Readings for March 23, 2025

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Sunday - 9:30AM Sunday School, 10:30AM Worship Service

by: Karl Magenhofer

03/17/2025

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It’s a Monday, so here I am looking at the readings for the coming week.  Take a look along with me to see what we have for the Third Sunday in Lent.


 

The Old Testament lesson is one many of us have heard many times, the story of the burning bush.  It’s interesting that I quoted part of this passage a couple weeks ago in my sermon, so for me this is a reading I have looked at very recently.  A couple first blush things as I read through this, one is the inability of Moses to ignore God.  “I must look at this great sight” he says as he looks at the bush that is burning but not being consumed.  I probably could have used that text to go along with my chicken story yesterday.   The other thing I’m thinking about as I read this is the season that we’re in and how Jesus is marching to the cross.   We get a promise here that God will lead the Israelites out of Egypt, “deliver them from the Egyptians” it says in some translations.  Jesus is about to deliver us from our sins, at least that’s the seasonal journey we are on as we head towards, Good Friday and then of course on to Easter.  Our story as humans has always gone along with promises made and kept by God.

 

As I read verse seven of the Psalm, I really began to wonder if maybe the chicken story from Sunday would have been more appropriate for this week.  In any case, what a wonderful Psalm of joy, praise and comfort.   Verse 5, “my soul is content.”   Wow, what a line, what a way to live.   It seems that contentment is something that eludes many of us in our day to day lives.  Much like the distractions we talked about Sunday, we do not often enough look to God for contentment, instead we look to man-made manufactured things that are supposed to tell us whether we have a good life or not.  How much more content would we all be if as in verse eight, our souls clung to God?  We can do that because as the final line reads, “your right hand holds me fast.”   Gods got us.  Back to the promises that he has made since the beginning of creation, God has provided and will continue to provide.

 

Well, Paul is quite the killjoy isn’t he.  He smacks us in the face with some of the things we have been talking about.  First, we are reminded again of God’s provision and that he is and was with us, but then we get the reality of our nature.   Despite all that he did for them, some of the Israelites did not please God.  I’d venture that they were less than content with the provisions they were receiving.  Remember, at one point they clamored to go back into slavery so they could eat better food.  My eyes and thoughts were drawn to verse 12 where I feel as though we are reminded to be humble in our walk.  We need to humble ourselves in that we do not believe we are standing on our own two feet by ourselves, and we should never stop striving to live up to the example of Jesus.  If I do manage to scramble to my feet, it simply gives me a better view to see how far I have yet to go.

 

Speaking of pressing on and having lots of work to do in our faith life, the parable hits home.   We live in an area where there are lots of apple trees.  I have a favorite variety that a local farm grows.  The wine crisp is not widely known nor is it widely grown.  For several years, the weather was not just right, but just wrong for the finicky wine crisp to grow.  I stopped by one year and called the next, only to find that the trees had not been able to produce that wonderful fruit.  Instead of cutting the trees down and making way for others, the fine farmer down the road kept tending to the wine crisp trees and they will again bear fruit.  If we looked back on our lives like they were growing seasons, how many years would our tree be bare?  How many times have we deserved to have our tree considered for the brush pile?  Let us tend to our own roots, fertilize and water them, maybe even mend the soil so that we might bear fruit and not be cut down.


These are my initial thoughts on the Revised Common Lectionary texts for this coming Sunday.  Join me this week in giving these readings the full study that they deserve and require.

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It’s a Monday, so here I am looking at the readings for the coming week.  Take a look along with me to see what we have for the Third Sunday in Lent.


 

The Old Testament lesson is one many of us have heard many times, the story of the burning bush.  It’s interesting that I quoted part of this passage a couple weeks ago in my sermon, so for me this is a reading I have looked at very recently.  A couple first blush things as I read through this, one is the inability of Moses to ignore God.  “I must look at this great sight” he says as he looks at the bush that is burning but not being consumed.  I probably could have used that text to go along with my chicken story yesterday.   The other thing I’m thinking about as I read this is the season that we’re in and how Jesus is marching to the cross.   We get a promise here that God will lead the Israelites out of Egypt, “deliver them from the Egyptians” it says in some translations.  Jesus is about to deliver us from our sins, at least that’s the seasonal journey we are on as we head towards, Good Friday and then of course on to Easter.  Our story as humans has always gone along with promises made and kept by God.

 

As I read verse seven of the Psalm, I really began to wonder if maybe the chicken story from Sunday would have been more appropriate for this week.  In any case, what a wonderful Psalm of joy, praise and comfort.   Verse 5, “my soul is content.”   Wow, what a line, what a way to live.   It seems that contentment is something that eludes many of us in our day to day lives.  Much like the distractions we talked about Sunday, we do not often enough look to God for contentment, instead we look to man-made manufactured things that are supposed to tell us whether we have a good life or not.  How much more content would we all be if as in verse eight, our souls clung to God?  We can do that because as the final line reads, “your right hand holds me fast.”   Gods got us.  Back to the promises that he has made since the beginning of creation, God has provided and will continue to provide.

 

Well, Paul is quite the killjoy isn’t he.  He smacks us in the face with some of the things we have been talking about.  First, we are reminded again of God’s provision and that he is and was with us, but then we get the reality of our nature.   Despite all that he did for them, some of the Israelites did not please God.  I’d venture that they were less than content with the provisions they were receiving.  Remember, at one point they clamored to go back into slavery so they could eat better food.  My eyes and thoughts were drawn to verse 12 where I feel as though we are reminded to be humble in our walk.  We need to humble ourselves in that we do not believe we are standing on our own two feet by ourselves, and we should never stop striving to live up to the example of Jesus.  If I do manage to scramble to my feet, it simply gives me a better view to see how far I have yet to go.

 

Speaking of pressing on and having lots of work to do in our faith life, the parable hits home.   We live in an area where there are lots of apple trees.  I have a favorite variety that a local farm grows.  The wine crisp is not widely known nor is it widely grown.  For several years, the weather was not just right, but just wrong for the finicky wine crisp to grow.  I stopped by one year and called the next, only to find that the trees had not been able to produce that wonderful fruit.  Instead of cutting the trees down and making way for others, the fine farmer down the road kept tending to the wine crisp trees and they will again bear fruit.  If we looked back on our lives like they were growing seasons, how many years would our tree be bare?  How many times have we deserved to have our tree considered for the brush pile?  Let us tend to our own roots, fertilize and water them, maybe even mend the soil so that we might bear fruit and not be cut down.


These are my initial thoughts on the Revised Common Lectionary texts for this coming Sunday.  Join me this week in giving these readings the full study that they deserve and require.

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