3rd Sunday of Lent

Our readings for the 3rd Sunday of Lent are:

1. Exodus 3: 1-8a, 13-15
2. Psalms 103: 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11
3. 1 Corinthians 10: 1-6, 10-12
4. Luke 13: 1-9

• Big design up front
• In the Agile software development methodology, graceful response to changing/emerging user requirements is everything.  Anything that will make the development team slow to respond to change is left behind.  Trying to design the whole project up front is one of those things that you have to "leave behind" in Agile.
• Have you ever made a decision in your life without being able to see clearly where it would lead?
• What made it possible for you to "make the plunge" at that time?
• Would you have made the same decision then if you knew what you know now?
• Why do you think that God treats us that way?

• God of mystery
• Most of us know better than to try to "second guess" God, but that urge to figure Him out, discern what His motives are, predict what He's going to do is strong in us.
• And yet, He wants us to know his heart, to feel the way that He feels about us, about others in our lives, about the world around us.
• How are you more godly today than you were 5, 10, 20 years ago (assuming you were alive back then, jeesh!)?
• What changed you?
• Was that change process always pleasant?
• Why?

• What was that?
• We grumble when we are disappointed or angry about something but we are unwilling to really do anything about it.  Personally, I think God much prefers someone who is honest, even loudly so, with Him than someone who grumbles.
• Have you ever complained to God about how He is treating you?
• If that notion is new to you, what might you, which things might you want to complain about?
• How do you think that would turn out?
• What does that tell you about God?

• Attachment to success
• Everyone loves a winner.  Their mere presence in our lives reassures us that life can, at least occasionally, be sweet.  Losers like Job, on the other hand, are scary reminders that misfortune and suffering can befall the best of us, without warning.
• Do you believe that God is obliged to preserve you from calamity?
• Just what constitutes a "calamity" for you?
• If something bad were to come along in your life, would you:
• Conclude God had dozed off while guarding you,
• Decide that you had it coming because of some secret sin that even you could not remember,
• Figure that it must be "your turn" for something like this,
• Decide that this whole business of living a good life is really just an exercise in futility,
• All of the above,
• None of the above,
• Or, fill in your own answer in the space below.  You have 15 minutes to respond, no looking at your neighbor's paper.

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. If I knew for a fact that God was with me, would I still have fears?
2. What about God do I really truly want to understand, to know?
3. When was the last time that I felt close enough to God to pray in anger?
4. Am I following God because I expect things of Him?

Fruits of our Labors

Life isn't linear.
Tapestry is the metaphor that I'm coming to peace with.
Different threads, crossing each other, often more than once, to make something beautiful.
One thread might be advancing age.

I'm never the same me.
Every morning I wake up, the sum total of everything that has I have lived up until that point.
Along with all of the aches and pains that come along for the ride.
Will I embrace all of that, the proud, the strong, the weak, the fearful, the just plain silly?

Or take the thread of family.
New members come in by birth or marriage.
They leave by death or estrangement.
If you are lucky, sometimes they can come back, transformed, new, and yet familiar.

Threads of your passions.
You study, and practice, share with a small, intimate audience,
Waiting for a shoot, a blossom to come,
Hoping that eventually it will all bring in a harvest that you can share generously.

Threads of ministry.
Generous gifts, given without reservation or conditions.
Hopefully received in the spirit that they were given.
But you never know in this life how that really blessed anyone.

All of these, and many more, growing longer, intertwining, each building and informing the other
With no real guarantee how or when it will all come together
For the big reveal at the end.
Whenever that might be.

No one asks me anymore what I want to be when I grow up.
I wish someone would.
Then I could tell them that I'm still adulting, maybe still adolescing in many ways.
You have to wonder whether Jesus wondered when He would hit the big time all those years, hidden.

I'm trying to learn patience and discernment.
Patience with the weaving process.
Discernment about when it's time to leave behind and hold something new.
Trust that there are harvests coming in right now, that I cannot see nor appreciate

yet.

Shalom!