5th Sunday of Lent

Our readings for the 5th Sunday of Lent (using the Cycle A readings) are:

1. Ezekiel 37: 12-14
2. Psalms 130: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
3. Romans 8: 8-11
4. John 11: 1-45

• Just like it was, except ...
• When my father-in-law was convalescing from heart surgery the phrase "the new normal" came up frequently as a way to describe his post recovery existence.
• When have you had something restored to you, be it employment, maybe a restored relationship, even something mundane like starting yet another school year after a summer off.
• Was that restoration just "same song, second verse", or did you find a sense of progress, of movement in that restoration?
• How do you think that you could be more sensitive to such movement in your life?
• Is it worth the effort? 

• Kind of kind
• Have you ever had an act of kindness on your part misunderstood, or even rejected?
• Why did that happen?
• Do you think that every genuine act of kindness is well received?
• Is it worth the risk to be kind to someone?
• Does an act of kindness have to be well received, in order for that act to be successful?

• Sense of belonging
• Most of use crave a sense of belonging, a deep feeling that we are right where we were meant to be, doing exactly what we were born to do.
• We belong to, and in God, and yet that deep sense of "fitting" is so hard to come by.  Why is that?
• When have you felt that you were exactly where you needed to be, when you needed to be there?
• How did you get to that place?
• How can you get there again?

• Just like it was, except ...
• I bet that Lazarus still left the toilet seat up after Jesus raised him from the dead.
• And yet, for Lazarus and everyone whose life he had touched everything was different, new, reborn.
• Have you ever had a resurrection in your life where a person, place, occupation was totally transformed for you, and yet much was still the same?
• Did that sense of newness eventually "wear off"?
• Is that a good thing?

Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God calling me out of my comfort zone?
2. How can the kindness that I show others be more like the kindness that God shows me?
3. What does it mean for me to say that "I belong to Jesus"?
4. What in my life needs to be resurrected?

Shalom!