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Learning the Meaning of Ministry - Reflections
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Reflections on the Gospel Passages for Lent
by Milo Thornberry, Tom Peterson and Harriette Grissom*
Ash Wednesday: Self-Denial Without Self-Congratulation
Matthew 6:16-2 1: Fasting has long been associated with Lent. Earlier, in the Old Testament, fasting was called for in times of bereavement and national sorrow. It was also a way of expressing solidarity between the rich and the poor. By fasting, the rich who had something to deprive themselves of could experience for a time the lot of the poor, who were hungry all the time. In the six weeks of Lent, fasting has been a way to identify with the sufferings of Jesus. In response to the "world food crisis" of the last decade, people sometimes fast and contribute the cost of the meals they miss to efforts to end world hunger.
In a consumer society like ours, where one is encouraged to consume without limit and then to buy medicine to ease the over-consumption, fasting may be an appropriate exercise in self-control and spiritual growth. The passage in Matthew for Ash Wednesday assumes the importance of fasting and other religious acts. The passage carries a sober warning: Whatever you do, do it in secret! Otherwise, acts which might help us resist the forces of commercialism, grow in spirit, and direct our resources to more useful ends, become spirit-defeating self-congratulation.
Prayer: O God, you know us for who we are. In this season, call us to acts of self-denial in which we may identify with your Son and all those who suffer. Save us through renewed senses of honesty and humor from the foolishness of our pretensions, so that we may truly grow in spirit and commitment.
1st Sunday in Lent: Temptation as Preparation for Ministry
Matthew 4:1-11: After his baptism, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil. The temptations are part of God's preparation of Jesus for ministry. Even more difficult than the temptations themselves is the fact that they come during difficult physical circumstances: Jesus is alone in the desert without food. The forty days of Lent, as well as the tradition of fasting, is patterned on Jesus' 40 days in the desert.
The three temptations -- to work miracles for the satisfaction of immediate need, to give a convincing sign, and to exercise political power -- were all things expecting of the promised Messiah. Jesus does not, as some have suggested, reject the expectations themselves: he fed 5,000 people with the loaves and fishes; he healed, exorcised demons, and even brought a dead man to life; and he challenged the authorities in Jerusalem. What was it that he resisted in these temptations?
1) He refused to exercise power for himself (his own needs and ego) in order to avoid personal sacrifice. The temptation to exercise power without personal sacrifice was always present, even on the night of his arrest (cf. Matt. 26:36-39).
2) He affirmed that his work was done in the service of God, and rejected all lesser purposes for his ministry. He would not serve Satan, some political ideology, or a special interest group. Christ's commitment to ministry in the name of God was important since both he and his disciples would be accused later of using the power of the Devil (cf. Matt. 12:22-28 and 10:25).
Prayer: O God, whose wisdom and power know no limits, through resistance to the temptation to serve ourselves in your name, through knowledge that You call and empower us, prepare us to do your work in the world, even as did your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
2nd Sunday in Lent: Accepting New Beginnings
John 3:1-17: Over and again we come to Christ in the night as Nicodemus the Pharisee. We come seeking, but not sure what we are seeking. We come thinking, "I understand I have matured, I have arrived." But Christ tells us we must be born again. "But how can one be born again." We've done all that. That's for others.
Suddenly we are yanked from our solid footing and tossed about by waves of the unpredictable. We enter again that birth canal, resisting yet eager, gasping for air, blinded by a brighter light than we have ever known, chilled by a vulnerability to a world we didn't know existed being reborn ill a new way.
God is not done with us. God is never done with us or with the world. God constantly creates in us clean hearts, makes all things new and rebirths us again and again.
Over and again we come to Christ in our world's night. And we are told we must be reborn. We are to enter eternal life, to enter the kingdom. God's kingdom comes and God's will is done here on earth around and through us. Christ's ministry continues through the church as it comes into the light.
"All beginnings are hard," says novelist Chaim Potok, "especially a beginning that you make by yourself. That's the hardest beginning of all."
Prayer: O God, Giver of life and light, call us from our wombs of security and isolation to rebirth into the world you are creating; call us from the darkness of our fears and anxieties to the daytime of hope and confidence in your ministry Amen.
3rd Sunday in Lent: The Inclusiveness of Ministry
John 4:5-26 (27-42): Traditionally the Jews were not supposed to drink or eat after the Samaritans. The Samaritans had kept to old forms of worship and were viewed as heretics by the religious establishment. Some believed them to be descendants of earlier invasions of Assyrians, and saw them as enemies. In any case, they were discriminated against both socially and economically and many thought the discrimination was justifiable.
Jesus makes a serious break with tradition when he asks the Samaritan woman to draw water from the well for him. She is not only a Samaritan, but a woman who has been married many times -- objectionable from several points of view. Even the disciples stand back when they see Jesus talking to a person like this.
If the religious leaders couldn't stand to drink from the same well with the Samaritans, could they tolerate a teacher who offered the essence of their faith -- the life-giving water -- to a sinner, all outcast and a heretic? Many could not stand it, so they collaborated with the Romans to crucify Jesus.
By sharing water with the Samaritan woman, Jesus is making the important point that the message he brings goes deeper than any history of religious disagreement and is open to all who are willing to receive it. Perhaps because they are free from presumption about their status, the Samaritans are ready to hear Jesus and accept him in a way that the religious leaders were not.
In what sense is openness toward people who are different, outcast, poor or somehow marginal a source of spiritual nourishment and a crucial aspect of Christ's teaching? Can one be "spiritually" inclusive without being socially and economically inclusive? To what extent does our image of ourselves as "chosen people" keep us from hearing what Christ has to say?
Prayer: O God, Parent of us all -- Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, Female, Male, Privileged and non-Privileged, break down the walls of exclusiveness we build around ourselves and our families with "the right kind of people" so that we may receive life-giving water from your Son, even Jesus Christ. Amen.
4th Sunday in Lent: Knowing Our Blind Spots
John 9:1-41: In the story of the healing of the blind man, a whole host of theological scruples keep the Pharisees from seeing the truth behind the miracle Christ has performed. They are determined to discredit Jesus: perhaps the blind man was never really blind. Even if there has been a healing, it was performed on the Sabbath and so the healer must be a sinner. When all other arguments fail, they discount the miracle on the basis that the blind mail was a worthless sort of person anyway.
The blind mail, on the other hand, is simple and straightforward about what has happened to him. He makes no extravagant claims for Christ, but neither does he fail to recognize the significance of the event. All of the Pharisees' subtle arguments against Jesus are lost on the blind man. All he knows is that once he was blind, but now he sees. When Jesus asks the blind man to believe in him as the Son of Man, he accepts without hesitation.
Why is it so easy for the blind man to see the truth of Christ's ministry and so impossible for the Pharisees? The blind man probably felt that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. He goes from darkness to light. The Pharisees, on the other hand, feel that they have a great deal at stake -- their positions, their comforts, the traditions of their faith, their intelligence and highly developed sense of discrimination. They do not realize that in a sense we are all blind, and most blind when we think we see.
How can a sophisticated understanding about "how the world works" become a barrier to seeing the realities of injustice and need? Are our spiritual philosophies or religious convictions ever an obstacle to making the changes we need to make in our lives? Can you think of instances in history or in your own experience when ideas of spiritual superiority have been used to rationalize and justify maintaining a privileged position?
Prayer: Almighty and Merciful God, whose power can open the eyes of the blind, open our eyes to see your healing power among those and in places we do not expect, so that instead of opposing you we may be numbered among those who minister in your name. In the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen.
5th Sunday in Lent: Overcoming Skepticism
John 11:1-45: "The one whom you love is ill." This brief plea sent to Jesus summarizes the tension between God's love for the world and the fact that illness and suffering are still so much part of that world. This seeming contradiction has always given theologians headaches. How can God love us, yet allow us to suffer?
The scandal of this story is that Jesus didn't act when he heard of Lazarus' sickness. He didn't head for Bethany till three days later. Meanwhile, Lazarus died. Our world teems with injustice, disease and death. Yet Christ waits.
And we wait for that day Christ will return to defeat evil once and for all. But, like Martha, we complain, "if you had been here, Lord, my brother wouldn't have died." If Christ had come earlier, six million Jews and millions of Campucheans wouldn't have been slaughtered, hundreds of millions wouldn't be hungry today. We're frustrated because Christ delays.
But in this story, Jesus didn't wait till the final day as Martha had assumed. Instead, he brought a fragment of the Kingdom into their midst -- Lazarus was raised. When God acts in our presence, we often refuse to believe it. We'd like to, but our skepticism holds us back. When Jesus ordered the stone to be pushed from the tomb, Martha objected there would be a great stink.
In a fifteenth-century painting Jesus stands before a surprised Lazarus emerging from the tomb. Both sisters and a dumbfounded crowd stare wide-eyed. But over to one side, almost off the edge of the painting, is a fellow with a long, brown beard and a green robe. He is turned aside, frowning, and is holding his nose tightly. Despite a miracle only a few feet away, he's afraid to believe it's happening. We too, often refuse to believe that God will penetrate our situations or the suffering of the world. But God does.
We await that time when Christ will shout, "Planet Earth, come out." And a diseased planet will emerge from its bandages and scars of hate, greed and death. We await the day of the "new heaven and new Earth." Meanwhile, the ones God loves are ill. Our task is to find those places the Kingdom is breaking in early, to believe and see the glory of God.
Prayer: O God, as we seek to labor in the ministry of your Son Jesus, grant that we not be nose-holders but stone-rollers, unintimidated by the mystery of your actions and ready to be surprised by your grace. Amen.
6th Sunday in Lent: The Cost of Discipleship
Matthew 21:1-11: Jesus entered Jerusalem acting out the prophet Zechariah's vision of the arrival of Israel's Messiah (Zech. 9:9-10). Why Jesus chose to come to Jerusalem at this time is not clear. Staying in Galilee or the countryside would have been easier and safer than coming to the very stronghold of his enemies. But come he did. Images of an inoffensive Jesus riding on a lowly donkey should not distract from the critical point that his coming to Jerusalem was apparently a challenge to the authority of those who opposed his ministry and wanted to kill him.
The common people who welcomed him that day knew Zechariah's prophecy and greeted Jesus as a new King, the son of David, who in their expectations would liberate them from political domination by the Romans and spiritual oppression by some of their own religious leaders. Those religious leaders, as well as the Romans, would also have known Zechariah's prophecy. As Jesus entered the city some Pharisees warned Jesus to stop his followers' "seditious" proclamations of a new king. Jesus' response was not to quiet them: "I tell you that if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting" (Luke 19:39-40). In his ministry, Jesus did not seek confrontation with the authorities, but neither did he shrink from it. And in Jerusalem, it cost him his life. Like Jesus, those who participate in his ministry will not seek nor shrink from confrontation with the powers that be.
Prayer: O God, who called your Son to go to Jerusalem, as we prepare for this week before Easter, help us to see beyond the waving of palms to the cost of discipleship. Amen.
* Milo Thornberry, a United Methodist minister, is the former director of Alternatives.
Tom Peterson, a former staff member of Alternatives and SEEDS (a ministry for
Christians concerned about hunger) now serves with Heifer Project International.
Harriette Grissom is a former staff member at Alternatives.
GRAPHIC: Worship Alternatives #2728
Page updated 3 Jan. 2014
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