Our Lenten study book, Max Vincent’s, “Because of This I Rejoice,” provides us with opportunities to read and reflect on Scripture every day of the week. The Scripture passages listed below are the suggested readings for the week following the Third Sunday in Lent. I will list each day below, and fill in my thoughts as the week goes on…hoping to be a day or two ahead. Lenten blessings throughout this week and during your daily reflections.

Monday: (Psalm 1) – Psalm 1 sets the intention of the Book of Psalms: those who follow the word of God will prosper because they are with God, while those who separate themselves from the word and the will of God will face the ultimate desolation of pride and life without God. I think it is important we interpret “prosper” to mean something closer to “wholeness” and “God’s shalom” rather than the often thought “lottery winner” and “lucky duck” in all things of life. To “prosper with God” means to never be alone. This is why I feel especially drawn to verse 3 – the imagery of the tree planted next to the stream of “living water.” This image is one I like to often use because it is a familiar image of a tree finding nourishment, and that nourishment yielding the fruit of the tree in due season…and without nourishment, the fruit is shriveled and noticeably damaged. This image is also a powerful one during times of drought and the dry seasons of life, which we all inevitably experience. The tree with deep roots (the metaphor for a deep and meaningful relationship with God) draws its water from the deep part of the soil, which doesn’t dry up like the surface soil in the heat of the dry season. How is your relationship with God and how do you spend time in ways that your spiritual roots might reach the deep soil of God’s living water?

Tuesday: (John 13:1-20) – Today we reflect on the well-known Scripture of the “washing of the feet,” also known as Jesus’ lesson of the importance of servanthood (the center of our worship for Maundy Thursday). The humility of Jesus on this last evening with his followers is beyond anything most of us would be able to imagine, if we were in Jesus’ place. And as I read this lesson today, I am not only struck by the humility of Jesus, but by his patience and compassion with his followers as the moments of his time with them come closer and closer to their end. You might imagine a more anxiety-filled response from most people as Peter clumsily stumbles through the lesson…”Peter, sit down and take your sandals off…have you listened to anything I’ve been saying?!”…would be a fair response. But no, Jesus replies, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” (John 13:7) How many times do we wonder what God is doing in our midst? How many times do we feel a bit lost, confused, turned-around by the small, still voice of God? I believe we can often be hard on ourselves in circumstances like this…thinking, “Ugh…what is God saying to me?…why don’t I get it?…maybe I’m just not good enough?” What if we replaced the words of that internal narrative with Jesus’ response: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Perhaps we should pray for ourselves and others to have patience, compassion, and understanding in the challenging and confusing days of life; praying not to be the “super star disciple” but for peace as we wait for God’s Spirit to come and give us understanding.

Wednesday: (John 13:31-35) – We continue today where we left Jesus and his followers yesterday, minus Judas Iscariot, who has gone out into the night to begin his final act of betrayal. And in the midst of the drama of Jesus’ betrayal, he teaches his followers the lesson of love. The “servanthood” lesson of yesterday begins to take its shape with this lesson of love for God and for all people. My study bible mentions the point that this lesson of love is not new; we can find its origins in Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:4, yet Jesus takes the lessons presented in the Torah (often rooted in restorative justice) and expands the lesson to find expansive redemption and wholeness, found in God’s powerful love for all creation. Jesus is teaching that God’s love makes all things new; that God’s love has the same creative power it has always had, as God created the heavens and the earth. If we are able to participate in that love; if we are able to reflect that perfect love of God in our lives, we will be witnesses of Christ’s mission of mercy in the world. This is what Jesus is teaching as he says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) How might we find God’s abundant and expansive love in our world, and have the courage to model this love in our lives?

Thursday: (Galatians 3:1-14) – Our Scripture lesson today takes us to the middle of Paul’s passionate letter to the Galatians, where Paul strongly encourages these new Christians to embrace the new life found in the saving grace of the Risen Christ. The specific argument we hear in the beginning of chapter 3 is the theological idea of the justification of the sinner through faith in Christ alone. I must admit that this Scripture lesson rings true to me on several levels of my Christian life, especially as a “low churchman” of the Episcopal Church (For those who are not familiar with the Episcopal tradition of “low church” and “high church”: low church sensibilities generally tend toward the simplicity of life, while high church folks tend to burn incense, bow and kneel, and surround their worship spaces with many beautiful and ornate Christian symbols). While I can appreciate the beauty of the varieties of symbols and gestures of my “high church” friends, I find the simplicity of the “low church” way of praying and worshiping rooted in the theology of Paul’s argument to the Galatians: there is real power in the saving act of Christ’s death and resurrection…a power so profound, we can only silently have faith in its grace. And I must also admit to the tension between wanting to “do things” to recognize and “be reverent to” that power; and to simply let the grace of Christ stand in silent awe…but is that “silent awe” misunderstood in the depths of our souls as “not being reverent enough?” It reminds me of Naaman’s reaction to the saving grace of God, given through the prophet Elisha in the Book of Kings (2 Kings 5:1-19). We often feel a human need to “do stuff” so we satisfy ourselves that we have been one of the “good followers of the faith.” Paul invites us into a life of faith alone: to leave the law behind, to bow only at the name of Christ, and to put God’s law of love in our minds and write it on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). How does the grace of the Risen Christ manifest itself in your daily life?

Friday: (Galatians 6:1-10) – Paul closes his letter to the Galatians with advice regarding the behavior and characteristics of “Christian community.” Paul begins this section of our Scripture lesson with a very familiar Pauline theme: the Christian bears the burden of being in community with their brother and sister. God’s Spirit provides the ability to “love your neighbor as yourself” by recognizing that we all sin, we all come up short from time to time. Humility puts our hearts and minds in the proper place – all good things come from God. He is quite clear about this in verses 6:7-10 – “If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit” (16:8) This “outward pointing focus” and “humble Christian attitude” are key characteristics in how Paul teaches his listeners that we are able to weather the storms of life and maintain our faith in Christ’s mission of mercy and compassion for all people in the world. There will certainly be days when Paul’s advice seems difficult to sustain, but as Paul preaches, “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up.” (16:9)

Saturday: (James 2:14-26) – I cannot read this section of the Letter of James without the image of the great reformer, Martin Luther, with steam coming from his ears, veins popping in his forehead, as he listens to the idea that “faith without works is dead.” Luther famously called the Letter of James the “Epistle of Straw” because he so vehemently believed in the “grace of God by faith alone.” Although Luther believed that the words of James were an attack on the idea of “Grace by faith alone;” I am not convinced that James meant that God is unable to save us by God’s grace alone and that we must contribute to make our salvation effective. I believe James was pointing toward a different cosmic truth about the people of God, and that truth is that if God’s Spirit resides in your heart, the fruits of God’s grace will be made manifest in your life. I often use the image of an apple tree…a healthy, vibrant apple tree bears the red, ripe fruit of its harvest…that is the very nature of what an apple is all about, after all! I believe James is really saying, if year after year, the apple tree bears no fruit at all, or if the apple tree quietly picks its own fruit and selfishly stores it up for itself in a secret place…is that really the nature of a healthy apple tree?! Similarly, if the healthy, vibrant Christian (filled with the Spirit) walks about and discovers those in need of compassion or mercy and cannot or will not bear the fruit of the harvest of Christ, one must wonder if that one is not similar to the apple tree that does not bear the fruit of its name. There is a wide gap between believing that the works of the person make the person righteous (works righteousness) and Luther’s belief that we sit in our sins and are saved by God’s grace alone. I believe James’ thought strikes the middle way (maybe James was the first Anglican!) and says we are saved by God’s grace, yet a good apple tree should always be counted on for a delicious Thanksgiving dessert!