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When the boys were little, they naturally didn’t want to go on auto trips with Mom & Dad.  Once in the car (after they asked, “Are we almost there?”) the next bored question was, “What are we gonna see?”  This usually inspired me to sing, “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” until threatened with bodily harm by the others in our little red VW.  Without dealing with the eschaton or future theology — the Other Side of the Mountain — Sunday’s readings center on New Vision in God’s Love…

Just as the old prophet Samuel had worried, King Saul wasn’t working out.  He listened to God only part of the time.  So we find Samuel coming to Bethlehem to check out the sons of Jesse, since God told him to anoint one of these as the New King.  But which one of the eight?  Son Number One, Eliab, stood up before Samuel, and Samuel thought him surely to be the one!  Yet the Lord said, “Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7)  You probably remember that all seven sons were called; but God chose the youngest, David.

St. Paul speaks to his friends in Ephesus about this Inner Sight:  “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light….everything exposed by the light becomes visible.” (Ephesians 5:8 & 13)   The human condition, he says, is shortsighted and stumbling in the “unfruitful works of darkness”.  But God’s light calls the believer to see more clearly: ” Sleeper, awake!  Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

John’s Gospel alone contains the wonderfully told story about Jesus healing the man who was born blind. (9:1-41)  Jesus anointed his eyes with mud made from the dust of the earth (see Genesis), and after washing, the fellow came back seeing!  BUT…it was the Sabbath, and the Holy People fussed.  They quizzed the man and his parents, finally inducing the guy to shout in desperation, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”   Again, the presence of God refines our limited vision into seeing the dimensions of heaven and claiming the sight of eternity…

I was 15 when I first got glasses.  Just like most of us, my eyes had weakened imperceptably  over the years, and I was amazed and delighted with how much more dimension I now had!  Lights on the Christmas Tree and other seasonal decorations just burst with new definition, and I could see individual trees instead of just “the woods”.   My new specs were marvelous, and my teenage days were immensely brightened…   Is the light of your soul dim?  Come see what God is doing!

God Bless Us, Every One                            Horace Brown King

As a grade-school kid, I was fascinated by  stories of the Gobi Desert, a huge expanse of wilderness which (they claim) has a great untapped reservoir of water beneath it!   With a capitalist gleam in my eye, I asked why this water couldn’t be tapped and used to develop the Gobi into Las Vegas East, or some profit-making enterprise.   If I couldn’t buy a swamp in Florida, maybe I could buy a desert in Mongolia!  Later I learned about California’s Imperial Valley, about irrigation–and about draining the Colorado River dry to corner the market on celery.  Water is Gold.  This weekend, our Scriptural lessons reinforce this.

Some folks are just never happy.  Having escaped slavery in Egypt, having eluded the Army of the Nile, now the Hebrews wanted WATER.  “…the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”” (Exodus 17:3)  So Yahweh told Moses where to strike the rock, and a spring gushed forth:  living water, and in never-ending supply.   Sometimes you’ve gotta go to the wilderness to be refreshed.  You’ve gotta go to the Holy Place to drink deep.  The analogy says that Grace is pure and ever-abundant — and it’s right at your feet…..

St. Paul continues to tell the Romans, “Therefore, since we are justified [made right] by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” (5:1,2)   Does this have anything to do with Water?   I think it does in the phrase “obtained access to this grace”.  Just as Moses the Lawgiver became a conduit of God’s Presence to a pilgrim people, so does Jesus the Redeemer.   Our Becoming Right [justification] is because our ancestors followed Moses, and because we ourselves are following Jesus.  We have believed that they will lead us to God.

The Gospel story is familiar:  Jesus & Co.are traveling through Samaria (!) and they stop for lunch at Jacob’s Well–hearing any connections, yet?  A woman, whose reputation is so slutty that she has to avoid other women by getting her water at midday, is engaged in conversation by Jesus, who asks her to get him a drink. (John 4:5-42)  Jesus tells her that he has Living Water, but she doesn’t get it:  “You have no bucket, and the well is deep.  Where do you get that Living Water?”  The Lord responded, “…those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 

Our Holy Writings begin with a story about land arising from the waters, and they close with the scene of a garden made alive by the river of the water of life.   Land-locked habiru (desert wanderers) were a bit scared of the ocean which they believed surrounded them; yet they reverently came before the Holy One who provided the Water of Life for them.  Rivers were important to Jacob and Naaman, to Joshua and the Babylonian Exiles.  Lent is usually a season of dryness of the soul.  Come see that God has arranged to bring renewing water close to where you live….!

God Bless Us, Every One!                                            Horace Brown King

“Faith”, we learned in seminary, “is the human response to Divine Grace.”   Straightforward as that sounds, faith and belief are difficult  to describe–and to practice.   John Wesley acknowledged their elusiveness when he reportedly told his preachers to “preach faith until you HAVE faith.”  My friend Jan Clark (Rev. Red) says that Lent is “Spring training for Disciples”.   Before the Season starts in earnest with Easter, Believers are requested to examine their journeys to express how Faith guides them.  This Sunday’s readings explore our response to God’s grace-filled guidance.

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.'”  (Genesis 12:1)   As he loaded his ox-cart, neighbors may have gathered, singing, “Where are you going?”  “I don’t know”  “When will you get there?”  “I ain’t certain.  All that I know is I am on my way.”   If there’s a valid way to practice Faith, this must be it!   The story doesn’t detail all of Abram’s doubts and questions, it merely says “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”  (v.4)  Rumor has it that there was a bumper-sticker on the back of the wagon, “Don’t follow me; I’m lost too”.

St. Paul was pretty impressed:  “For what does the scripture say?  ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.'” (Romans 4:3)  Those brave enough to read this chapter need to allocate enough time to chew on every word, and to savor the wisdom.  The Apostle is making his case for SOLA FIDE, “faith alone”, as the route to life and abundance.  He says that Abraham received the promise and believed it, enough to follow trustingly wherever it took him.  “But also to those who share the faith of Abraham…in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” (v.17)

Nicodemus, who really wanted to believe in Jesus, came to see him one night.  He thought Jesus was a gifted Rabbi, an inspired teacher; but couldn’t yet confess Jesus to be Messiah.   Jesus spoke about Spiritual Birth, even though Nicodemus couldn’t understand beyond the physical nature of humanity.  Neither could Abram envision the New Land to where he was being led.  Let the reader understand that these mysteries are not easy to describe in human words–and that they call Nicodemus (who is really US) to embrace them solely by faith…  “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  (John 3:16b)

When I was 4 or 5, my Dad would take me on evening rambles around the neighborhood of Scranton in which we lived.  We’d often visit someplace Mom didn’t approve–a railroad bridge,  or a construction site.  Was I ever worried?  Nah–Dad was holding my hand!  As a timid adult, I often find consoling lessons in those old memories–and in the journeys of Abraham and Nicodemus.  Lent brings us down the mountain from the signs and wonders of Epiphany:  the fog down here is daunting, but I’m still not scared….!

God Bless Us, Every One                                         Horace Brown King

Flip Wilson gained a lot of fame with his line, “The devil made me do it.”  We’ve all used this excuse, or a variant thereof.  It takes the onus off our own responsibility and places it on an outside agency:  the Force of Evil was too strong, even though our spirit was sound.  But really, in my honest moments I have to admit to being a willing accomplice.  Come, whisper in my ear!

Readings for this First Sunday in Lent address the spiritual pulls we all feel.   The Old Testament takes us back to the Story of the Beginning, Genesis 3.  The serpent said to Woman, “Did God say….?”  Is that for real, or just rhetorical?  What were his actual words?  “You will not die…”  You know the rest:  they ate of the Fruit of Knowledge, and thought they could be their own gods.  This, then, is Original Sin–that we humans think we know as much as God…and die for our presumptions.  A serpentine inner voice is always there to whisper, “Try it, you’ll like it!”

Paul tells the Church at Rome that “death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.” (5:14)   But here’s the Good News, the core of our Lent:  “If, because of the one man [Adam]’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of GRACE and the FREE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS exercise dominion in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” (5:17, emphasis mine)   Christopher Grundy asks, “What might it mean to live a life in which death does not exercise dominion?”

Feeling very holy after his baptism, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  (Matthew 4:1-11)  Ain’t it the truth!   Here, you remember, Jesus was offered three gifts:  to be relevant (stones turned to bread), to be spectacular (dive off the Temple), and to be powerful (all the kingdoms of the world).  Sounds pretty good:  who wouldn’t want to feed the poor forever with a bunch of rocks?  who wouldn’t want to have his message noticed and published?  and who wouldn’t want  to be King of the World and eliminate war and other chicanery?   Here, though (unlike our Genetic ancestors), Jesus recognized these temptations to be substitutes for GOD’s power and grace.

Lent is important because it demands that we acknowledge that the Cosmic Battle rages around us and within.  We are also reminded of the nearness of Christ and the Holy news that God’s Steadfast Love will not abandon us on our way back to the Garden.     O let me feel thee near me!  The world is ever near;  I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear;
       my foes are ever near me, around me and within; but Jesus,draw thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin.–John E. Bode

God Bless Us, Every One!                           Horace Brown King