Now is the time when God brings Her stories before us.

This Sunday is the fifth Sunday in Lent and this week, as we continue our Lenten practice of exploring what we’ve been calling the “Marks of Discipleship,” we’re going to be diving down into the 5th mark of discipleship, a fifth activity that we are called to as the Church, which is relationships.  The lectionary reading this morning comes from the Gospel according to John, the 12th chapter, verses 1 through 8.

When I was in college, my best friend, who was from Oakland, California, invited me home with her for winter break. In all of 8 days, she introduced me to sushi, nose piercings, and Eastern religions. Aisha was one of the coolest people I had ever met: she was raised not just Buddhist BUT ALSO Hindu. [only in California!] She took me to an ashram, my first big venture outside of New England Congregationalism, and it blew my mind. People of every color gathered for some hot gruel and mugs of chai before the service began. It was all free. Then we gathered in a giant gymnasium, on our little mats, and chanted in Hindi for an hour or more. That was almost 25 years ago now but I can still see the gym and the Kingdom-hued people; I can still taste the gruel and chai. It was terribly novel and interesting, and a little bit boring, all at the same time, as such things tend to be for people who are just passing through. The problem was, I was outside the mystery of their worship.

Luke treats this story a little more indirectly than his fellow gospel-writer: he has Jesus tells it as a parable. Maybe there’s a little redactionism here. An attempt to do a little PR work on Jesus. Matthew and Mark’s telling of the story put Jesus in a certain light, and Luke softens it by turning it into a parable. It’s kind of like saying, “A friend of mine had this fig tree...”

The scripture reading this Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, comes from the Gospel according to Luke chapter 11 verses 5-13.  Last week we went with Jesus to the mountaintop, experienced the transfiguration, and came back down again with Jesus to walk the Lenten road to Jerusalem.  According to Luke, one day in the midst of this long journey the disciples find Jesus in prayer and they ask him to teach them how to pray.  Jesus teaches them a prayer we pray here together each week, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.”  Then, Luke writes, Jesus offers these teachings on prayer.  Let us now hear the Word of God:

Call the kids down…. We have a story today about Jesus from Luke’s Gospel.  Here’s what you need to know before we hear this story.  Jesus is about to introduce himself to the world in a very special way.  He’s going to the synagogue that he grew up in.  A synagogue is a lot like a church, but it’s a building for a Jewish congregation and Jesus was Jewish so he went to synagogue.  In the synagogue he’s going to read the scripture – just like I’m about to do – reading from a very special, sacred scroll.  This is before Jesus has done any miracles or healings, he has just started to teach people.  And this is how he introduces himself to us.  This is how Jesus tells us who he is.  Let’s listen to Jesus’ story:   Act it out…

I mentioned in the newsletter this week that when I was a younger preacher, I hoped to become the next Martin Luther King Jr. I also lamented that that doesn’t seem to have happened yet.