[Lent, a journey to Easter & beyond]
March 3rd - April 20th
Ash Wednesday - Easter Day
These preaching ideas or semon starters are based on the 2002-2003 Revised Common Lectionary which is being used in many churches in Australia and New Zealand.
This set of notes is the 3rd in a series being written again this year by a variety of writers who will cover the full year. Writers of considerable experience and variety have agreed to write notes including: the Revs Edwin Clarke (Palmerston North), Martin Baker (Auckland), Gloria Zanders (Blenheim), Graham Millar (Wellington), Rev. Dr John Franklin (Palmerston North), Rev. Dr Harry Swadling (Wellington, Revs Alan Judge (Maniototo) and Warren Deason (North Shore).
This Kit has been written by the Rev Gloria Zanders of Blenheim.
Over the last few years these notes have been of particular value for:
These ideas are beginnings, suggestions for the preparation of worship and should be adapted for your own parish's needs. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the PCANZ.
The kits are produced, and may be purchased from:
Courses and Resources
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
P.O. Box 9049
WELLINGTON
email: info@presbyterian.org.nz
Greetings to all who use this material as a trigger for their own creativity.
The preparation of this material has been a discipline and a challenge, as I prefer to work from a picture/symbol base and often struggle with the words. Having said that, I offer some personal comments.
This is a time in the Christian Year when I find that gathering a small group of people together and planning the Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Day services as a team, can be an inspiring, growing and amazingly creative experience. Such planning enables music, drama, dialogue, dance and the arts including the medium of power point to open people up to new ways of experiencing God and the power of the story and the journey - the 'countdown to Easter.'
My Lenten, Holy Week, Easter offerings will read a little like 'notes to myself' which is I guess what they are. They are my contribution to your planning, and I hope they encourage you to explore, read and question further.
The range of resources available is wide, and I have included at the conclusion of these notes some that I have found very helpful.
Some years ago a member of the Parish I was part of suggested the idea of Lent as being a time of 'Dying to Life'. This has played into my 'countdown' idea, and reflects the contextual nature of Lent which for us in Aotearoa takes place in the autumn. The floral team prepared one floral arrangement for each of the six Sunday's in Lent, using foliage which as the time went on picked up the seeds and leaves and colouring of autumn. Lent One had six flowers, Lent Two - five as we counted down, with Palm/Passion Sunday being one bloom only, a rich crimson/purple. Nothing then until the explosion of Easter Day. Gertrude Mueller Nelson puts it in her book 'To Dance with God' this way - 'We yield up, we fall apart, we die, so that we can bloom anew!'
Lent is an invitation to take time to attend to the parts of our lives we often neglect - a challenge to open ourselves to new ways of the Spirit's transforming power.
Ann Weems in her book 'Kneeling in Jerusalem' spells it out for me....
Lent is a time to take time
to let the power of our faith story take hold of us,
a time to let the events
get up and walk around in us,
a time to intensify
our living unto Christ,
a time to hover over
the thoughts of our hearts,
a time to place our feet in the streets of Jerusalem
or to walk along the sea and listen to his word,
a time to touch his robe
and feel the healing surge through us,
a time to ponder and a time to wonder....
Lent is a time to allow a fresh new taste of God!
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 51:1-17
2 Corinthians 5:20b - 6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
It may not be the a practice in your particular community to do anything specific on Ash Wednesday yet there are powerful themes in the readings, inviting us to self examination and inward reflection.
Today is a day for opportunities for planned reflection rather than sermons, for allowing Scripture to speak.
Self examination - remembering we are a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, successes and failure, we get some things right and some things wrong - self examination is about building up, not just knocking us down.
Inward reflection - the renewal that comes not from ritual words, but from changed behaviour that allows the love and glory of God to be visible through us.
Getting ready - Lent is a time for developing a new, ongoing and life giving habit rather than as a time for abstaining from an old and life defying one. Very often the new habit will effectively replace or significantly modify the old habit anyway, and psychologically it feels so much better to be doing something positive and creative rather than all the fuss about fasting and self denial.
At the beginning of this Lenten season O God, we seek for ourselves those disciplines of body, mind and spirit that will help us embrace the reconciling ministry of Christ as our own. Amen.
Breathe on me, breath of God - 32O WOV
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-10
1Peter 3: 18-22
Mark 1:9-15
We are a Covenant people - during Lent we will look at the promises God has made to each one of us. Promises of love and forgiveness. Promises of wholeness for all creation. Promises of life beyond death. We will also look at promises we have made, in response to God's great love for us. On this first Sunday in Lent, we reflect on the temptations of this world which test our obedience to God, and to God's covenant. Like Christ during his wilderness experience, we are faced by the reality of making choices. Choices which call us to be obedient to God's plan or to give in to what appears to be the easy way. We think of the pressures upon our lives to choose recognition, power, comfort and ease.
The story of God's covenant which is noted for today is the conclusion of a great epic that began in the sixth chapter of Genesis, and the version of the flood story which we read today was recorded during the Babylonian exile. The rainbow becomes a sign of God's enduring faithfulness to an unfaithful people - a symbol of a life giving promise, that continues to echo through the ages.
Also speaks of enduring faithfulness.
The author encouraging believers to stand firm, reminds the gentile-Christians to whom he is writing, that just as those who came through the flood waters in Noah's time found life, so those who come through the waters of baptism are joined with Christ in new life.
Jesus' baptism and time of testing perfect kick off points for his public ministry. Note that Mark does not give details of the temptation. Rather hold onto the Greek word peirasmos which simply means examining or testing one's character. Whatever the nature of the ordeal, Jesus emerges after 40 days ready to proclaim the good news that God's new era in Christ has begun!
What does the flood story and the image of the rainbow mean to you in the context of Lent?
[based on Psalm 25:1-10]
In trust we come to you, our God.
Teach us we pray, how you view the world,
how you see humankind, your perception of us.
so that we may see each other, and humankind,
and your world, as you see them.
And then, we can act in new ways in your world,
with humankind, for each other.
.....forgive us we pray the errors we make
which only serve to inhibit our growth.
Remind us again of your kindness and constant love
which open new ways for us to relate to each other -
in kindness, and with love.
Instill in us respect for all your creatures,
so that we can act with integrity with your world,
and so follow the path that leads to life. Amen.
God's rainbow covenant
is shared with humankind
that we may know God's promises
in heart and soul and mind.
God's rainbow covenant
assures us we can trust
in God's salvation, freely given,
with mercy, kind and just.
God's rainbow covenant
now calls us to repent
that we may not be put to shame
when truly penitent.
God's rainbow covenant,
says God, in steadfast love,
remembers not our former sins,
but points our thoughts above.
God's rainbow covenant
is meant to teach God's way
of faithfulness and loving care
as God transforms each day.
God's rainbow covenant
includes Christ's sacrifice,
that we may claim new life today:
God's offer, without price.
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
Covenant and relationship themes continue. There are questions of trusting in God's promises, as we reflect on the story of Abraham and Sarah and the birth of their son Isaac who became a child of the covenant through the rite of circumcision. There are questions about what it means to love in a covenant relationship - all love requires freedom to choose and the readiness to make oneself open and vulnerable to another. Jesus tells us in the Mark reading that one only finds real life in the giving up of self.
From God's encounter with Abraham and Sarah, through the struggles and joys expressed in the Psalms, to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and on into the life of the church, God is engaged with humanity. We are not witnesses to a God who set the world going in the distant past and left us to our own devices. We individually and collectively are witnesses to a God who loves us, communicates with us and willingly brings us into relationship.
To live in covenant, to live trusting in God's promises, to live as disciples of Christ we are called to live in the weakness of vulnerability.
Abram is asked to believe in a promise that strained his imagination. In this story, from the priestly writer of Genesis God Almighty [El Shaddai in Hebrew] promises to make Abram and his descendants God's people. This covenant is marked by a name change, Abram to Abraham meaning 'ancestor of a multitude' and also for Sarai - to Sarah. Together they laugh with genuine human laughter at the thought of a child, but from their union comes Isaac, whose very name means laughter. This story is foundational for both Judaism and Christianity.
Despair and assurance and the reminder that the promises of God will continue to be passed on, and will truly change the world forever.
This passage contains most of the key themes of Romans - anticipation of Christ - the Messiah of the Hebrew scriptures, righteousness by faith, the priority of grace over law, the significance of promise. Paul the trained Jewish scholar, makes the remarkable leap of insight to see that God's promise is not dependant on the law but on faith in the promise itself and ultimately the promise maker.
Peter struggles within this passage [as we can] with the juxtaposition of Jesus' powerful ministry of teaching and healing standing alongside the prediction of suffering. It is hard to reconcile suffering with power given by God. We want God to take our suffering away. Yet Jesus knows that if his ministry is to continue in obedience to God it will unavoidably bring him into conflict with the religious authorities. He struggles to help his disciples understand that what is true for him is also true for them and us.
Reflect on the use of the word `ashamed' in v38 - how do you hear this?
God of ancient wisdom, present faith and future hope,
we thank you for your covenant made with Abraham and Sarah
and with all the generations that have followed.
You have shown us the promise of life given to Sarah and Abraham;
and in Jesus you have shown us that even in death you are with us.
May your stories live in us as beacons of hope and faith,
may we be prophets of harvest hope,
help us to do your will and follow your ways. Amen.
Jesus I have promised - WOV 514
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22
Lent provides an opportunity for us to experience some of the tensions and conflicts that accompany the commitment to following the footsteps of Christ. I have a little card box on my work station - one side says `Conversations with God - Reminders'. I choose one at random each day, and as I began to write this morning, today's certainly fits with Lent Three - 'FEELING ~ is the language of the soul'. Like Jesus we try to discern - amid various tempting strategies - what we are called to do and how we are called to act. These readings remind us that this discernment is called for in every aspect of our lives and demands our whole selves including all our passion and our feeling.
It is traditional in Lent for these verses from the Torah [the Way] to be read on this Sunday. They are part of yet another promise or covenant that God makes with the Hebrew people. The focus of the ten commandments is on protecting the health of the community, and while many of the situations we are confronted with are not anticipated by these 'laws', they provide an indispensable starting point for our ongoing ethical task.
What is clear is that God expects two responses - the first four relate to worship, while the other six are about healthy social relationships - right relationships with one another based on love, care and respect. One source I was exploring put it this way - 'instructions for shaping a life of faith active in love'.
The psalm for today is a fitting complement to the Exodus passage as it praises the law for its life-giving qualities, its ability to provide a framework through which one can view the world and one's own life.
The challenge of Lenten paradoxes is rampant in this passage, we are called to meditate upon the proclamation of Christ crucified - foolishness and defeatism according to the values of the world; but life and salvation for those who believe. How do we know God's power? Through signs and miracles? Through philosophical debate? Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
John provides more details of this incident than any of the other Gospels and positions it in relation to the early part of Jesus ministry, challenging the true place of worship, challenging the barriers being created to those who want to come and worship and seek God. Lent is not just a time for individual reflection, but a time to look at our corporate sinfulness, about how we create barriers to the people God wants us to welcome. How do we use our buildings, have they become our 'idols'? Does our language and worship style exclude some people?
What 'tables' would Jesus overturn if he were to visit your place of worship? What would you want to overturn?
[A reflective piece this week]
Cleansing of the Temple
My soul was merchandise
ripped into several pieces
and sold to anyone
who would pay.
My fragmented life was passed
from buyer to buyer
to be used at will
and discarded by resale.
I could never be my own owner.
Then Jesus, at my asking,
stormed into my life and heart
and scourged the evil there
and threw out those wicked powers
who bartered for my soul
and sought to sell me
into eternal, miserable bondage.
He cleansed this fleshly temple
and bought all the pieces of my life with his
and made me whole
one with him
and set his Holy Spirit in me
daily teaching me
how to be his holy temple.
Stephen R. Clark - Alive Now March/April 1980
Your way not mine - HTC 555
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21
In the Lenten tradition this fourth Sunday - the half way point has been called 'Laetare' meaning rejoice because a key focus is on God's grace [God's undeserved kindness in the Contemporary English Version] bringing hope in the midst of brokenness. If your community has a tradition of celebrating harvest this can be an appropriate Sunday. Healing and forgiveness could also be picked up.
In these days of Lent, and as our countryside takes on the hues and dynamics of the 'dying' of autumn, the following images may speak....
'....the small seed - vulnerable, able to be crushed and cast aside - but also bursting with potential - store houses of hope of the promise of what can become with love and nourishment and encouragement - growing onto a significant plant - offering it's fruits - spreading its branches - dropping it's seeds or fertilizing the ground with it's leaves... The seed 'dying' to release the potential within it for growth, in order to let the new life emerge - letting go it's old self to become something new....we are moving towards Easter when we celebrate that explosion of new life released by Jesus Christ. Jesus' life was a seed - planted to release the harvest of abundant life. Jesus opened up new ground for all humanity, in death a great harvest of healing and transformation began....'
This is a complaint story, a regular feature of the wilderness narrative. The Israelites complain to Moses, they also speak out against God, which results in divine punishment in the form of snakes. The Israelites repent and plead with Moses for help - Moses intercedes. God listens and instructs Moses to prepare an antidote. The cure? A bronze snake placed on a pole and whoever looks at it lives. Strange story - strange cure! It raises questions about belief and redemption. Facing our fears with the eyes of faith heals. No reality we create is ever without the possibility of God's redemption.
It is interesting to note that to this very day, the symbolism of the snake has a double meaning: punishment and evil, as well as creativity and healing. Today two intertwining snakes on a staff serve as a symbol for the medical profession.
Commentaries suggest that this Psalm was written following the return from the great Babylonian exile, and was designed to be sung as an act of thanksgiving in worship, public testimony to the goodness of God who had touched and transformed their lives. Following much anguish the people had once again experienced God's unfailing and steadfast love.
We read in this passage a statement of the theology of grace [v8]. It is not a result of our own efforts, but because of God's gift that we are made whole. Paul is clear that our response to such a gift will be a life of good deeds - sharing and caring for each other and living as God intended from the beginning
We are so used to the quoting of v16 that we often neglect to see in the context of the desire of the writer of John's Gospel to explore and tease out the very nature of Jesus the Christ. Earlier, John's Gospel describes Christ as 'the life [that] was the light of all people' [John 1:4]. Here Christ is again equated with the light, and those who believe in him will have eternal life. We are reminded that Jesus was not sent to condemn us. Regardless of our past histories, the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ is available to all. However we must choose. If we desire eternal life, we must choose the light rather than the darkness. If we remain in the darkness we cannot then blame God for our condition. We have not been condemned by God to the darkness, but by our own failure to choose the light. The choice is ours.
What words can we speak to our communities that offer a chance of healing and renewal?
[Another reflective piece]
....the leaves tumble down,
they twirl on the ground,
dancing the Autumn death dance
beneath the great blue sky.
....the leaves seem glad at going,
sparkling in the March sunshine,
they fill the air with gentle rustling.
....one, then another and another,
on the skim down from above,
bedding the bush table before me
with comforting crunches and crackles.
....this gigantic death scene of leaves
does not smell of sorrow and sadness,
rather, the earth is coloured with joy
and the leaves make music in the wind.
Why is this dance of death so lovely?
Why do leaves seem so willing to go?
Are they whispering to each other,
urging one another to be freed?
Maybe 'you first and then I'll follow"
or: 'you can do it, go ahead'
supporting one another gladly
in their call to final surrender.
Joyce Rupp - 'May I have this Dance'