A Daily Lent

Mandate to Love Maundy Thursday – April 9, 2020 Maundy Thursday – or Holy Thursday – remembers Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room. The word Maundy is an Anglo-French word derived from the Latin mandatum . In mandatum you see the root for “mandate,” thus the word typically means “commandment.” The word, then, refers to the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples during the Last Supper in the Upper Room: “ A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another .” (John 13:34). In these days of physical distancing, when we are separated from other people and from places that comfort us, Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper present their own challenge. “ Love one another ,” and, “ As I have loved you, so you must love one another ,” yet we are physical apart from those who typically make up our world. Put us in the company of others, and we can come up with ways to love one another. But separate us, ask us...

Embodying Jesus Wednesday of the First Week of Lent – March 4, 2020 Following Jesus does not mean holding the right beliefs or advocating for the proper doctrines. Following Jesus is not a matter of becoming more moral. Following Jesus is not about joining a church or pledging allegiance to a religious institution. To follow Jesus, we go where Jesus goes . . . engage those Jesus engages . . . love as Jesus loves . . . live compassionately as Jesus lived compassionately. In short, following Jesus means that we embody the life and spirit of Jesus in our world. This is no simplistic what-would-Jesus-do, but rather an actual engagement with the world in the spirit of Jesus. With Jesus as our source and center, we allow him to live in and through us. The Apostle Paul called this being “in Christ.” And in Christ, we embody God in the world. In the paragraphs below, Henri Nouwen says we are destined to become like the life of Jesus. We are invited into his life, here and now in ...

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent Daily Reading : Mark 6:7 – 13 Focus Passage : Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt." (Mk. 6:7 – 9) Jesus sent his twelve disciples into the world to carry on his life-work. They went out to do the very things Jesus was doing. In essence, they were his feet and hands, his mind and heart, his ears and lips and eyes as they went into the world. The disciples had no special schooling for this Jesus-work of driving out demons and praying over the sick for healing. They had only their experience with Jesus, their apprenticeship to the One who did these things normally and naturally as a part of who he was. The passage moves quickly to Jesus “sending out” the Twelve, but if we miss the first phrase, the rest ...

Thursday of the First Week of Lent Matthew 7:7 – 12 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Ask, seek, and knock relentlessly. Don’t stop. Resist the impulse to put down roots into anything you believe and any insight you have. Be continually open. Don’t build monuments to what has happened in you in the past. Stand watch for what is happening right now. Ask. Lean into the questions. You are not trying to find the right answers. Life is ...

John 11:47 - 52 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. Always we find ourselves with competing interests when it comes to living a life centered in God. We hold other loyalties to be important, and to give ourselves fully to God or to the Good News which Jesus embodies, would be to ...

Luke 10:1 - 6 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If the head of the house loves peace, your peace will rest on that house; if not, it will return to you." Jesus sent his followers into the world "like lambs into the midst of wolves." He instructed them not to take provisions for the journey with them, but to travel light and live off the land, so to speak. Jesus was not a very good business man (in the contemporary sense), and his plan for "success" is not a model that many have adopted. Though some contemporary folks have ...

Matthew 17:1 – 9 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Thi...

Luke 9:22 - 25 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self? In the lexicon of despised words used in spiritual contexts, "deny" ranks up there with "discipline," "surrender," and "detachment." I suspect that people respond to these words out of a difficult history with them, as a part of a religious tradition that was harsh, demanding and full of prohibitions. In truth, a great many people in the Christian tradition gauge their religious expression more by what they oppose or deny th...

Mark 6:7 – 13 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them." They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Jesus sent his twelve disciples into the world to carry on his life-work. They went out to do the very things Jesus himself was doing. In essence, they were his feet and hands, his mind and heart, his ears and lips and eyes as they went into the world. The disciples had no special schooling for this Jesus-work of driving out demons and praying over the sick for h...

Luke 5:27 – 32 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus is invitational. He doesn’t traffic in coercion. He doesn’t force followers. Rather, he extends invitations. He invites persons to follow him, to take on his way of seeing the world and his way of living in the world. He invites persons to full personhood, becoming completely the person God created them to be even as ...