First, in this little epilogue from the wonderful story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, it seems interesting that she leaves her water jar right there at the well as she returns to the city.
When we make laws today, if they are going to reflect the original laws of God, they will need to promote the welfare of the poor and vulnerable and they will need to make provision for hospitality for the stranger. These are core expectations throughout the witness of scripture.
The intercession of the one faithful man was enough. A whole society that had become rebellious was spared the full destructive consequences of its folly.
The way You have laid open before me is an easy way, compared with the hard way of my own will which leads back to Egypt, and to bricks without straw. If you allow people to praise me, I shall worry even less, but be glad. If You send me work I shall embrace it with joy and it will be rest to me, because it is Your will. And if You send me rest, I will rest in You.
God wants the people out of Egypt. God wants us to escape from the clutches of bondage to production and wealth and power. With signs and wonders God rescued the people from Egypt and took them into the wilderness where God could create something different — community.
Today’s readings are a reminder that the scriptures are both a revelation of God and a human expression. The Bible is the record of humanity’s encounter with the divine. As such, it offers exquisite wisdom and inspiration, but does so in the language and idiom of its writers and within their historical and cultural context.
He saw that all things were good, and He did not enjoy them. He saw that all things were beautiful, and he did not want them. His love is not like ours. His love is non possessive. His love is pure because it needs nothing.
Today’s psalms and readings are an effective prologue to Lent. They remind us of our duty to follow God with faith by doing what is good and by trusting God. The exercise of doing good is our appropriate response to what God has already done for us. Doing good is also a reflection of our trust in God. Whenever we act in ways consistent with the will of God, we are manifesting hope, that God will indeed bring justice and happiness to all creation.
Every once in a while it can be overwhelming to ponder what God has given us. To look at nature and this miraculous earth, so marvelous and beautiful. It is a wonder to breathe. How amazing is water. The miracle of life so incredibly sustained on this planet spinning through space. We are the beneficiaries of all of this.
Isaiah sees these divisions and decries them as unjust. “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.'” Instead, the prophet gives a welcome place to the foreigners and eunuchs who will keep the sabbath and live in community. It is a matter of justice and of prayer.