
Weekly Newsletter – March 7, 2022 Print version
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Weekly Worship Schedule
Wednesday Wave
LOOKING AHEAD
MUSTARD SEED
NEWSLETTER
The Nicene Creed
Prayers for Ukraine and peace
For the Kids !
Bible Study
Bible Study – Lent 1C – 2022
March 6, 2022
RCL: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
The liturgical season of Lent gives us both a divine invitation and a map. It embodies the first three elements of the Way of Love: Turn. Learn. Pray. A Lent done well sets us up to be able to Worship, Bless, Go, and Rest in a deeper fashion at season’s end. In the early church, this was a time for preparing new converts to the faith.
What is the invitation? The invitation is to follow Jesus’ lead by taking the 40-day Lenten journey to the wilderness of our own temptation. It is a time of year when we remember Jesus’ model of claiming exceptional time. In this exceptional time, he followed the Spirit into the very place we usually try to avoid -temptation. Usually, we pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” In this season of Lenten exception, we follow Jesus as we spend intentional time facing truths about hard things. Temptations unchecked harm our communities, our sense of self, and our relationships with one another. In the words of the collect, we pray, “Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations.”
What is the map? The map is a careful construct of created space and purpose. Jesus followed the Holy Spirit’s lead. He went to the wilderness alone. He went for 40 days. We make a plan about place and time. We pull away. We set intentions. We remove from play anything that is not mission-critical. The goal is to close attention to the ways in which our hunger can lead us away from our relationship with God. As we learn, we take notes!
Jesus started his ministry, post-baptism in the River Jordan, by taking first things first. He pulled away at the Spirit’s guiding, to a deserted place. It was neither comfortable nor familiar. Why? Perhaps intentional simplicity sharpens the senses. In a place of border with deprivation, we are vulnerable. In a place such as this, we are reminded that comfort is not always our friend. The Lenten discipline of giving something up is to help us. With a simpler routine, freer from ordinary distractions, Jesus models creating an exceptional context in which attention can be given to the process of NOTICING and PRACTICING.
Bible Study – Lent 2C – 2022
March 13, 2022
RCL: Genesis 15:1-12,17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35
Here, we encounter a frustrated and exhausted Abram. After receiving word from the Lord that he and his offspring will be blessed, Abram and his family endure a seemingly never-ending onslaught of difficult circumstances. Due to famine, they are forced to leave their home. In Egypt, Abram becomes convinced that his wife Sarai’s beauty is a threat to his survival, so he devises a scheme that results in her being trafficked into Pharaoh’s harem. After leaving Egypt, Abram and his nephew, Lot, become embroiled in a family feud. By the next chapter, war has broken out, and Lot has been captured by rival forces. Abram is forced to go to battle. He survives it, only to discover that he and his wife, already elderly, do not seem to be able to conceive.
How can he trust that God will keep God’s promises under such conditions?! God’s track record isn’t great so far.
But then God shows up. God asks Abram to prepare a covenant “cutting” ritual. God visits the sacrificial site in the form of flame, passing between the dismembered animals as a formal show of God’s commitment to the promise. But even when God literally shows up, Abram is left stupefied in a terrifying darkness. Maybe his grief and trauma have clouded his vision. Or maybe the reality of God’s presence displaces these griefs in its own show of overwhelming power.
Did you know there are RCL (Revised Common Lectionary) Readings for each day ?
While there is a little overlap each day, they are posted on-line as a service of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library:
Daily Readings
Being Episcopalian
The Mississippi Episcopal Diocese
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Coast Churches
“O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go:
preserve those who travel; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger;
and bring them in safety to their journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.“
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