Year A

Jan 14 2025

Scripture Study for

Samuel’s choice of David as king was determined by direct command of God. The anointing was a solemn and sacred action that ceremonially sealed his election by God. Following the ritual, “the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David.” This spirit was understood as a principle of dynamic divine action, a force that had unique effects in human history. Those seized by the spirit were empowered to act within the community in a unique fashion determined by the particular needs of the community. The spirit took hold of judges (Judges 3:10) and prophets (Isaiah 61:1). This story recounts how it took hold of a future king.

The move from darkness to light is the principal metaphor used by the author of Ephesians to describe the radical change that takes place in the lives of those who commit themselves to Christ. Three qualities produced by the light—goodness, righteousness, truth—are symbolic of the complete transformation that this light can effect. Three phrases describe the transition from a state of inertia to one of vibrancy: from sleep to wakefulness, from death to new life, and from darkness to illumination. Christians have entered into a new state of being, and it will require of them a new way of living.

Jesus’ cure of the man born blind suggests a new creation. The struggle here is between darkness and light, between blindness and sight. Jesus underscores the urgency of his ministry. He and his disciples must do God’s work while it is yet day, for the night will come when such work will have to cease. Jesus identifies himself as the light of the world. The man, who is gradually brought from physical blindness to sight, also progressively moves from spiritual blindness to religious insight. This is not true of the Pharisees. They prided themselves on being disciples of Moses, but they were blind to the truth that the newly cured man saw so clearly. The one who was blind sees, and those who can see are really blind.

Jan 14 2025

Lent as Inner Journey

Sometimes a journey of great significance covers a very short distance, geo-graphically speaking. Flannery O’Connor once said that everything important happened to her between the back door of the house and the chicken coop. Moses led the people of Israel from grumbling and complaining to a renewed faith by walking a few feet to tap a rock.

The journey in today’s Gospel is an inner journey into faith in Jesus. Notice how the woman’s perspective changes as the story progresses. With that change of perception comes a change of heart. Her first response to Jesus’ request for a drink of water is curt: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (John 4:9). But after Jesus speaks about being able to give her living water, she sees him as one who will relieve her of the burdensome daily trip to the well, or even of ever being thirsty again.

Another shift comes after he tells her of her broken marriages. She recognizes him as a prophet. There is yet one more step to take, and Jesus helps her by offering a vision of a future time when all will worship together, and then confessing to her that he is the Messiah, the Christ. Through her witness, the village comes to meet Jesus and then finally to recognize him as savior of the world.

Lent invites us to journey with this woman and recognize Jesus in his fullness: as one who thirsts for us, who also brings us the life-giving water of baptism, who is a prophet speaking for God, who is the promised Messiah, and most especially, who has come to save us.

Consider/Discuss

What do you thirst for?
How do you relate to Jesus? Do you recognize him as truly human, as a prophet, as the promised Messiah, as the Savior and Son of God?

Responding to the Word

We can pray that Jesus will bring us to see him as living water that can satisfy us. We pray for all those preparing to be washed in the waters of baptism, that they will recognize in Jesus the source of eternal life.

Jan 14 2025

Scripture Study for

The murmuring of the people in the wilderness lays bare their resistance to the leadership of Moses, and the shallowness of their trust in God. Still, just as God delivered the people from the bondage of Egypt through the leadership of Moses, so now, again through the actions of Moses, God gives them the water they demand. One wonders how a people who were the beneficiaries of God’s abiding concern and miraculous protection could be so faithless and lacking in trust. After all that God has done, they still put God to the test. This is but another example of God’s boundless and compassionate love for sinners.

Paul’s teaching on justification is quite clear. It is based on the righteousness that originates in God, a righteousness that gives and sustains life, security, and well being. Human beings are righteous when they respect and enhance that life, security, and well being. They can only do this if they are in right relationship with God and, through this relationship, share in God’s righteousness. According to Paul, we have no right to this relationship with God. It has been given to us, won for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, we have never deserved it. Yet, out of love, God gives it to us.

Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for water when in fact he is the one who will give her “living water.” His knowledge of her marital situation prompts her to call him a prophet and to engage him in a discussion about the proper place to worship God. Jesus moves this conversation from a discussion of the place of worship to one that characterizes the manner of worship. Jesus’ discussion with the woman is curious. She is a questionable member (a sinner) of a subordinate group (a woman) of a despised people (a Samaritan). Yet she is the one whom Jesus approaches; she is the one to whom he reveals himself as Messiah; and she is the one who heralds this good news to the people in the town.

Jan 14 2025

Destination 2—The Mountain

Lent is an invitation to journey more deeply into the heart of God. What God asks of Abram is a willingness to trust that God will lead him. Abram is called from the very beginning to place his trust in the Lord and in the Lord’s promises. We are told that Abram is seventy years old at the time he goes forth. I remember someone remarking, “Imagine coming in the house and saying to your wife, ‘Honey, we have to pack up and go I know not where.’ ” We are told simply: “Abram went as the Lord directed him” (Genesis 12:4a). Abram’s faith translates into trust that God is leading him.

Jesus brought the three apostles up a high mountain. Mountains often served as the meeting place of God and the prophets—Moses and Elijah come to mind. When Jesus and the three reach their destination, Jesus is transformed before them, face and clothes shining. Suddenly Moses and Elijah are talking with him. You can understand Peter wanting to stay there. But this is not journey’s end. That will happen on a hill outside Jerusalem. For now, they hear words meant also for us this day: “This is my beloved Son . . . listen to him” (Matthew 17:5).

We are asked to journey with Jesus for forty days—sometimes it may be into the desert of testing, sometimes up a mountain for a moment of blinding clarity. In both places we know Jesus as the beloved Son who trusts in the Father’s will. Lent invites us to make that same journey into trusting the Father.

Consider/Discuss

Have you had a “mountain experience” when you came to know Jesus as God’s beloved Son? Was your reaction similar to that of Peter, who did not want it to end?
How is God calling you to trust? How is God calling you to listen to Jesus?

Responding to the Word

God has called us to a holy life (1 Timothy 1:9). This week, as we journey with Jesus into the presence of the Father, listen for how the Father may be speaking to you now. Ask God to open your ears and eyes to recognize the beloved Son’s presence.

Jan 14 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Genesis expressly states that Abram is directed by God to travel from the land of his kinsfolk to one that is foreign to him. God then promises a fivefold blessing: Abram will be a great nation; he will be blessed; his name will be great; those who bless him will be blessed; those who curse him will be cursed. The directives from God require profound faith on Abram’s part. They determine his identity (his past), his place in society (his present), and his legacy (his future). God is asking him to start anew. No questions are asked, no long period of preparation is suggested. God directs and Abram responds.

Paul exhorts his disciple Timothy to suffer with him the misfortunes that come from fidelity to the gospel and accompany righteous living. The Christian hymn that follows outlines what God has done for us and what Christ has done on our behalf. There is no question in Paul’s mind that the wondrous blessings are all God’s doing. Neither salvation nor the call to holiness is the fruit of any deed that we might have performed. They are not rewards for good behavior; they come to us freely out of the goodness of God.

Jesus is transformed before Peter, James, and John, the apparent inner circle of the apostles. Most scholars maintain that this account is not a vision of the future glorification of Jesus but an insight into the identity that was his during his public life. Jesus converses with Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the law and the prophets. Jesus’ teaching is authenticated by the words that are spoken from the cloud: “listen to him” (Matthew 17:5). The apostles want to prolong Jesus’ transfiguration. Jesus will not hear of it. Then, identifying himself as the mysterious Son of Man, he directs the three to remain silent about this experience until after his resurrection.