Fourth Sunday in Lent

Triumphalist uses of John 3:16 contradict the verse's historical context.

The Bible provided some healthy agitation as we built coalitions to literally set the captives free.

“Jesus was preaching to people who were in the middle of the worst farming and fishing crisis yet.”

Reading Psalm 107 aloud, what's most striking are the calls for voice.

I have a complicated relationship with John 3:16.

Amid pandemic and protest, will we turn to each other and live?

One of the greatest mysteries of faith is that God loves us as is.

The beloved song can contain God’s glory no more than the scripture it’s based on.

John 3:16 is about crisis, but not the crisis of God brooding in heaven waiting on us to make a choice.

I memorized John 3:16 as a child—along with a specific interpretation of it.

Don't forget to read John 3:17.

A wisdom ecclesiology embraces the church’s earthly context—but without romanticizing it.

In this week’s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of dark and light—one of our most primary realities and symbols. How can this be vivid language today, when we can turn the switch and flood almost any place with light any time?

The binary world of John’s Gospel is well drawn in Jesus’ talk here. How could a God of love condemn people? What does it mean to be in darkness?

The preacher faces several challenges in these Ascension texts. How can we present Jesus’ departure from the earth as an occasion for not sorrow but celebration? How to translate the kingship and hierarchical language into imagery that speaks to a world no longer governed by kings and monarchs?

Feminist biblical scholars note a third challenge: How can we counter Luke-Acts' use of the Ascension to exert a degree of social control?

There must have been some Lutherans sitting in that conference room when the Revised Common Lectionary was birthed. That is the only explanation that I can come up with for Ephesians 2:1-10 having a role on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B.

Psalm 107 is a psalm of lament, a song sung by a disoriented soul watching the light drain out of the world and the shadows of death and pain pour in.

This week the lectionary offers foundational verses of our faith. But the faith cannot live on a couple verses alone.