Media Connections for the Third Sunday in Lent

Our texts for this Sunday as we continue to explore God's story together are Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42, which can be found here.

Again, this week's blog will feature some media connections from around the web that might help you begin to delve into some deeper meaning in this week's texts, both of which revolve strongly around themes of water, thirst, and God's provision.

First, this really interesting modern envisioning of the encounter between Jesus and the Woman at the Well by Dinah Roe Kendall, and a slightly older rendition of the story of Exodus 17 by one of my favorite painters, Marc Chagall (another version he created of this story will be part of our bulletin art this week):

A long-time favorite song of mine, "Share the Well" by Caedmon's Call, inspired by the band's travels abroad in India and Ecuador and in particular the way they witnessed groups of people sharing resources--particularly water, drawn from community wells in many places today just as it was in the time of Jesus.

Finally, a great organization that addresses water needs in forgotten areas of the world is Watering Malawi. Explore their website, and read some facts they share about what they call "water poverty" in the world below.

A white-tailed deer drinks

from the creek;

I want to drink God,

deep draughts of God.

I’m thirsty for God-alive.

I wonder, “Will I ever make it—

arrive and drink in God’s presence?”

-Psalm 42:1-2, The Message

Media Connections for Second Sunday in Lent

Our texts for this second Sunday in our Lenten journey of connecting our stories to God's story are the stories of Abram from Genesis 12:1-4 and 15:1-6, and of Nicodemus from John 3:1-21. You can read the text to these here.

First, shameless plug:  Join us tonight as we begin our new Lenten book study of John Indermark's Genesis of Grace. At the church at 7pm--come even if you don't have a book!

Second, the new curriculum for which I am privileged to write has a very cool feature called "Media Connections." Each week, we provide for suggestions for teachers of ways they can use different forms of art and media to help children and youth engage the story from a different angle, or that can help them enter into the story more deeply. Finding media connections is honestly one of my favorite parts of writing sessions, so I thought that I might try offering you some media connections to our lectionary passages here on the blog--things you might want to look at, listen to, or ponder to begin opening your heart and mind to the stories you will encounter on Sunday. 

So here are some offerings for this Sunday, where we will look at two stories of people who encounter God in the darkness of night.

Consider these two modern art echoes of our stories: Peter Teekamp's "Old Man and Baby" and Richard Hook's "Jesus and the Businessman," alternately called "Jesus and Modern Day Nicodemus":

The wonderful Andrew Peterson song "In the Night," which though it does not name either Abram or Nicodemus tells the story of many others who lived through the darkness of night in scripture and connects their stories to ours:

The Night, written by 17th century poet Henry Vaughan and inspired by John 3:2:

The Night

BY HENRY VAUGHAN

      Through that pure virgin shrine,

That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon,

That men might look and live, as glowworms shine,

         And face the moon,

    Wise Nicodemus saw such light

    As made him know his God by night.

      Most blest believer he!

Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes

Thy long-expected healing wings could see,

         When Thou didst rise!

    And, what can never more be done,

    Did at midnight speak with the Sun!

      O who will tell me where

He found Thee at that dead and silent hour?

What hallowed solitary ground did bear

         So rare a flower,

    Within whose sacred leaves did lie

    The fulness of the Deity?

      No mercy-seat of gold,

No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone,

But His own living works did my Lord hold

         And lodge alone;

    Where trees and herbs did watch and peep

    And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

      Dear night! this world’s defeat;

The stop to busy fools; care’s check and curb;

The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat

         Which none disturb!

    Christ’s progress, and His prayer time;

    The hours to which high heaven doth chime;

      God’s silent, searching flight;

When my Lord’s head is filled with dew, and all

His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;

         His still, soft call;

    His knocking time; the soul’s dumb watch,

    When spirits their fair kindred catch.

      Were all my loud, evil days

Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,

Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice

         Is seldom rent,

    Then I in heaven all the long year

    Would keep, and never wander here.

      But living where the sun

Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire

Themselves and others, I consent and run

         To every mire,

    And by this world’s ill-guiding light,

    Err more than I can do by night.

      There is in God, some say,

A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here

Say it is late and dusky, because they

         See not all clear.

    O for that night! where I in Him

    Might live invisible and dim!

Finally, try counting the stars in this magnificent photo by NASA:

Beginning Our Lenten Journey

Last night, for Ash Wednesday, we began our Lenten season as a congregation by journeying through six stations for reflection. In keeping with our Lent theme of "This is Our Story," these stations invited us to engage the story of scripture and claim it as our own. I am indebted for the overall idea of this and a couple of the stations to http://freshworship.wordpress.com, but I wanted to share the stations here for those who were not able to be with us last night. May they guide you into deeper thoughtfulness and reflection as we begin this pilgrimage together towards Jerusalem, the cross, and the bright light of resurrection morning.

SAND

READ: Deuteronomy 6:2 and Matthew 4:1-2

Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart...

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights...

REFLECT:
Today we begin the journey that is Lent, a forty-day season before Easter (excluding Sundays). During this time, we follow the example of Jesus who was led by the Spirit to spend forty days in the wilderness before he began his public ministry. There Jesus fasted and prayed in order to learn what God was calling him to do. He walked in the footsteps of the Israelites who wandered not just 40 days but 40 years in the wilderness before entering the land God had promised them. Why might time spent in the wilderness be such an important theme throughout the story of scripture?
RESPOND:
Trace your finger slowly through some sand, making a path through it. In what way are you moving through a wilderness? How might these 40 days of a Lent be a time for you to listen for God's call? What promises are you waiting to see fulfilled?

HEART

READ: Joel 2:12-13

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

REFLECT:
Lent is traditionally seen as a season of penitence and returning, which may be why this reading from Joel is part of most Ash Wednesday services. Old Testament scholar Esther Menn writes that “to “return” in Hebrew means literally to “turn” around, to change one’s direction by halting the walk away from God and beginning the walk toward God. The “heart” in Hebrew anthropology is the site of deliberation and commitment. Turning to God with one’s whole heart therefore involves changing one’s mind, reconsidering one’s actions, and orienting oneself entirely toward God” (workingpreacher.org). These words from long ago are challenging as we prepare our hearts for this season of turning.
RESPOND:
From what do you need to turn? About what do you need to change your mind? What acts do you need to reconsider? Write or sketch these things on a paper heart. Then, “rend your heart” (tear it) as a symbolic act of confession and expression of your desire to return to God.

CLAY

READ: Jeremiah 18:1-6

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done?” says the LORD. “Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”

REFLECT:

At times sin is described in the Bible is as a “hardness of heart.” Do you ever feel that your heart is hard, that it is inflexible, not pliable, judgmental? Do you keep your guard up in your relationships with others and/or with God? What would it look like this Lent for you to let your heart rest soft and moldable in the hands of God?
RESPOND:
Take a piece of clay. Warm it in your hands and knead it until it becomes pliable. Give it a new shape – perhaps a small bowl which could symbolize receptivity to God and to God’s forgiving love, or something else that has meaning to you. Let it serve as a reminder of your openness to God’s reshaping this Lenten season.

WATER

READ: Psalm 51:10-12

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

REFLECT:
Just as we often spend spring cleaning our houses to rid them of cobwebs and make them ready to receive gifts, so in Lent we take time to examine our lives in preparation for our encounter with the risen Christ at Easter. Are there closets where you store past resentments? Is there a sink full of dishes with the residue of negative behaviors? What would it look like to clean these up and out?
RESPOND
Dip your hands into the water in the bowl on the table before you. As you do so, reflect on what your life could be like, thoroughly immersed in God’s love. Take a clear stone with you as a reminder of God’s cleansing love.

OIL

READ: Lamentations 3:19-23

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall!

My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; God’s mercies never come to an end.

They are new every morning--great is your faithfulness.

REFLECT:
The author of Lamentations spends much time lamenting (hence the name!) the world’s afflictions and his own. Only one thought gives him or her peace: the steadfast love of God. The knowledge of God’s unshakable love, even in the midst of trouble, is finally the grease which makes the squeaky wheel of lamentation fall silent. It is that which makes it possible to go on, even in the worst of circumstances.
RESPOND:
Dip your finger in oil and smooth it onto the back of your hand. As you do, reflect on the parts of your life which are stiff and squeaky – places where you are stuck, places which cause you to lament time and time again. Consider how the love of God might come into these parts of your life, renewing and making them usable in a way they have not been before.

ASHES

READ: Genesis 3:19

…you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

REFLECT:
There is evidence that the practice marking the face or body with ashes on the first day of Lent began in the 6th century. At first it was done only by people required to do public penance for notorious sin before being restored to the community. Then clergy began to try to comfort and encourage these penitents by submitting themselves to the same public mark. Eventually, all began to wear the ashes as a sign of their need for restoration.
For our spiritual ancestors, the people of Jewish and other Near Eastern cultures, wearing ashes was a sign of mourning and lament. Ashes were usually associated with sackcloth,  the clothing worn to mourn the death of a beloved or to lament a personal or communal disaster. Humans are the only species we know is capable of contemplating their own death, yet few of us do. Ash Wednesday challenges us to reflect on our own shortcomings and our death so that we can truly embrace life.
RESPOND:
Dip your finger in the ashes and make a cross on the back of your hand or your forehead. Press firmly. Reflect on the gift of life over death symbolized by the cross. Know that you are dust, and indeed to dust shall you return; yet in all things, in your coming and going, in this life and the one beyond, the God who makes all things new is with you and has marked you as God’s own.

Seven pictures rather than a thousand words

Our texts for this coming Sunday, Transfiguration Sunday, are Exodus 24:12-18 and Matthew 17:1-9, which can be read here.

The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus before his disciples, which is traditionally read on the final Sunday of Epiphany--meaning it is one of the few stories we hear every year!--is one of the most perplexing in all of scripture. Though Matthew, Mark, and Luke all attempt to describe what happened on that mountaintop, saying things like, "his face shone like the sun" and "his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them," the Gospel writers--not to mention Peter, James, and John, who saw this event with their own eyes--seem somewhat at a loss of words to convey the mystery they witnessed.

I think it's interesting, though, that even if the physical descriptions of the transfiguration are brief, this has been one of the most-painted scenes from the Bible throughout history. It has captured the imagination of artists across the centuries, all who have envisioned the moment of heavenly transformation on the mountain differently.

I looked at a number of these images this week, and found several I found compelling not just individually, but in how incredibly different they are when put together. Spend some time pondering the images below, then reflect on Matthew 17 on your own. If you had to create a piece of art to represent what you imagine this scene looked like, what colors would you use? What textures? What would you hope to convey?

15th century, Theophanes the Greek:

Classic early Renaissance depiction by Giovani Bellini:

19th century piece by Alexandr Ivanov:

An icon of the scene from the contemporary St. John's Bible:

A modern oil-on-canvas by Judy Racz:

Interpretation by African artist Jesus Mafa:

An abstract piece (artist unknown):

What Now?

As I have gone through this week, as much as I have been reflecting ahead on the scriptures for this upcoming Sunday (Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Matthew 5:21-37), I have been reflecting back on the week our congregation just spent in partnership with Cape St. Claire United Methodist in offering emergency housing to 32 people without homes in these cold days through the Winter Relief program. I have been thinking about the new relationships formed, how spending time together over meals and watching the Olympics and American Idol and going through life in community with these individuals offered chances to connect and hear each other's stories. I also have been reflecting on the series of circumstances that led these men and women to lose housing...and how hard the road is back to finding a place to call home, a stable living environment.

All this makes me think, What now? What can we do, as Christ's community, moving forward to address this issue that is more prevalent in our neighborhood than we think? In our area ministerium, where local clergy on the Broadneck peninsula gather monthly, we have been talking about the fact that we are fairly certain that Anne Arundel County is the only county in Maryland without a permanent homeless shelter--there are transitional programs, and the moving shelter provided for several months of Winter Relief, but no stable shelter you can go to if you find yourself suddenly with nowhere to go. Our ministerium is talking together about what we could do about this, and we would welcome your input.

But beyond this, I want to introduce you to another program being initiated by Arundel House of Hopes: the 100,000 homes program, which is being implemented in cities across America in an effort to get the most vulnerable off the streets in a more effective, permanent way. In a great convergence, there was a segment about this 100,000 homes program on 60 Minutes this past Sunday night. You can find it by following this link, or the video is hopefully embedded below--it is about 13 minutes long, and I hope you will take time to watch it. How do the things you hear resonate with or challenge your experiences during our Winter Relief week? What now for us as we seek to care for our neighbors? I would love to hear your ideas and feedback! As people seeking to choose life and live by Jesus' teachings as we hear in this week's scriptures, these are vitally important questions for us to consider.

What Gives You Life?

For the next 30 days, I will be be receiving an amazing gift from my amazing church. Broadneck has the remarkable practice of giving their pastors a sabbatical of 30 days after three years of service. After three and a half fantastic years at Broadneck, I will be taking my sabbatical now through the month of January, taking time to get married (an unusual use of sabbatical, I know!) and to rest and find refreshment for continued ministry.

As I have prepared for this time, I was convicted that I wanted January to be a "sabbatical" of sorts for you What Gives Us Life?" I have asked them to consider not only what they see as life-giving in the lectionary passages for each week, but also to share some of what is giving them life currently as they continue the journey of faith.
all as well--a chance for you to find renewal and restoration as a congregation. I also wanted to lend some coherence to the month even as you have the gift of hearing four different amazing preachers--Cherie Smith, John Roberts, Leslie Copeland-Tune, and Brent Walker. So I asked all four preachers to offer reflections on a common theme: "

This theme idea was inspired by one of my favorite writers, Barbara Brown Taylor, who had this to say in her book An Altar in the World (my recommended reading for you this month!):

Many years ago now, a wise old priest invited me to come speak at his church in Alabama. “What do you want me to talk about?” I asked him. “Come tell us what is saving your life now,” he answered. It was as if he had swept his arm across a dusty table and brushed all the formal china to the ground. I did not have to try to say correct things that were true for everyone. I did not have to use theological language that conformed to the historical teachings of the church. All I had to do was figure out what my life depended on. All I had to do was figure out how I stayed as close to that reality as I could, and then find some way to talk about it that helped my listeners figure out those same things for themselves.

This is my prayer for you this month--that you might rediscover what your life depends on, or discover it anew--that you may find a way to connect to the things that give you life and to stay close to them. Most of all, that this may be a life-giving time for you as you consider the one in whom "was light, and that light was the life of all people" (John 1:4). What is saving your life right now? What does your life depend on? And how might God want to help you connect to new life, rest, and renewal?

Some people will be sharing their testimonies addressing this question in worship in the coming weeks, and I hope you will consider how you would answer these questions for yourself. Share your answers with me when I return!

Year in Review

This coming Sunday, as part of our worship, we will offer a litany that includes a paraphrase of a simple prayer that has been one of my favorites since I first heard it on a New Year's retreat as a teenager:

“For all that has been, Thank you. 

For all that is to come, Yes!” 

(Dag Hammarskjold) 

We will say these lines together as part of a litany blessing the year that has been in the life of our church, and blessing the many, many transitions that surely will be part of 2014.

All this got me to thinking about what a truly amazing year 2013 has been in the life of our church. From our incredible, congregation-changing week of hosting 25 homeless guests for the first time through the Winter Relief program in January; to an amazing art-infused Church Council retreat in April; to an intergenerational Seder dinner in March followed by a beautiful celebration of Easter; to the youth group trash pick-up in April; to the Strawberry festival in early June followed by Music and Arts Camp at the end of the month; to serving through My Brother's Pantry in July and in West Virginia in August; to Tea and Parables in September and our Bryan Moyer Suderman concert and chili cook-off in October; to a beautiful All-Saints Day and baby dedication in November, and now this Advent of a Holy Pause--it has been a remarkable year, one that has made me more grateful than ever to call myself Broadneck's pastor.

2014 promises to bring new things--some of which we embrace, some of which we wish were otherwise, some of which we have no idea yet. Births, deaths, marriages, retirements, sabbaticals, moves, illnesses, new relationships and opportunities--all of these are part of our journey as a family of faith. As we move into this new year, my prayer is that we will continue to walk together with joy and intentionality, and most of all with love for one another. Join us on Sunday as we say "thanks" for what has been, and "yes" to what will be.