Worship
Notes
The Third Sunday in Lent, Year A
March 23, 2014
The Season
Our readings in this Year A in the lectionary take us to the
Gospel of John for four long narratives on four consecutive Sundays, each
narrative revealing to the characters—and to us—who Jesus is. Especially today
in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well and next Sunday in the story of
the man born blind, there is a gradual deepening of awareness of Jesus’
identity. In that respect, each narrative is a microcosm of our forty-day
Lenten journey and, even more importantly, of our life-long journey of faith.
In Word
Our psalmist invites us, “Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock
of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1). Yes, even in Lent! While our Alleluias may be
set aside until Easter, we come together each week in singing and in joy. Psalm
95 has been sung as a regular part of Morning Prayer (Matins) throughout the
world for centuries. Our psalmist takes us back to our First Lesson in at least
two references, one oblique (perhaps) and the other obvious. The “rock of our
salvation” in our psalm reminds us of Moses striking the rock at the Lord’s command in order to supply the
people with water in the desert (Exodus 17:6). Our psalmist admonishes us not
to lose faith and become rebellious, as the Hebrews did during the Exodus,
complaining to Moses. Our psalmist sings, “Harden not your hearts, as at
Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the desert.” After striking the rock,
Moses “called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled
and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is
the Lord among us or not?’”
In contrast to the hardness of heart of the Israelites in
the desert, the Samaritan woman at the well is receptive to Jesus as she
gradually becomes more and more aware of Jesus’ identity. She has had five
husbands; how much pain can one person endure?! Yet her heart remains open. The
result of her open heart is that she becomes the first public witness to Jesus
as Messiah in the Gospel of John. The outcast
of outcasts becomes the evangelist!
As a conclusion to his long theological dissertation about
Abraham and faith in Romans 4, the Apostle Paul exclaims in the first verse of
our Second Lesson, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to
this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of
God” (Romans 5:1-2). The verses that follow have been encouragement over 2000
years to millions who suffer in faith: “And not only that, but we also boast in
our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint
us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
that has been given to us.”
In Song
“I’ve Just Come from the Fountain” is an African American
spiritual that expresses the joy of knowing Jesus as the “fountain.” We sing it
today in response to Jesus’ promise: “. . . those who drink of the water that I
will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in
them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” And we sing it expressing
joy in the Affirmation of Baptism of Caleb and Brian.
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