This week’s readings, whether in the Narrative Lectionary or the Revised Common Lectionary, invite us to consider different ways of seeing: sight restored, seeing as God sees, and taking note of those on our paths every day. All offer rich images for us to ponder.
In what direction is your pondering headed this week? Are you observing Laetare Sunday, going for a bit of rejoicing at this mid point of Lent? Or do you simply want to press on to get nearer to Palms, Passion, Holy Week and Easter?
You are invited to share what you have, whether fledgling or fully formed – and to ask for what you need, so that we can help each other through these last few weeks of Lent and beyond as we attempt to reveal for others the good news of God whose seeing goes far beyond ours. There is room for you at this table where we encounter Christ in one another and glimpse the goodness and grace of God writ large in our toiling together.
RevGalBlogPals 
I am making an early start today. Tomorrow is our Stated Annual Meeting during worship and we will be voting on changing to a Unitary Constitution. When I set the date I didn’t realise it would also be Mothering Sunday and the day the Clocks change here. Our children make gifts for all the ladies and hand them out on Mothering Sunday so that takes care of the all age slot but I still need to figure out how to present the Annual Accounts, summarise 2016 and write a short (but hopefully meaningful) sermon on Psalm 23. Lots of small bits to fit in tomorrow rather than just a sermon. I’ll be checking in later to let you know how it goes.
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Tanya, that’s a lot to pull together! Look forward to hearing how you do it.
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I’m in the north east of Scotland, getting ready for a conference. It’s a 4 hour drive from where I live, so I’ll be working and driving most of the day. Take care of each other. Coffee and bacon rolls are on the menu here, so help yourself…
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Liz, thank you for hosting, and i hope the conference is worthwhile, or at least fun.
here is the Saturday night written version of Sunday’s sermon: sin and sight
the storybook i refer to is called href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm9YGwY1zYg”>”Luke’s Way of Looking” by Nadia Wheatley and Matt Ottley
now to make the mask that is a prop for the sermon.
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i don’t know how to edit, so hopefully this link works.
Luke’s Way of Looking
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I am working with Samuel and God. Hopefully…something with come out of the work!
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I get to preach tomorrow after a month’s hiatus, for a friend on vacation. Sustainable sermon on Jesus’ healing of the blind man. It’s a sermon in which the reader reads a little and then I reflect a little, and then we continue to alternate, due to the length of the text. The first reflection is on how we are always looking for someone to blame, and tomorrow’s congregation is one in which I could actually use DJT’s blaming of the Democrats for his defeat as an example. (I probably won’t.)
Our Presbytery is hosting a four-day week-end of workshops on justice, so I am off to today’s events.
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The man born blind for me. I am reading the first 12 verses…a few words about that…summarizing the interrogation section with some more words about that…reading the last section…and ending well, I hope. I’ve set the framework within the board game of Clue, asking questions, discovering, and figuring out who-did-it!
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I love the idea of a back and forth between reading and reflection. May do that myself! Thanks for the tip. 😊
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I love the one below with the verses of Amazing Grace interspersed throughout.
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Like Robin, mine is a combo of scripture and commentary. This is a sustainable, done back in 2014. I will touch up the commentary a bit before tomorrow. It is a “dramatic reading in three acts” with three other voices (for Jesus, narrator, and man born blind) plus congregational participation as Pharisees, disciples. And parents. Each act consists of scripture, commentary, and singing one verse of a hymn: Amazing Grace, Be Thou My Vision, and Open My Eyes That I May See. Hopefully this will be more engaging than just my voice reading the 42 verses of Matthew by myself!
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Gloria, that sounds amazing!
I am stashing this idea for the next time I preach on that text!
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Could you share when finished?
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I’m doing a series on Psalms for Lent, and up until now I’ve stuck with the RCL selections. But I just wasn’t feeling Psalm 23. My congregation has been willing to delve into the breadth of the feelings expressed by the Psalms, so I chose a psalm of lament, Psalm 13, for tomorrow. And now I’m really feeling the absence of RCL resources that I usually turn to! I’m also putting in the blind man’s story from John as an example of lament. Ahem. Once I get started, that is.
The girls and I have a birthday party to attend, so the sermon will wait until that is accomplished.
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Preaching on the blind man, at least according to the order of worship. I’m struggling with something a NT professor Rev.Doctor Mitzi Minor said. This passage could be read as a man blind from birth, or humanity blind from birth. Where is humanity blind to things? And what kind of pushback we get from the status quo when we see the world as Jesus calls us to see?
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I’ve had a wonderful day, hosting a conference and then a lovely drive back – in time to see a beautiful sunset from the beach where we live. Our daylight savings time kicks in tonight, so I’m looking forward to an early night to catch up and get ready.
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I saw small mighty acts of service today as volunteers worked at the church today to spit and polish it, but I am now staring at the clock without focus for tomorrow beyond how in baptism, God re-creates and re-makes us
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I’ve been gone all day to a diocesan thing of reinvigorating church…home, with a cold…but the sermon is done: Encounter Love. Tomorrow another long day. Monday I get to rest.
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From John, courtesy of Feasting on the Word: Transformation always brings disruption. Tomorrow is our annual meeting after worship, in a tiny, aging congregation that doesn’t want to die. I’ve been turning pretty consistently to the theme of “thriving means change,” and this fits right in.
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I’m going for the same idea kinda…though more along the lines of we see things differently than God…what are our blinders and what might God see for us. I had my first funeral and have been sick the last half of the week, so I’m experimenting by writing an intro, asking the congregation to participate and answer the questions, then wrapping it up. I’m also combining it with the Children’s sermon…having them have to feel an object they can’t see and draw how they “view it” with the idea being that we can all look at the item through the same eyes and see it differently. I’ve been at the church 1.5 months, and they have already told me they want to see things grow so we shall see how this goes.
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I had what I thought was the brilliant idea to cast the blind man’s story as a lament, to fit in with the lament psalm, but it doesn’t really work, since Jesus initiates the healing. Rats.
Back to the drawing board. I’m over halfway done, and both kids are asleep. Hopefully that means I can wrap it up pretty soon.
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