Ah, Souper Bowl Sunday! Are you doing anything special for this day? Do you participate in the Souper Bowl of Caring? Do you have a liturgy for that? Do you incorporate it into the communion? Or just let it be?
With just two Sundays left before Lent, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that we have Jesus getting into trouble. And, as is typical in Luke, he’s getting into trouble for challenging the status quo of exclusivity and “chosenness.” He uses the moment of adoration to give a challenging word, and the people appear to have been listening–and they definitely had a reaction. What is the good news for your context in this story?
We also have this week the call of the prophet Jeremiah, who apparently considered himself too young for the task. Or perhaps he’d simply internalized the message that young people should be seen and not heard. Either way, God went for “I have put my words in your mouth” as the solution to the problem–a much quicker way than with the whole Moses-and-Aaron situation, but equally uncomfortable and challenging for one who wasn’t sure about the whole thing! Especially since the task given to Jeremiah is one that will have the people in uproar…pluck up and tear down, build and plant. Again, challenging the status quo is never popular, and Jeremiah certainly did that.
The psalm seems perfectly matched to these two texts–it’s only by keeping their eyes on the one who called them were Jeremiah or Jesus able to pass through the midst of the people who reached out to stop their message. It’s hard work to be a prophet, and it’s nearly impossible work if our hope is misplaced.
And then we have the infamous love chapter. While many cringe when it’s included in weddings, perhaps here is a chance to redeem it for everyday grace. (Sort of like how I love when Psalm 23 comes up so I can rescue it from funerals.) Aside from the usual tricks of replacing the word love with God, or with your own name, or whatever–how can you imagine this might be used in our liturgy? I can imagine reading it responsively as we often do the psalms, or making it the basis of a prayer of confession (because come on–how often do we love like this?). Perhaps there’s an affirmation of faith in there? Or even the ground of a full service worth of liturgy?
What are you thinking about for this week?
(I’m away from the internet this week, so please get to work in the comments so I can have something to work with when I get home! LOL.)
I’m going with Jeremiah. This is my second Sunday at my new call. The church is in the midst of a transformation process and last week’s message was on being the body of Christ together. I’m planning on linking Jeremiah, reminding them that most prophets said no first. I know that they have had energy to do something, they just haven’t known what or how to do it. My hope is to start to empower them to at least try something.