Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for March 22, 2020

First Reading: 1 Samuel 16:1-13


So far during Lent, our readings have taken us through thoughts on temptation and sin, faith and trust, and physical and spiritual thirst. This Sunday’s lectionary reflects on light and sight: What do we see, and how do we see it?

Jesus opens the Eyes of a Man born Blind (1308-1311), tempera on wood painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319). Altarpiece of the Siena Cathedral, Italy, now in the National Gallery in London. (Click image to enlarge.)

First we read the Hebrew Bible account of God’s growing dissatisfaction with Saul, the first king of Israel. God directs the prophet and judge Samuel to look for the new king that God has chosen among the sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite. It takes a while for Samuel to work his way down through Jesse’s seven older sons before he reaches David, the youngest, thought such an unlikely candidate that he had been left out in the fields to watch the sheep. God saw the spirit in David that the others could not see, and David becomes king.

Psalm: Psalm 23

It isn’t easy for Christians to hear the comforting verses of the 23rd Psalm without imagining the face of Jesus in the Good Shepherd. Indeed, John’s Gospel has Jesus telling his disciples, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Ancient tradition, though, holds that King David himself wrote these beloved verses, speaking of a subject that he would have known well as a boyhood shepherd. In fact, the ancient rabbis in exile most likely wrote this song, thinking of an earthly Messiah who would restore Jerusalem and the Temple. No matter how we read it, we all can rest in the joy of knowing that God’s rod and staff comfort us, and that God’s goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives.

Second Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14


The short letter to the church in Ephesus was probably actually written by a follower in Paul’s name a few decades after his death. The full epistle contains some problems for modern Christians who take it out of its historical and cultural context. It appears to sanction slavery, for example: and it firmly puts women in their place as “subject” to their husbands. There are no such issues with Sunday’s short reading, though. It offers a poetic view of light against darkness, perhaps echoing John’s vision of Jesus as the light shining in the darkness, and pointing us toward today’s Gospel about the man born blind.

Gospel: John 9:1-41


Speaking of harsh ideas that linger from ancient times, the sad notion that blindness and other disabilities reflect God’s punishment for one’s sins or the sins of one’s parents has been hard to overcome, despite Jesus’ emphasis that God does no such thing. Rather, the very words that the man born blind utters upon his healing make the case for grace, not punishment, as we hear them in one of Christianity’s most beloved hymns: “I once was lost, but now am found … Was blind, but now I see.”

First Reading: Exodus 17:1-7


Sunday’s readings speak about thirst, from the thirsty Israelites in the desert to Jesus stopping for water and rest in a Samaritan town.

Christ and the Woman of Samaria at the Well (c.1640-c.1641), oil painting on canvas by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino (1591-1666). Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid. (Click image to enlarge.)

When we face such basic needs as hunger and thirst, it’s all too easy to forget to be thankful for past blessings. In the previous chapter of Exodus, God provided manna for the hungry people. Now they are angry because they have no water. They complain that they were better off in slavery in Egypt than dying in the desert. Moses is just about out of patience with them, but God provides a miracle to quench their thirst.

Psalm: Psalm 95

The 95th Psalm begins with the joyful hymn of praise that we also know as the Venite, a familiar reading in Morning Prayer. But its grateful tone changes key abruptly in Verse 8 when the Psalmist reminds us of the story we heard in the Exodus reading. The thirsty, angry people turned their hearts from God and put God to the test; the Psalmist imagines that these actions drove God to “loathe” these ungrateful people and leave them lost 40 years in the desert.

Second Reading: Romans 5:1-11


Even though we are sinners, we are justified through faith and saved through Jesus’s death on the cross, Paul writes to the church in Rome. This congregation has known suffering. Its Jewish Christian members had been forced into exile and only recently returned; the entire congregation could be at risk for its faith. But Paul reminds them that their suffering gives them the opportunity to learn endurance and build their character through hope in the love that God pours into their hearts through the Spirit.

Gospel: John 4:5-42


We see a very human side of Jesus in this passage from John’s Gospel. When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had discovered that he and his disciples were making and baptizing even more followers than his cousin John had done, he decided to go back to Galilee. He chose a route through the country of the Samaritans, descendants of the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel who were no longer on good terms with the Jews. Tired and thirsty, he stopped in a Samaritan village, where he broke with custom not only by asking a Samaritan woman for a drink but by striking up a conversation with her. Much to the surprise of his disciples, he stayed in the village for two days and made believers of many of the Samaritans.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for March 8, 2020

First Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a


Last week as Lent began, our readings invited us to contemplate temptation in our lives. Now, in the second week of Lent, the lectionary turns to faith: Trust in God. Close your eyes, believe, and take that long leap of faith.

Christ and Nicodemus (c.1896). Medium oil painting on canvas by Fritz von Uhde (1848-1911). Private collection. (Click image to enlarge.)

In our first reading, we hear the ancestral story of Abram – who God will later rename Abraham. The patriarch of the chosen people, even in the fullness of years, trusted God’s call to uproot his home and family and begin the people’s long journey toward the promised land. For Abram’s faith, God will bless him and his family. Through him, God will bless all the families of the Earth.

Psalm: Psalm 121

These beautiful verses, perhaps as comforting as the beloved 23rd Psalm, continue the theme of having faith and trusting in God to watch over us and protect us. We lift up our eyes to the hills seeking help, the Psalmist sings; and that help comes from God. We sing our thanks and praise to God, who unfailingly, without pausing to sleep, guards us and protects us from evil, now and forever.

Second Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17


Paul’s pastoral letter to the people in Rome draws us back to Abraham, turning the ancestral story to a new purpose: Abraham was the ancestor of the chosen people in the flesh, Paul writes, an ancestry passed down through generations from parent to child, not only to Israel but to many nations. God’s promise of eternal life comes to us, as it came to Abraham, through faith by grace. God does not protect us in repayment for our faith or for anything we do. Grace is not something due to us but a gift given to all the nations, not to Abraham’s descendants alone.

Gospel: John 3:1-17


Nicodemus, a Pharisee, comes to talk with Jesus at night, perhaps to keep his visit secret in the darkness. He is bewildered by Jesus’ mysterious words. What does it mean to be “born from above,” or, in some translations, “born again”? Nicodemus can’t grasp the distinction between being literally born of flesh as an infant and being born of the Spirit in faith, but he may have found it, as he will bring spices to help bury Jesus after the Crucifixion. Next we hear the familiar words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Does this mean that only Christians can be saved? Jesus’ teaching surely rules out that narrow interpretation. Even the next line emphasizes that Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save it: all the world, all the nations that God blessed through Abraham.