Year C

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

This portion of Isaiah stems from the late exilic period and points toward God’s imminent deliverance of Israel from exile, returning them to the land promised to their ancestors. The return from exile thus represents a new Exodus. Isaiah makes this clear by drawing on images from the original Exodus. Note the present tense of the verbs: God “opens a way in the sea” and “leads out chariots and horsemen.” The past is not simply the past, but an expression of what God habitually does. Every new act of deliverance is simply an extension of the Exodus, such that that original act of deliverance is not “an event of the past,” but the beginning of God’s unending providential care.

This week’s reading from Philippians is the prelude to the reading from the second week of Lent. Paul is recounting his own move from seeking righteousness by conformity to the Law to receiving righteousness (justification as a prerequisite for salvation) from conformity to Christ, especially to his death. For following Christ requires one to give up many things, including the desire to ensure our own righteousness through observance of the Law. Paul knows that having faith that Christ accomplishes what we cannot feels risky. Accordingly, the life of faith is never finally finished in this life but must be continually renewed and strengthened as Paul (and his audience) continuously and strenuously strive toward conformity with Christ, which is perfect maturity and “God’s upward calling.”

As with last week’s story of the prodigal son, this week’s Gospel from John highlights the priority God places on mercy rather than condemnation, while nevertheless refusing to ignore or condone sin. As we find over and over in the Old Testament, God does not seek the death of sinners, but that they repent and live (Ezekiel 18:23). The scribes and Pharisees, trying to trap Jesus into denying the Law, want to know what Jesus thinks of the command to stone the woman caught in adultery. Rather than answer directly, Jesus reminds each of them that they are none of them without sin (and possibly deserving of the same punishment). Which of them is in a position to condemn her? Even though Jesus is in such a position, he refuses to do so, giving her another chance while exhorting her not to make the same mistake again.

Dec 10 2024

The Impatient, Running Father

History has called me “the prodigal son.” But you have never heard my story. Jesus knew. He lived next door in Nazareth. The arrogance of the Pharisees may have awakened his memory. I heard him say, “You wash the outside of the cup while the inside stays filthy.” He knew my brother.

What was it like to live with “Mr. Perfect”? All my childhood, he tormented me when nobody was looking. Kicked me around, mocked me, like I was worthless. When Dad came around, he was all pure and innocent and law-abiding.

I couldn’t take it anymore. When I got old enough, I had to go. I had to make my own way. So I left. Can you blame me? It took me eight years to come home. I saw a lot in those years. I grew to be a man. I tried to make it on my own. I got lost so many times. Why did I stay away so long? The problem wasn’t the money. The problem was facing his look of superiority, his loathing that I couldn’t make it. I’d rather die than come crawling back to that.

My father? When I was a teenager, I took him for granted. He was simply there. I was so bottled up about my brother that I just . . . didn’t see him.

One evening, when I pressed on my belly button, I could feel my spine. I was dying of hunger. That night, I dreamed of my father’s eyes, full of tears. He was waiting for me, wanting me to come home.

You know the rest of the story. My brother hasn’t changed. Life is good. I am sorry that he is too bitter to see that. But it doesn’t matter. I still love him.

My father wants me to be close. I want to be near. It is good to be here, home with him.

Consider/Discuss

How do we get so bottled up about the pains of earth that we do not see the compassion that surrounds us, the love of the Father who wants us close?
What’s it like to be the father in this story who wants his sons to be near? How is God like that? How does the prodigal feel to be so welcomed?

Living and Praying with the Word

Father of compassion, only you know the depths of hurt that family can cause. The pains of earthly life can so bottle us up that we cannot see straight. In this story, sometimes we are the one who wandered away. Sometimes we are the one who drove the other away. Sometimes we are a bit of each, all messed up from things that happened long ago.

Forgive us our bitterness, hates and jealousies. Forgive us our deepest faults this Lent, dear God. Help us to forgive those who have hurt us. Yes, we are broken. Yes, we are sinners. You welcome sinners. You run to meet us. No matter what we have done, you want us to be near. In you, we have our home. No other home can satisfy. Hold us close to you, Lord, and never let us go.

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

The story of the promises to the ancestors continues with the triumphant entry into the land promised to them and their descendants. Moses has died (Deuteronomy 34:5); his successor Joshua now leads Israel. His first act in the land (which they reached by crossing the Jordan “on dry ground,” reenacting the deliverance at the Red Sea [4:4–24]) is to celebrate the Passover, which commemorates God’s redemption of Israel. The Lord had been sustaining Israel in the wilderness with manna; God now sustains them with the produce of the land. God’s providential care for Israel takes different forms, but it remains nonetheless the hallmark of God’s relationship with the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Paul has been exhorting the Corinthians to remember that they have received an imperishable gift by dying with Christ (and being raised again in baptism). Those who now live in Christ live not for themselves but for Christ (5:14–15). This new life is a full transformation, not just a continuation of their previous life, a transformation that begins with reconciliation with God. This has many implications, including the obligation to share this gift with others. To live for Christ means, among other things, to be his ambassador, announcing on his behalf the gift of reconciliation and inviting others to be reconciled to God in Christ. Those who are now in Christ will want what he does, beginning with new life for all by being reconciled with God.

The Pharisees and scribes have assumed, observing Jesus “welcoming” sinners and eating with them, that he condones their sins. Rather than disabuse them of this notion directly, he challenges them to look at things from God’s perspective. Even a human father is capable of grieving over an ungrateful and dissolute son who runs off and comes crawling back in fear and shame. Rather than stand imperiously waiting for the son to reach him with his rehearsed apologies, the father runs to meet him, overjoyed that he has returned. The Pharisees and scribes seem to assume a God who waits for sinners to come crawling back to him, perfect and perfectly contrite, rather than running out to greet them “while they are still a long way off.” Jesus welcomes sinners, we are meant to understand, because this is how God is.

Dec 10 2024

The Mercy of Manure

In the story of the burning bush, the great and majestic “I AM” hears the cry of the Israelites in bondage and devises a plan to deliver them. In today’s Gospel, God the Gardener hears the cry of the little fig tree and conceives a plan to rescue it. What do these two stories have in common? God is the One who wants to save. Does it matter whether it is an entire nation or an insignificant little fig tree? No, it doesn’t. God is, by nature, Deliverer, Rescuer, Redeemer.

I have a cherry tree that I’d like to rescue. It has a split in the bark that seems to be stunting its growth. I don’t want it to die. I want it to flourish. Maybe I should spread manure around it? Organic fertilizers seep nutrients into the soil slowly. The roots then can absorb what they need to make the tree grow and (hopefully) bear fruit. Manure is mercy to a sick tree.

God wants us to flourish, too. God doesn’t want us to die. Yet one of the first things that a gardener learns is that there are no guarantees in gardening. Will the manure work? Maybe. Maybe the tree will still perish. (If it dies, I’ll cut it down and replace it with a couple of blackberry bushes.)

There are no guarantees in holy rescuing either. God works to redeem the nation of Israel. They resist. God sends prophets to bring them back. They resist. God sends a Son to rescue us. We resist. The Holy Spirit continually comes to direct us. We resist.

The season of Lent is another of God’s “tries.” But there are no guarantees that what God wants to happen will actually happen. We have the free will to respond or not. Will we allow God’s manure of mercy to seep into us, to rescue us so that we flourish and bear fruit?

Consider/Discuss

There are no guarantees in gardening. There are no guarantees in relationships. There are no guarantees in parenting. There seems to be a continual tension between what we try to make happen and what actually happens. Life’s difficulties cannot be solved like a math or engineering problem that has a definitive answer. Some things cannot be resolved for certain. How do we deal with that? How do we carry on? How do we plunge ahead day by day in a spirit of courage and patience until the surety of heaven finally rescues us?
Sometimes we run into situations in which we may be tempted to think, “I cannot do any more.” As a gardener, I can chop down a dead cherry tree. As a Christian, only God can make that judgment about a human being. Who might we feel like giving up on? What mercy can God extend through us to that person?

Living and Praying with the Word

God, you are the Diligent Gardener, the one who never gives up. You always keep trying. You extend mercy to the most diseased, the most broken, and the most wounded. Sometimes we are tempted to give up. You know the situations and the unresolved tensions that discourage us. We hand those over to you now.

Lord of valor, do not let cowardice overtake us. Fill us with the courage of persistence. keep us going, keep us trying, keep us spreading mercy as you spread mercy. Help us to flourish as fertilizers for on this earth until that day when we meet you in heaven.

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

As time has gone on, the promise made earlier to Abram that his descendants would inherit the land remains unfulfilled, with Israel now languishing, enslaved, in Egypt. Moses has fled to Midian to escape punishment for killing an Egyptian (Exodus 2:11–15). There he encounters the God of Israel, who affirms that he has not forgotten Israel or divine promises. God remains the “God of the fathers,” and faithful to them and their descendants. Now Moses has been charged with being God’s instrument for fulfilling those promises. Two names of God are given here: I AM, which comes to represent the infinite being of God, and “Lord,” a euphemistic rendering of the divine name that is forever to be remembered in connection with the ancestors: this God is a faithful God.

Paul is warning his Corinthian audience to be wary of falling into a spiritual complacency, in which they presume they have attained salvation simply because they have been baptized. Paul points to the example of Israel, all of whom were delivered from Egypt and thus “baptized.” They all received the same gifts from God in the wilderness, manna and water (here he refers to a rabbinic tradition that the rock from which water sprung “followed” them around so that they always had water). Just as many of that generation nevertheless despised God’s gifts or failed to trust in him, so Christians must be careful not to make the same mistake and reject or deny the gifts God has given to them and fall back into their former ways.

The Gospel reading for this week takes place in the context of Jesus warning his disciples to observe the signs of the times, beginning with his own advent. Now is the time to repent and turn back to God (Luke 12:54–59). In response, some mention certain Galileans who died a terrible death, which Jesus takes as a suggestion that the Galileans were a special kind of sinner more deserving of their death than his audience. Using the story of the tower of Siloam, he points out that no one is sinless and all theoretically deserve to die in the same way. There is no room for complacency. Yet God is patient, albeit not infinitely so. Each of us is like a fig tree that refuses to bear good fruit. Although we deserve to be cut down, God allows Christ (or his ministers) to help the tree to bear fruit. But if it still fails to do so, judgment does await.