Scripture: John 12:1-8
Mary, a friend and follower of Jesus, anoints him with oil and perfume at a dinner party. He claims it as an anointing before his death. We wonder at how touch can honor and care for the priceless gift of life we find in friends and guides along our ways.
Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Jesus tells a parable about grace and wholeness, and we can be tempted to center ourselves in the place of welcome and healing. Instead, can we grapple with the ways we sometimes want to guard God’s grace, rather than inviting everyone to the party?
Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9
We ponder the, “why?” of work in our lives as the prophet Isaiah offers God’s abundant blessing and nourishment. Are we working for that which sustains us? Does our work overflow into abundance for everyone?
Scripture: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
On a day in which we grieve the pain of siblings in Abraham in the mosques of Christchurch, NZ, we remember that God makes a promise to Abraham, and Abraham believes… in a way that makes space for the continuing discovery and expansion of God’s promise and blessing.
A Prayer from A New Zealand Prayerbook
Blessed are you, God of the universe.
You have created us, and given us life.
Blessed are you, God of the planet earth.
You have set our world like a radiant jewel in the heavens,
and filled it with action, beauty, suffering, struggle and hope.
Blessed are you, God of Aotearoa New Zealand
in all the peoples who live here,
in all the lessons we have learned,
in all that remains for us to do.
Blessed are you because you need us;
because you make us worthwhile,
because you give us people to love
and work to do
for your universe, for your world and for ourselves.
Scripture: Luke 4:1–13
We begin a journey of “discovery” in Lent, as we seek to know ourselves more fully as God’s own. Jesus spends time in the wilderness with the deep hunger to know more fully his own calling in the Spirit, and resists the temptation to be someone else altogether.
Scripture: Luke 9:28-43
Three disciples have a mountaintop experience with Jesus as the Son of God… but what makes it a “Jesus Experience” is that he returns to offer healing to another son, and another father. How do we do the same so that “high” church meetings actually show Jesus’s ministry and life?
Scripture: Luke 6:27-38
We ponder “The Golden Rule” in Luke’s gospel, how Jesus invites us to make foolish the oppression of empire and tyrants, and what favorite Harry Potter spell might free us from the quagmire and cycle of violence.
Scripture: Luke 6:17-26
Jesus begins a sermon on a “level place” by inverting the heights and depths of the world around him, showing the blessing available to all, and the woe of those who seek “safety” in the heights of separation from others. In a sermon in which Jesus is so direct about the challenges of wealth, how do we react? How do we “spend” our lives?
Scripture: Luke 5:1-11
Jesus calls fishers into ministry that is full of life, but carries risk and tenderness. In a long history of prophets, can we say out loud the excuses we would love to use, but instead finally overcome them with love?
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
A letter to a church invites them to ground everything they do in love… which is harder than it sounds, and invites us to imagine a “mindfulness of love” in all our work and witness.