March 15, 2020

Journeying by Stages

(Image: Pixabay)

On this third Sunday in Lent, we have the privilege of knowing the end of the story—that resurrection and new life are a reality. In my imagination, Easter Sunday is a day of collective exhale, a day to bask in hope, sing loud the hallelujahs, and glimpse Jesus, who calls us into a future with hope.

In the meantime, we continue the journey in stages: to the cross, to the grave, and finally to experience the resurrection. The Lenten journey is an opportunity to consider how our hearts have hardened, how our hearts have gone astray, and where we have lost our hope along the way.

Poet David Whyte commented in an interview on the program On Being that our younger self has done something for which our future self is thankful. He asks how we can be the ancestors of our own future happiness. Those seem appropriate questions for us as a journeying people heading toward Easter Sunday. As an observer of Lent, what fear can I release so that I will fully celebrate the joy of Easter Sunday? What can I forgive now so that my Easter self will be thankful? What am I trying to control along my journey that makes it impossible for me to be fully at peace at the end?

Like the Israelites, Moses, Jesus, the disciples, the woman at the well and her community, we walk a journey that winds in and out of wilderness and abundance. We carry burdens of fear and shame; we long to have our deepest needs known and met. The good news is that God desires for us to have soft hearts and honest encounters so that we can enter God’s rest. Today, pause and notice your feet on the path. Remember God’s faithfulness. Dare to look forward with hope. Your future self will thank you.

Rock of Salvation, we long to enter your presence and your promised rest with thanksgiving. Renew our hope at each stage of the journey. Amen.

Pray the Scriptures Using Audio Lectio
Read John 4:5-42

John 4:5-42

⁵ He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon. ⁷ A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” ⁸ His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food. ⁹ The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.) ¹⁰ Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? ¹² You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.” ¹⁷ The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.” “You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. ¹⁸ “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.” ¹⁹ The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. ²⁴ God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.” ²⁷ Just then, Jesus’ disciples arrived and were shocked that he was talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ The woman put down her water jar and went into the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ “Come and see a man who has told me everything I’ve done! Could this man be the Christ?” ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to see Jesus. ³¹ In the meantime the disciples spoke to Jesus, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” ³³ The disciples asked each other, “Has someone brought him food?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “I am fed by doing the will of the one who sent me and by completing his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four more months and then it’s time for harvest’? Look, I tell you: open your eyes and notice that the fields are already ripe for the harvest. ³⁶ Those who harvest are receiving their pay and gathering fruit for eternal life so that those who sow and those who harvest can celebrate together. ³⁷ This is a true saying, that one sows and another harvests. ³⁸ I have sent you to harvest what you didn’t work hard for; others worked hard, and you will share in their hard work.” ³⁹ Many Samaritans in that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s word when she testified, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of his word, ⁴² and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is truly the savior of the world.”

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Lectionary Week

March 9–15, 2020

Scripture Overview

Three of the passages this week connect water and faith. In Exodus and the psalm, we read about the Israelites grumbling in the desert. Although they have seen God’s mighty deeds in Egypt, they have begun to question God’s provision for them. God provides water through Moses, but the place is remembered (and named) as a site where the faith of the people fails. In John, however, a place to draw water becomes a site of salvation for the Samaritan woman and eventually for the people in her village through her faith. The reading in Romans goes a different direction. Paul emphasizes the importance of faith in the face of trials and the fact that God brings salvation through Christ when fallen humanity has no other hope.

Questions and Suggestions for Reflection

Read Exodus 17:1-7. How do your memories of God’s provision sustain you through tough stages of your spiritual journey?
Read Psalm 95. What object, image, or memory serves for you as a symbol of God’s faithfulness?
Read Romans 5:1-11. How have you found hope in stages of life when God is forming your character through suffering and endurance?
Read John 4:5-42. When has letting go of your expectations or rules allowed God to work freely in your life or in the lives of others around you?

Respond by posting a prayer.

This season, Whitney R. Simpson has given us the gift we must open: a clear, accessible invitation to connect with the divine spark that is within us. This is the best present: being present for Jesus’ birth, God made human.”

Learn more about our newest Advent resource, Fully Human, Fully Divine here.

—J. Dana Trent, author of One Breath at a Time: A Skeptic’s Guide to Christian Meditation

Journeying by Stages

Transformed Imaginations

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Journeying by Stages

Psalm 95:1-11

John 4:5-42

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