Outside of God's love. That's
comfort.
- I think this Psalm speaks to a
basic human need: we desire so much to be protected and to know that we are
going to be safe. In some ways, we know that this psalm can't mean no harm
will ever come to us; we know that we are not safe from anything bad ever
happening to us - that's not how life works. But we can know that God is
always with us. In a lonely world, that's a pretty powerful comfort. "[God]
will keep your life."
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17:
- This was a text I studied
carefully when I was writing a paper my freshman year of
college on sola fide. Ah, how
enlightened I was. But the texts I used still bring me straight back to the
paper I was working on: are we saved by faith or works? We answer faith with
our lips, but sometimes works with our actions and attitudes. "it depends on
faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace."
- Paul is good at
emphasizing the heart of saving faith: God's grace. It is not our faith but
better stated God's grace alone that saves us. Paul argues that Abraham was
justified not by works but by faith, which was credited to him as
"righteousness."
- "and calls into existence the
things that do not exist." God is calling us into existence - I like that, a
very process-theology sort of statement. Who is God calling you to be?
John 3:1-17:
- This passage includes perhaps the most famous and most
memorized Bible verse in all the world. When I was little, I had one of those
little New Testament Bibles that had John 3:16 in the front in about 20
different languages. Many consider "for God so loved the world" the verse to
know if you're going to know any.
- However, I find the rest of this passage much more
meaningful. We throw around the phrase "born again" a lot in the Christian
community, sometimes as a state to be desired, sometimes with a roll of the
eyes for the implication the word has come to have. But what is Jesus
really saying here when he says we must be born again, born of water and
the Spirit? Actually, I think we are all constantly being born-again. We're
always renewing and remaking ourselves as we grow. The question is not
whether we are born-again, but how we are born-again. Are we born
again through water and Spirit, as Jesus says we must be, or something else?
- If you didn't do a renewal of baptismal vows on Baptism
of the Lord Sunday, this is another good day to do this as a congregation.
I've always found it very meaningful.
- :17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to
condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
This is an important verse, and I think it helps us ground verse :16, instead
of using verse :16 as an exclusive litmus test type verse.
- I admire Nicodemus, even if he didn't get exactly what
Jesus was talking about. He was willing to ask questions that would set him at
odds, no doubt, with some of the other religious leaders. He had to take
risks, and taking risks means having some faith. How are you or can you be
like Nicodemus?
Pastor’s Note: (I use the Greek-English
Lexicon from Liddell and Scott, the “little Liddell”
and the Metzger et. al Greek New Testament in my translation work.)
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