Lent

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Blessing in the Desert Wilderness

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This year we heard Mark’s version of the story. Mark’s version is much shorter and much sparser than Matthew or Luke’s versions. Sparse, like the desert that Jesus entered. It only takes Mark two verses to tell the story. Matthew and Luke take six times as long to tell the story. In Mark’s sparseness, some of the wonderful details that we know and love, like the content of those temptations, and the clever dialogue between Jesus and the devil are missing. And yet there are gifts in the sparseness, as well. Sometimes in all the detail we can miss the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes. One of the things that Mark’s telling obviously brings out is where this story takes place in the larger narrative. It allows us to see the forest more easily.

Click “Read More” to read or listen to Bingham’s entire sermon for the First Sunday of Lent.

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Maundy Thursday

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In many ways, tonight is one of the most difficult for me because it is this night that we engage in rituals and traditions that are the exact opposite of the physical distance we need to keep at this time. Maundy Thursday is a very physical night. We gather together in person to wash feet and to take, and eat, and drink. But we cannot do these very activities in a way that can keep us safe, to keep that social distance that we need at this time. So logistically it has been really challenging to think how can we authentically commemorate this evening in a way that maintains that necessary distance. This is also a night which brings so acutely the pain of that physical distance when we cannot do these things that require us to be too close to one another so we can be safe at this time.

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Holy Week Whiplash

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What a week this has been for the disciples as we just heard in those two Gospel readings. The week began on Sunday with such joy as Jesus triumphantly entered into Jerusalem on a donkey, with a crowd cheering him on, waving their palm branches and shouting out, “Hosannah, hosannah, hosannah!” And then, in the course of just a few short days, everything changed, everything shifted as Jesus now exited Jerusalem carrying his cross. And that crowd was now jeering him and shouting out, “Crucify him!”

Worship God in Spirit and in Truth

WHEW! What a week this has been. It seems like each day brought news that overwhelmed or overturned everything that we had understood the day before. It seemed that a decision that we made one day was overturned by the news coming out the next day. To the point that if felt like at the end of the week that the decision we were agonizing over on Monday seemed quaint or unimportant by the time Friday rolled around.

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Faith Like Nicodemus

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Nicodemus first shows up in John’s Gospel in the reading that we just heard. He is a religious leader, he is a man of great respect and great influence in the community, he is a well-learned man, and he has seen what Jesus has been doing. He is intrigued, he is drawn to it, but he’s not quite sure what to make of it. He knows that God is at work in this.

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Lent as a Pilgrimage

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Today is the first Sunday in Lent, a season in the church calendar where we are bidden to engage in self-denial, fasting, prayer, repentance, and reading of Scripture — to prepare our minds and hearts to receive the gifts of Holy Week and Easter. One thing we don’t emphasize as much any more, but which historically has been an important part of Lenten piety, is pilgrimage, and especially pilgrimage to the Holy Land where the events of the Gospel took
place.

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