I’ve had it with war—no more chariots in Ephraim, no more war horses in Jerusalem, no more swords and spears, bows and arrows. He will offer peace to the nations, a peaceful rule worldwide, from the four winds to the seven seas.
                                      - Zachariah 9.10 (The Message)


READING:
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
                                    - Matthew 21.1-11 (NRSV)    


REFLECTION:
When I was a child in the Deep South, I had no inkling of the passion of Jesus in any real sense. The southern-fried religion that reared me always jumped plum over the passion of Holy Friday and the execution of Jesus; straight from the glory of the Triumphal Entry to the Glory of the Resurrection; there was no conflict, vulnerability, suffering, and execution in between to raise disquieting questions and challenge the theology of triumphalism. With the Resurrection of Jesus, according to triumphalism, the Roman Empire was replaced by another; the Christian Empire. It’s Lord and Master would someday consummate this dominance on the battlefield of Armageddon and the violent destruction of God’s enemies. In fact, the only vague trace of passion was referenced in the abstract notion of Jesus’ blood shed for our sin.

This interpretation replaces passion with triumphalism, and in so doing obliterates the intimate connection between Holy Week and the ministry of Jesus. This connection is important, because the meaning of Holy Week becomes visible only when interpreted through the ministry that preceded it, and in a real sense caused it. You see, Jesus had two passions, and they shed light on each other. The first passion of Jesus – the one that inspired his vision and drove his every action – was the Reign of God (sometimes called the Kingdom of God); not an empire to replace Rome, but an alternative vision to challenge the very notion of empire.

Empire – in Jesus’ day represented by Rome - is based on dominating power, repression, violence, and exploitation, especially against the peasant class whose cause Jesus championed; while Jesus’ vision is based on liberating humility, recognition of the worth of all, and fairness toward all. Empire? Not so much; say rather anti-empire. It was this first passion that inevitably led Jesus into conflict with Rome, and brought its swift retribution of Jesus’ second passion: humiliation, scourging, and crucifixion.

On Sunday we will examine the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the light of its connection to his entire life and ministry, and his challenge to the notion of empire. It very well could be an eye-opening experience. I hope you will join us.

I rise to taste the dawn, and find that love alone will shine today.                                                                      
              - Ken Wilber






READING:
This is how much God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son.  And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.  God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.  He came to help, to put the world right again.  Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it.  And why?  Because that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

This is the crisis that we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness.  They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God.  Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure.  But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.
                                      - John 3.16-21 (The Message)


REFLECTION:
We of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) …whoa Nellie! This title requires some explanation. It would be easy to read this title as a claim to be the only true disciples, but that would be a mistake. We firmly believe that we are not the only Christians, but Christians only, serving humbly beside Christians of any other stripe or color.

Anyway, we Disciples recently lost a saint – a truly awesome man! – Fred Craddock, who both inspired and humbled us all. He inspired us with some of the best preaching around; and he humbled us with his commitment to serve “The least of these” in practical, hands-on ways. How he managed to write as prolifically as he did and still find time to serve others remains a mystery God alone can penetrate.

Dr. Craddock begins his commentary on John 3.16 with the caution that it is easy to trivialize this verse. Boy! He could say that again. Most of us know this verse in some form, and most of us trivialize it by reading our meanings into the text. We typically think of God as loving… unless you cross him (sic); in which case God can be a harsh judge. And we trivialize it by thinking of the salvation of the Christ as a pie-in-the-sky reward in the distant future for confessing that we believe this statement about Jesus.

We do this, however, at the expense of its context in John’s theology, losing any chance of recognizing the profundity, subtlety, and radically challenging content of this verse. We need to step back and tease out John’s thought on the nature of the God who loves the world, and what he means by salvation.

I invite you to try this in preparation for Sunday’s worship. Reflect on your notion of the God who loves. Is that all God does? What is this God like? And what is this love John speaks about? Is it sentimental and weak, or profound and powerful? And try to summarize what you think of as salvation. Then on Sunday we will examine this verse, and the passage in which it is nestled, with a view to discard any trivializing tendencies, and catch a glimpse of something both inspiring and challenging that can be embraced by all, including those who think long, hard, and reasonably about spiritual things… and expect preacher types to do the same. Join us, won’t you? 

The theme that will guide our reflection during this Lenten season is simple; “Faith Is Living… On The Way.” It’s only simple, however, if you assume that faith and the way are two different things. Faith is belief in God, and the way is the path we will follow to reach our goal. During Lent, this goal is Easter; overall this goal is heaven. Voila! Done and done.

But what if faith and the way are identical? What if faith is defined by its journey? “Now you’re just being silly,” you say? “That would put our theme somewhere between obscure and paradoxical… no help at all!” Nevertheless, there is precedent for the identification of faith and the way. Consider that the early Christian community did not refer to itself as Christian, but rather as The Way. They referred to themselves as followers of Jesus on the way. And you don’t get off the hook just by saying that faith as the way is obscure or even paradoxical. There is much in our faith that is obscure, and some that is over-the-top paradoxical. For example, consider God as “One in three and three in one,” or Jesus as “Truly God and truly human,” or “To save your life you only have to lose it,” or… well, the list could go on and on.

Humor me for a moment and consider what faith would look like if it was defined by its journey; if faith and the way were identical. Firstly, it would mean that faith is a verb; something we do, not something about which we hold an opinion. And it would mean that we would choose those with whom we fellowship less on what they believe to be true, and more on what their lives show to be true. And it throws the focus back onto our lives today. That is to say, the goal of faith is not to get to heaven; it’s not to bide our time through this warm-up act, waiting for the truly real to come along. No; faith as journey means that this life matters. God has the eternal covered, we need not fret about that. Rather, we are called to follow the way of Jesus. And that friends, is quite a journey. A journey to God in God’s presence, as one scholar has put it.

On Sunday we will begin an inquiry into what faith as a journey means for our personal and spiritual lives, and the way we look at our day-by-day living. I hope you will join us at 8:30 (classic worship) or 10:30 (creative worship). 

There are those times when all the stars are torn from our skies, and morning will not come. We try to make our way in unlit passages, frightened, desperate and despairing. And yet it is into this impenetrable night that the Child is born. Tearing through the seams of darkness, the Morning Star appears in our eyes and in our hearts. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light!
                                                             - Ann Weems    

READINGS:
O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
                          - Psalm 43.3
 
Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
                           - Psalm 139.12

Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.
                            - Psalm 97.11

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.
                             - Isaiah 9.2

REFLECTION:
In a classic series of fantasy novels for children – The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis spins a tale of life in the imaginary land of Narnia. Narnia, a land of enchantment, magic, and talking animals; yet a land frozen in unrelenting winter; for in Narnia control has been wrested from Aslan – the son of the high king – by a wicked witch. Under her dominance light pales, biting winds blow without cease, the snows pile higher and deeper, and despair creeps ever closer to the hearts of the land’s inhabitants.  Narnia, as Lewis so vividly describes it, is a land in which it is always winter, yet never Christmas.

Always winter, yet never Christmas.  This is a haunting and powerful metaphor, a metaphor appropriate not only for the imaginary land of Narnia, but as well for the actual lives of exile, bondage, and darkness endured by many individuals, some closer to you than you might imagine.

Narnia lives in hearts obscured by darkness, hearts condemned to exile and bondage by their own misused freedom, by forces beyond their control, or by both.  Yet, as diverse as their stories may be, one thing is held in common by all people who walk in darkness.  To a person, they understand that someone has to love them if their darkness is to be truly dispelled; someone has to gaze openly and honestly into their hearts – to see them as they are – and still love them.  Only then, being loved, will they be able to love themselves, to regain a sense of wholeness, and even to reach out in love to others.

It is true; someone has to love you.  If the people who walk in darkness are to see a great light - if we are to complete our journey to Bethlehem and find wholeness and peace - someone must first love us; someone must enter freely into the brokenness of our lives, see us as we truly are, and embrace us in love.  The good news of Advent, my friends, is this: that someone is God.  God, who finds us in our darkest hour of despair and gives us hope; God, who bestows on us peace, not because we deserve it, but simply because we need it; God, whose presence in our lives overflows in joy and celebration; God, who sees us as we are, cherishes us as uniquely valuable; and invites us into a future in which our lives will be both transformed and fulfilled in love.

Frail and stooped with the ravages of illness, out of the hospital… her only yearning: to go to church. Out of the hospital  into the sanctuary… Wearing joy upon her wrinkled face, she is full of light. Her hand shaking, she places her offering on the plate. O God, a widow’s mite! This day in this time  lovingly, cheerfully offered to her Lord… O God, a widow’s mite! a sign of hope among us!
                                                         - Ann Weems

READING
Looking up, Jesus saw rich people throwing their gifts into the collection box for the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow throw in two small copper coins worth a penny. He said, “I assure you that this poor widow has put in more than them all. All of them are giving out of their spare change. But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she had to live on.”
                                                        - Luke 21.1-4 (CEB)

REFLECTION
NOTE: Pastoral needs have called me away from my reflection, whisking away in one fell swoop the time I need to prepare an adequate preparation for worship. I would say, “I’m sorry,” but I simply can’t apologize for providing pastoral care when and where it is needed. That, after all, is why we are here. 

This much I can say about Sunday's topic: There has to be a reason the widow in this story offered her all to God – a whopping two mites! – and only by peering into her heart and finding there this reason would Jesus be moved to affirm her action above all others in the temple that day. While her motives are not transparent to us, we can imagine the interior of a heart so willing to share. Ann Weems certainly has her idea, and it is expressed in the poem cited above. As you meditate on this passage and poem, seek to discern the widow’s reason for giving… and join us on Sunday as we consecrate our stewardship pledges to God.