One Lenten Sunday down…how did your beginning of Lent go last Wednesday and yesterday? Did you do anything designed to help people enter the season in a particular way? What are your hopes for the rest of the season, both worship-wise and in your own spiritual life?
This Sunday we contemplate God’s promises–and wonder what our sign of God’s faithfulness to the promise might be. Abraham could look at the night sky and remember, prompting his own faithfulness. Paul asks us to observe other faithful people so that we might learn and imitate their faithfulness. Jesus looks back at his own people’s history and at scripture to bolster his courage in the face of his coming task. And in the psalm we pray for the strength and courage to wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Or perhaps you see another theme in these readings–please share!!
Where are you, liturgically speaking? What are your hopes for this week’s communal worship experience? What do you need? Do you have an image, a metaphor, a word, an idea, or even a complete prayer? Stop by in the comments to join the conversation!
I’m going with the Genesis passage. My congregation is in a process of transformation in which we are writing a vision statement. We have asked the congregation to share with us their dreams for the church with no limitations. Abram’s question in verse 8 got me, said, “LORD God, how do I know that I will actually possess it?”
We don’t KNOW if it’s going to work or if we are going to “succeed” but we can live out our call in faith, trusting that God will be with us. Abram doesn’t have the best track record with “trusting” God yet it works out in the end and we praise his faithfulness.
What if our congregations trusted and risked without certainty of the outcome? I’m sure we’ll have some Ismails and Hagars but we might also have some Sarahs and Isaacs.