Psalm 81:8-14
Hosea 14:1-9
Mark 12:28-34

The ethic of reciprocity or "The Golden Rule" is a fundamental moral principle which simply means "treat others as you would like to be treated." It is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights. Principal philosophers and religious figures have stated it in different ways.

Ethical teaching interprets the Golden Rule as mutual respect for one's neighbor (rather than as a deontological or consequentialist rule.) Many people have criticized the golden rule; George Bernard Shaw once said that "The golden rule is that there are no golden rules". Shaw also criticized the golden rule, "Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same" (Maxims for Revolutionists). "The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they want to be done by" Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2).

A key element of the ethic of reciprocity is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people, not just members of his or her in-group, with consideration.

The Golden Rule was a common principle in ancient Greek philosophy. A few examples:

"Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him." (Pittacus)

"Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing." (Thales)

"What you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also to them." (Pythagorean)

"Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others." (Isocrates)

"What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others." (Epictetus)

— from Wikipedia

Psalm 95:6-11
Jeremiah 7:23-28
Luke 11:14-23

A blind and mute demoniac is healed


Artist: UNKNOWN; Illustrator of Jerome Nadal’s “Evangelicae Historiae Imagines,” 1593

Date: Published 1593

Technique: Woodcut

Notes: From “Evangelicae Historiae Imagines,” published 1593, planned by Jerome Nadal (1507-80), produced by Bernardino Passeri, Marten de Vos, and Jerome and Anton Wierix. Republished in 1594 and 1595 entitled “Adnotationes et Meditationes in Evangelia.”

Feast Day of George Herbert

Psalm 78:1-6
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 5-9
Matthew 5:17-19

The Flower

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are Thy returns! Even as the flowers in spring,
to which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
    Grief melts away
    Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivelled heart
could have recovered greenness? It was gone
quite underground, as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown;
    Where they together
    all the hard weather,
dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell
and up to heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
    We say amiss
    This or that is;
Thy word is all, if we could spell.

O, that I once past changing were,
Fast in Thy paradise, where no flower can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither;
    Nor doth my flower
    Want a spring shower,
My sins and I joining together.

But while I grow in a straight line,
Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline.
What frost to that? What pole is not the zone
    Where all things burn,
    When Thou dost turn,
And the least frown of Thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again;
After so many deaths I love and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing. O my only Light,
    It cannot be
    That I am he
On whom Thy tempests fell all night.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide;
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.
    Who would be more,
    Swelling through store,
Forfeit their paradise by their pride.

— George Herbert (1595-1633)

by Carol Conway

Psalm 25:3-10
The Prayer of Azariah 2-4, 11-20a
Matthew 18:21-35

Psalm 25:3-10
The Hindus believe we are all three persons: the person other people think we are, the person we think we are, and the person God knows us to be. In Psalm 25, I hear a call for the revelation of the self God knows us to be, the person who wants to follow God's ways and paths. We ask our merciful God who has steadfast love for us to remember who we are now, not who we were before, when we were not following His paths. But we will have to be humble in order to become that person, since becoming requires change and change requires humility in the recognition of our own imperfections.

The Prayer of Azariah 2-4, 11-20a
"Then Azariah stood still in the fire and prayed aloud." In the fire of our everyday lives, do we simply stand still confirming that God is just in all he does? Even worse for me than the thought of standing still in the fire is the thought of God drawing back from me, of separating Himself from me. "For we … are brought low this day in all the world because of our sins." This is as true of us now with the war in Iraq as it was of the Israelites then. I feel that I have "no ruler, or prophet, or leader … or oblation," so I can make an offering before God and find mercy. I cannot win the war in Iraq, stop prejudice, poverty, hunger, global warming, the issues are all too great. But if I stand still in the fire of my life and listen with my heart, I can win the war in myself and begin to be the person God knows I am and act accordingly with the people I meet day to day. And again, there is the need for humility, to have "a contrite heart and a humble spirit" and our contrite hearts and humble spirits will be our "burnt offering" so we can "unreservedly follow God, for no shame will come to those who trust in Him."

Matthew 18:21-35
In Matthew's gospel about the slave who had no mercy on his fellow slave after his lord forgave him, we must confront the difficulty we have in forgiving others. It is stated very clearly for us. We must forgive our brothers and sisters from our hearts if we want God to forgive us or we will "be tortured until (we) pay (our) entire debt." Once again we must stand still in the fire, humble our hearts, and move beyond perceiving the world through only our knowledge and experience, imperfect information, imperfectly remembered. We must become the person God knows us to be. For me this means I must not just forgive those who sinned against me, but also "forgive" people for being different from me, allow their knowledge and experience to fill out more completely who I am and the reality of God's world. This is not an easy task. It's easier for me to blame some one else, or some event, for what has happened to me. It's not my fault that this or that happened to me but it's your fault for being who you are. Instead, I must stand still in the fire and learn who I am in God's eyes and humbly let Him teach me His way.

"When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there." And He will cure us too. Like Azariah, we can pray, "Do not put us to shame, but deal with us in your patience and in your abundant mercy." And His love and mercy are boundless, He who gave His life for our salvation.

by Dorothy Dinsmoor

Psalm 15
Acts 1:15-26
John 15:1, 6-16

These passages speak to me of friendship and of the commitments God commands us to make to one another. The psalmist asks God, "Who may dwell on [his] holy hill?" The reply is crisp and specific: "those who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends." And on the positive side: those who "speak the truth from their hearts" and "stand by their oath even to their hurt." This last admonition reminds me that fulfilling commitments isn't always easy or pleasant, and may in fact require sacrifice. But the reward is a quality of steadfastness and peace of mind, as "those who do these things may not be moved."

In the reading from Acts, the apostles pray that God might show them which one of two candidates should take the place of Judas in the apostles' ministry. They cast lots; and Matthias is selected to join the apostles and "become a witness" with them to Christ's resurrection. With the appointment, Matthias takes his place among a group united in friendship by their high calling.

The passage from John recounts Jesus' instructions to his disciples as he prepares to fulfill his mission. Jesus speaks of love and friendship, saying that true friendship may require even giving up one's life for one's friends. This suggests as well that I need to be prepared to give up ways of living and thinking that prevent me from fully expressing the love of friendship. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. …You are my friends if you do what I command you." He goes on to explain that he calls his disciples friends because he has given them all the knowledge he has heard from his Father. Friendship means action: "I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." And in return, "the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name."

Bearing fruit that will last is the work of legacy, a call to do our part to shape a better world and to enrich the lives of those we call friends.

by Liz Hill

Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42

Today's Gospel seems to be a hodgepodge. Journeying through Samaria, Jesus rests by a well while the disciples go to buy food. Along comes a Samaritan woman who, like Chaucer's Wife of Bath, has had five husbands. Since Jews and Samaritans did not fraternize, let alone share drinking vessels, she is flabbergasted at his request for a drink of water. Then follows the well-known "water of life" conversation, interrupted by the return of the disciples, who, although astonished to find him conversing with a woman, say nothing. And then, after all their trouble to get food, Jesus refuses to eat! Then he drops a metaphorical but none-too-subtle hint that they get to work "harvesting." Re-enter the Samaritan woman with a band of her compatriots, many of whom acknowledge Jesus as "Savior." So ends the play.

Although the metaphor of "the water of life" is clear, as it was not at first to the woman, the statement about worshipping the Father "in spirit and in truth" is puzzling. It seems so very abstract and theoretical, even downright sterile. Our society tends to think of "spirit" in opposition to "matter." "God is a spirit," says Christ, who himself, being incarnate, is made of matter. The Greek word translated throughout this passage as "spirit" is pneuma, which means "breath," the "breath of life," or "a living being." There is no connotation here of hostility to matter.

God by definition is truth, and if He is also a spirit, isn't this phrase redundant? Again we consult the Greek dictionary. Alethea means more than a true proposition, such as 2+1=3. It means reality, as opposed to appearance. It is something genuine, something coming to fulfillment. In his translation of this text, J.B. Phillips renders alethea as "reality."

Our Lord tells the woman that where we worship is irrelevant: the important thing is how we worship. As living beings we worship a living being in reality, in the process of coming to fulfillment. Although essential to life everywhere, water is held more precious, perhaps, in a dry country than in our temperate climate. A traditional term for distress of the soul is "aridity," a state of feeling like parched and barren land. The cure is the living water. But we cannot regard this as a simple solution. We are living beings, subject to change, and coming to, but not yet arriving at, fulfillment. We thirst for the water of life, and God will provide it. But how, when, under what circumstances, he alone determines.

by Mark Wood

Psalm 103:1-12
Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Luke 15:11-32

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits. (Psalm 103:2)

The Christian life might be described as a constant struggle to remember God's mercy. In Jesus' best story, the younger son was saved "when he came to himself" (Luke 15:17). It isn't that anything changed in his circumstances; he was still sitting among the pigs. But all of a sudden he remembered who he was, the beloved child of a generous father. Notice how quickly this idea inspires him with courage. Stinky and malnourished, he gets up, confident he'll find acceptance at the end of his journey home.

Likewise, the singer of Psalm 103 recalls a time when he was gravely ill. Now that he's well again, he sets down in verse the vulnerability he felt on his sickbed. An astute observer of human nature, he is aware of how quickly we move on to the next crisis without reflecting on the experience of being brought low and then raised up again He pointedly reminds himself to "forget not all God's benefits." He skillfully recalls how God "made his way known to Moses." The Exodus from slavery in Egypt is, for Israel, the ultimate sign of God's ability to bring us out of the depths of despair and discouragement.

In these "last days," Jesus has promised us an even greater deliverance from all that enslaves us, most especially fear of death. We began our Lenten journey with an invitation to remember "that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14). If we go with Jesus during these forty days, he'll show us how low he is willing to descend to prove the power of God's mercy. We need not be afraid to go right down into the tomb with Jesus. It's there in the depths that God's love is most powerful. There in the grave we can say, "I will get up and go to my Father."

by Judith Sands

Psalm 105: 16-22
Genesis 37: 3-4, 12-28
Matthew 21: 33-43

It is fitting for Lent that today's readings are almost unremittingly grim. In Genesis we read about how Joseph was sold to slave traders by his own brothers. Indeed, he was almost the victim of fratricide, but his brothers decided to abandon that crime in favor of ready cash. Of course, being sold into slavery was not much of an improvement. Then, when we turn to the New Testament, Jesus tells us the parable of the owner of a fine vineyard, who let it to tenants, but when he sent not only his servants, but also his son, for his share of the fruits of the vineyard, the tenants beat and killed all of them. What is the connection between these two stories? The theme I found was that of jealousy or envy.

In the Genesis reading we learn that Joseph was his father's favorite son. His brothers must have greatly resented the fact that their father gave him the equivalent of a cashmere sweater to wear with his designer jeans. Joseph did not help matters by telling them he had dreamed of being superior to all of them (Genesis 37: 5-11). While the brothers may have been understandably irritated, it did not warrant what they did. Equally, the relationship between landlords and tenants may not be a happy one, but what moved these tenants to kill the landlord's son to deprive him of his inheritance? The pernicious effect of envy, jealousy run amok, manifests itself in these two tales. This is made even more manifest five chapters later in Matthew's gospel when he reports that Pontius Pilate knew that they had delivered Jesus to him out of envy (Matthew 27:18). It is little wonder that envy is one of the seven deadly sins.

In these heavy readings, the verses chosen from Psalm 105 offer a ray of hope. They relate how Joseph, who had been sold as a slave, became the trusted advisor to the king. These verses recall the rest of Joseph's story, one of the most wonderfully extraordinary accounts the Old Testament has to offer. Through God's grace and by his wits, Joseph became not only Pharaoh's right-hand man but a wealthy and powerful member of the community. Thus he was in a position to rescue his father and family from the famine that afflicted their country. After Joseph's father died, his brothers were justifiably afraid that Joseph would take revenge on them for what they had done. Amazingly, he tells them that he is not going to do any such thing, but rather look after them and their families for the rest of his life (Genesis 50:20). In so doing he anticipates Jesus' teaching not to seek "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Matthew 5:38). I think this can also be seen as heralding the great forgiveness manifested by Jesus through his crucifixion and resurrection. Thus in our journey through the austerity of Lent, we can look forward to the joy of Easter.

by Barbara Head

Psalm 105:16-22
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Luke 16:19-31

These passages are about famine and messengers from God.

The psalmist talks of the famine sent by God over the land, and how Joseph, taken as a slave, was sent as a messenger to Pharaoh, becoming "a master over his household, a ruler over his possessions, To instruct his princes according to his will and to teach his elders wisdom." But Joseph received all this because he trusted in God, despite having his feet bruised in fetters and his neck bound in an iron collar.

Jeremiah also talks of famine. "Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord." The prophet compares these people to a terrible thing for human beings to contemplate — a dried out shrub in a desert, a parched place, an uninhabited salt land. On the other hand, those who trust in the Lord are like trees planted by water, sending out roots to the stream. The final verse, though, is the one that hits home: "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse — who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings" (bolding mine).

Then we come to Luke. Here is the familiar story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar at his doorstep, covered with sores. While the story doesn't specifically say that the rich man doesn't give Lazarus food, the implication is there when it says that Lazarus "longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table." Finally, Lazarus dies and goes to heaven with Abraham, while the rich man goes to Hades, where he suffers another kind of famine, the flames of hell.

Now I used to be of the opinion that this was nothing more than each man deserved, and didn't look any further. But on re-reading this passage for the Lenten devotional, I suddenly realized that, even in Hades, the rich man is still treating Lazarus as a beggar, and as such, beneath him. "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue." When Abraham tells him this is impossible, he wants Lazarus to go to his brothers and warn them. Abraham tells him they must listen to Moses and the prophets. But the rich man wants Lazarus to go anyway; his brothers will listen to this beggar, because he is risen from the dead.

Then Abraham tells him what we all know only too well today: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

In these days of famine, war, and chaotic climate change, are we convinced by the One who did rise from the dead?

by Frank Mackey

Psalm 31:9-16
Jeremiah 18:1-11, 18-20
Matthew 20:17-28

Isn't it human that on the way to Jerusalem when Jesus tells the disciples about his "capture" and death, the first thing that came to their minds is who gets the places of honor? That starts arguments between them, including racial (Gentile) matters. Jesus then takes this good opportunity to stress that whoever wishes to be great must first be the servant, and whoever wishes to be first must be their slave.

It is interesting to contemplate this in today's highly charged political election battles. Those wishing the places of honor stress how they have served the people (truthfully or not). Some who win the election don't become a slave, but then they do not get the prize — first place in the minds of the people.

The Jeremiah reading reminds us how God can at one moment declare, concerning a nation, that "I will pluck it up, break it down, and destroy it, but if that nation of which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it" (Jeremiah 18:7-10). How near are we to God's wrath?

As so frequently happens, the psalm is the healer that delivers the balm to the injured.

Bless us, Lord, and watch over us with your guiding hand during this time of our trial that we may remember your guidance.

by John Samuels

Psalm 50.7-15,22-24
Isaiah 1:2-4, 16-20
Matthew 23:1-12

On issues of life and death, good and evil, God calls us: "Come now, let us reason together." What plea could be more simple and appealing than this when speaking of such earth-shattering matters that envelop all of us human beings?

Prayers and sacrifices will never atone for fraud and oppression. In order to reach God, we must cease to do evil and must make ourselves clean. In other words, we must learn to do well.

Forget gifts to God in material forms. God already has everything that exists in our world. What God is seeking is pure worship, ingenuous worship without guile. The symbolic service and beauty of the liturgy must come from the homage of the heart and faith, penitence, and above all else, love. Humility before God and others is an absolute.

One who humbles himself, God will exalt him. One who exalts himself, God will humble him.

by Michael Macdonald

Psalm 79:1-9
Daniel 9: 3-10
Luke 6:27-38

Today's passage from the gospel according to St. Luke calls us to what I consider to be the ultimate Lenten discipline — giving up anger. Can you imagine? Turning the other cheek; not only forgiving someone who takes your possessions, but also not asking for their return; loving your enemies? It's almost impossible for me to ponder!

Just consider the consequences of giving up anger. On a personal level, our loved ones might wonder what we are trying to hide. (Are we "seeing" someone else? Have we been drinking?) On a national level, the defense industry would suffer a serious downturn, and this could have a negative effect on our national economy. (On what would we spend all of the money that is currently used for our national defense — the elimination of poverty in our country or hunger throughout the world?) The nations that we consider our enemies might, like our loved ones, wonder what we are up to. (Are we secretly building the ultimate nuclear weapon?) They certainly wouldn't be able to comprehend that we have no ulterior motive; that we are merely carrying out Christ's call to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Fortunately, though, this is only a Lenten discipline. We can go right back to being spiteful and angry, to building armaments, to attacking our enemies, to conducting war on Easter. But wait, that’s a Sunday — the Sabbath — a day of rest. I guess we'll just have to wait until the day after Easter to become our old vengeful selves!

by Denise Kelly

Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5,13-17
John 3:1-17

In today’s Old Testament reading, the Lord tells Abram to leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house, and go to the land that the Lord will show him and the Lord will bless Abram and his family forever.

Psalm 121 contains the text that I have sung so many times: “He watching over Israel slumbers not, nor sleeps.”

The longer I live, the more comfortable I am with letting go and trusting that God will watch over me, perhaps not in the ways I ask him to, but in the ways I need him to forgive and guide me.

The gospel reading further explains that I must be born of the spirit, listening to the word of God, so that I can be saved. That guarantee from God depends upon my faith in his promise, and I must believe without doubt or question. I trusted my parents to protect me as I grew up, and had faith that their judgment was based in love. I have faith that God will do the same.

by Nicholas Laccetti

Psalm 119:1-8
Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Matthew 5:43-48

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:43-45).

Often, the phrase "love your enemies" becomes a mere platitude, something we profess to accept but rarely enact in reality. At best, we discreetly exchange the word "love" for "respect," or "tolerate." But love is something more radical than these, something we instinctually reserve for spouses, partners, or family members. All of us know how to love. We do it all the time. The question becomes, why should we love our enemies? This difficulty causes us to push the true meaning of Christ's injunction out of our minds, to let it be a platitude.

One of my professors, a medievalist, often drills a certain concept from Dante's Divine Comedy into his students, regardless of the particular class he is teaching at the time. The exchange always goes like this:

"Class, for Dante, what keeps the stars in the sky?"

"Love."

"What keeps the spheres in their orbit?"

"Love."

"What holds the universe together?"

"Looove."

Love holds the universe together. Love brings together opposites, brings us into a collision course with the other. Chris Hedges, a war correspondent and writer, was once questioned in an interview on why he actively sought out the company of couples while covering wars. He responded, "In every conflict I've been in, the only antidote is people who find their fulfillment, their sense of being, in love. In the Balkans, these were often couples who had mixed marriages, and therefore, they were immune from the rhetoric; to paint all Serbs as evil, or all Muslims as evil, or all Croats as evil was to denigrate the spouse, to dehumanize the spouse — which they couldn't do."

Certainly in war, but also in our day-to-day existence, the pressure to reduce your enemy to a non-human, to a binary evil, is often overwhelming. But love is able to prevent this sort of dehumanizing, to reveal those you love as what they truly are: as humans made in the image of God. It renders us immune to the dangerous rhetoric of conflict.

Like a magnetic force, love brings us toward those who seem impossibly distant, who seem absolutely alien. And love is simple: all it does is show us that our enemies are not and were never distant or alien; that through our shared ability to love we are all human and all children of our Father in heaven.

by Derek Baker

Psalm 130
Ezekiel 18:21-28
Matthew 5:20-26

I often have to remind myself to live in the moment. And I should probably remind myself of this far more than I already do.

At best, I do so when I realize I'm letting myself feel overwhelmed by the tasks facing me, anxious for a relative or friend, or am otherwise just living in my head and not actually living my life. Yet while I've long appreciated — too often from afar — the benefits of living consciously, I'd never before considered it a moral issue, "merely" an existential one.

God, as I read in Ezekiel, tells his people that the "now" is where God is and where they should be. Prophesying the coming invasion and exile at the hands of the Chaldeans, Ezekiel warns his nation that past wickedness is no bar to being saved from the looming threat if the sinner turns from sin and does what is lawful and right. Neither is past righteousness any guarantee of salvation, as Ezekiel understands it, if we turn from righteousness to sin.

In turning from wickedness to righteousness, Ezekiel seems to imply, the person is in a new state of being: "They shall surely live; they shall not die." It is the choice of a moment — this moment — that determines righteousness and unrighteousness. (And it is probably worth remembering that we usually read back into Ezekiel differently than his contemporaries did or very likely than even most modern day Jews do.)

In such a sense, "now" is the experience of eternity — which makes for a very Zen form of Judaism, seen this way. Yet it has its corollary in what we believe. We live in the Resurrection now — now at the door of an empty tomb, now at Eucharist, now in the Spirit, now in death. Time (and one of its nasty winged monkeys, the progress report) is more our experience than God's, who stands outside of time. Time may even be an obstacle to our experience of God, liturgical calendars notwithstanding.

Jesus goes further, and frequently reminds us to live in the moment with others, where God truly is. In this Gospel lesson, whatever separation I put between myself and others, I put between myself and God, be it murder, anger, insult, or even mild disdain. There aren't degrees of sin and separation in this reading, because God isn't comparing and contrasting us against our past performance; that's our way of seeing things, not God's. We are called to consciousness in whatever we are doing now, and particularly in regard to our relationships as they exist today.

And so: To whom do you owe an apology or a word of gratitude right now? Go and give it. Live in this moment as if it were eternity because, from God's perspective, I suspect it probably is.

by Sarah Johnson

Psalm 138
Esther 14:1-6, 12-14
Matthew 7:7-12

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Matthew 7:7).

Has anyone else read or watched The Secret? To be grossly unfair, oversimplifying, and overtly prejudiced, I'll describe it as a new-agey, quasi-spiritual method of getting rich quick. The Nation, in its June 4, 2007, issue, was perhaps less kind, describing it as "self-help snake oil," but reports that the book, at $23.95 a pop for hardcover, sold 3.8 million copies last year and the DVD ($34.95 each) sold over 1.5 million copies. It's a genuine cultural something.

Here's the intro from the official Secret website:

"The Secret reveals the most powerful law in the universe. The knowledge of this law has run like a golden thread through the lives and the teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages and saviors in the world's history, and through the lives of all truly great men and women. All that they have ever accomplished or attained has been done in full accordance with this most powerful law" (http://www.thesecret.tv).

Sounds sweet, doesn't it? Basically, the big Secret boils down to "Seek, and ye shall find."

We're hungry for this. This is exactly what we wanted to hear. Some will pay good money to read this in a best-selling book, and the less literate will pay to watch someone tell them this on DVD.

So, I guess the question I would like to meditate on is this: If you can have anything you want, and all you have to do is ask, then why do bad things still happen when you ask God to prevent them? Sloan Kettering should be utterly vacant; unfortunately, it isn't.

What is the real secret? What is it Jesus wanted us to learn about our relationship with God as we ask, and seek, and knock?

by Sara Jones

Psalm 51:11-18
Jonah 3: 1-10
Luke 11: 29-32

Today's lessons ask us to turn from evil and violence and seek salvation.

Jonah saves an entire city from God's wrath and destruction. Jonah's warning causes the entire population, even the king, to repent. Luke reminds his contemporaries of this story, saying his generation is an evil generation that should heed Jonah's story. He adds that a prophet greater than Jonah (Jesus) is warning them.

It's the poetry of Psalm 51 that touches me. "Do not cast me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation." Salvation is a call for rescue.

Personally, I think we could all do better aligning ourselves with God's plan. In this, an election year, I am in sympathy with Luke. My generation is an evil one. We are involved in many wars, bloodshed, and ancient tribal rifts that have lasted too long. We are still fighting for civil liberties.

How are we, as nations, treating one another? Can we live the words our Lord has taught us, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"?

How are we treating God's great gift, our planet? I know no greater example of His living holy spirit than God's earth. Man's evil ways are threatening its very existence as we know it. Yes, even kings and presidents must ask for forgiveness with a contrite heart.

We can all start by living as messengers of Jesus words, "Love one another."

by Ned Fitch

Psalm 34:15-22
Isaiah 55:6-11
Matthew 6:7-15

It is a pretty accurate assumption that all Christians pray. Whether in a daily manner or when faced with crisis or issue, at some point we turn to God and Jesus with praise and petitions. (I would guess that the latter usually is the focus of most prayers.)

But in reading today's Gospel lesson, we learn that God does not want prayers that are repetitive, rote, or vain in nature. Why? What is wrong with spending our time in prayer, asking for that which most troubles or frightens us, or asking for the things we feel we need? And why does Jesus step in to tell us how we should pray?

While it is human nature to ask for those things we believe we need or to ask for God's grace for situations we cannot control, doing so suggests that God is impersonal and can be manipulated. In reality, God already knows our needs and desires. There is no merit in begging; God gives us what we ask for. And when we don't receive exactly what we ask for, it is because God knows we do not need it or it is not for our good or according to his will. Additionally, to pray repetitively for that which we feel we need suggests that we believe God may not always hear us, and we must therefore ask again and again. While it may make us feel better to beg for things or be repetitive in our prayers, Jesus tells us that it is unnecessary.

Jesus gives specific direction on how we should pray. In giving us the Lord's Prayer, Jesus did not tell us to "pray these words" but to "pray this way/along these lines." The suggestion is to help us formulate appropriate prayers to God. The greatest mistake we can make is to replace our "vain repetitions" by praying the Lord's Prayer in a memorized and rote manner. While is can be considered the ultimate prayer, and one we can, and should, use each time we pray, it is not to be used as an impersonal, repetitive act that will hopefully persuade God to forgive us or give us what we want.

The Lord's Prayer encompasses all we need to say to God. We honor God as our loving parent. This allows us to have a close, personal relationship with God as an obedient child. We also honor God as our ruler and our faithful provider. We are servants, dependent upon God to give us what we need. We ask for forgiveness, the ability and desire to forgive, and for spiritual protection against earthly temptations. And finally, we praise God as the ultimate source of power and glory over the world.

When praying the Lord's Prayer, it can easily become yet another repetitive act of prayer. We must resist this temptation and with open hearts and minds (and ears and voices), pray as Jesus asked us to pray, honoring God, asking for what we truly need, and praising God's power and glory.

by Michael Jones

Psalm 19:7-14
Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
Matthew 25:31-46

How daunting it is to respond to Matthew's account of the Last Judgment! As I sat down to meditate upon this task, all I could see at first were a bunch of sheep and goats, and the unmistakable threat of hellfire and damnation. I remembered that today's readings also included passages from Leviticus and the Psalms, and so, with some trepidation, I began to read.

I must admit to not being as favorably disposed to Leviticus as perhaps I should be, so I was surprised, perhaps unfairly, to discover that today's reading was not especially forbidding. Be impartial in your judgments. Don't, as my grandmother used to say, "tote tales." And most importantly, treat your neighbor as you would yourself. No eye for an eye, or tooth for a tooth, at least in this passage. Who could argue with the simplicity, if not the extraordinary difficulty, of these precepts?

I next turned to the Psalms much more willingly, expecting to find there some of that exalting poetry that has comforted and consoled me, like so many others, in times of trial. I was not disappointed. The psalmist sings of the beauty of God's creation, the inestimable quality of God's laws, and our own powerlessness to know our own faults, much less to avoid them without help. But it is precisely that help of which the psalmist also sings, of faith in a God who will guide and protect us and keep us free from the "great transgression."

When I finally turned back to the passage from Matthew, I began to understand what the "great transgression" is: a blindness to Christ in others, a failure to know and respond to our neighbors, whether down the hall, around the corner, or across the sea. Of course, the sheep and the goats were still there, and a faint smell of sulfur. But there was also hope, and the radical, apparently simple, breathtakingly difficult instruction in how to live out our lives as Christians. It is the example of Christ and the challenge to live and act that example, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to house the homeless -- in short, just as Leviticus teaches, to love our neighbors as ourselves. And the greatest gift of all is that this task, as impossible as it so often seems, is not ours to do alone.

To return to the words of the psalmist, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Amen.

by Gretchen Dumler

Psalm 32
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

Why did he do it ... and how? How did St. Paul get from the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden (Genesis 3:1-7) to the conclusion (Romans 5:12-19) that because Adam sinned we are all therefore sinners? He acknowledges there was no concept of sin before the Law came into being; and the word never occurs in the creation story. Presumably, it was out there, floating about, but it was not defined until the Law pinned it down, at which point sin went crazy and multiplied until Christ came to conquer it in us.

Now, wait a minute. Why do we get no account of the origins of sin and the Law in the creation story? All we get is a snake and a tree. Adam and Eve disobeyed; God punished them. He never let on they were rotten to the core. On the contrary, after each act of creation, God pronounced it "Good." Whassup, God? Paul, what were you on?

Enter the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). Now who created him? The scene is the desert, where Jesus went after his baptism. The devil tries to tempt Jesus away from God. Is this a reiteration of the snake tempting Eve? Eve flunks; Jesus passes. He then goes on to try to teach us how to behave, so we can get into that Really Big Garden.

The psalmist is instructive. He depicts the sickness we endure when afflicted with sin, the relief upon confession, and prayers for mercy. Having achieved this himself, he thanks God with a lightened heart and a "shout for Joy."

What would have happened -- or not happened -- had Paul not afflicted us with original sin? Would God have sent us a different messenger of doom? Or not? Or am I just listening to another snake? (n.b.: the New Oxford Bible notes that in the ancient world "snakes were symbolic of wisdom. ... Only later on was the snake in this story seen by interpreters as the devil.")

by Janet Fisher

Psalm 86:1-11
Isaiah 58:1-9a
Luke 5:27-32

Imagine Matthew as one of the current day Wall Street traders or hedge fund managers inviting Jesus to an elegant dinner party catered by a celebrity chef in his sumptuously decorated triplex apartment with views overlooking the Hudson River. The chauffeur would call for Jesus at the appointed hour. Other invited guests would be Matthew's peers, who would leap at a chance to cast an envious eye on his latest acquisitions of paintings and antiquities, and of course, to spend an evening exchanging lofty ideas with Jesus on the state of the world's condition.

The evening would start off with an aged single malt whiskey or a dry martini to take the edge off the hectic day of trading. Lavishly prepared appetizers along with vintage white and red wines would be served next. Then would follow the main course: the finest grass-fed beef and a medley of organic vegetables and grains produced by local farmers. The concluding courses would embrace cheeses from nearby farms and some designer dessert, which had its origins in these same farm orchards. It would have all the trappings of an updated Babette's Feast, with an emphasis on eating locally grown and produced foods.

Just what would Jesus be conversing with this group about? What would He have charged them to do?

Since there is no shortage of topics, pick one: the lack of health care in one of the wealthiest countries in the world; the economy (our country's and the world markets); the latest challenges to voters' rights in various states around the U.S.; the connectedness, though sometimes seemingly remote, between our actions and the effects they have on people and creatures in distant parts of this earth; the much touted political buzz word "change;" our self indulgences, both personal and corporate ... blah, blah, blah.

And as the late bishop suffragan of New York, Walter Dennis, was heard to have suggested, Jesus would probably have done some financial arm twisting.

How will you step out of your comfort zone to take an action in your local area to make a difference in the life of someone not connected to your faith community that will have an impact on distance places, people, and creatures?

"Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication."

by Isabel Spencer

Psalm 51:1-10
Isaiah 58:1-9
Matthew 9:10-17

The psalm, widely known as the Miserere, sets the tone for Lent. It's no wonder that it's been set to music by some of the greatest composers. (The Allegri is perhaps the best-known. There's a lovely Byrd setting on one of the Voices of Ascension recordings)

There are so many verses we recognize: "Create in me a clean heart, O God ...", "Open my lips, O Lord ...", "The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit ...," etc. Verse 15 has a central place in Jewish liturgy; Verse 7 is part of the Roman Catholic mass.

(Interestingly, the verse numbers in the Book of Common Prayer are different from those in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, because the prayer book makes two verses out of Verse 4.)

I enjoyed talking psalms in Father Mark Wood's recent class. He emphasized, for instance, how the verses are often in two parts, with each paraphrasing and augmenting the other. One exercise he recommended is elongating the pause at the asterisk when you read.

All in all, it's tempting to read this psalm verse by verse. There is so much to ponder in each: Just the first verse, for instance, asking for God's mercy. Later, in Verse 4, the psalmist contrasts mercy with justice. God is justified in passing judgment, the poet writes. But what he is asking for is mercy. This brings to mind the totally inadequate understanding we have of God's justice, or God's peace, or God's mercy.

Looking at the beauties of the individual verses, though, we miss some of the overarching meaning. I am very struck by the psalmist's request that God more or less ignore our sins -- blot them out, hide from them, almost as if our sins are too great even for God to look at. The psalmist knows his own sin, but he wants God to look past that, to find the secret truth or goodness within. And then, he says, "Wash me and I shall be clean indeed."

The other lessons for the day seem to build on this psalm. The passage from Isaiah deals with how we fast. The gospel contains one of Jesus' most hope-inspiring remarks, "For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners."

Our job during Lent is to "know our transgressions," and to pray for God's mercy. Only then can we be ready for the bright whiteness of Easter.

by Connie Heginbotham

Psalm 1
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Luke 9:18-25

Speaking to myself and to you, let us not be comforted by poetry and theology but hear the toughness in these readings.

Psalm 1:
Blessed is the man who delights in God's word and MEDITATES NIGHT AND DAY.

Deuteronomy:
Turn unto God with ALL thy heart and ALL thy soul. For the word is NOT in heaven or beyond the sea, but very nigh to thee, in THY mouth and in THY heart that thou mayest DO IT.

Luke:
Jesus says: DO NOT pay attention to men who say I am John the Baptist, Elias, or the Christ of God. TELL NO MAN THAT! THE SON OF MAN suffers, rejection, death. If any MAN follow me, let him DENY HIMSELF.

Following the Psalm, YOU CAN MEDITATE NIGHT AND DAY. You can catch yourself up when you lose focus.

Remembering Deuteronomy, YOU CAN LOOK IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART TO KNOW THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD. You can choose to dwell in the land of the Lord.

Knowing you are human, YOU CAN DECIDE NOW TO LOSE YOUR PREOCCUPATION WITH SELF, EGO IDENTITY. You can decide not to think about whether you are respected, financially secure, healthy, loved, powerful, in-charge, up-to-date, smart, right, recognized, appreciated, accepted, attractive, desired, whatever.

YOU CAN PRAY AND PRAY AND LOSE YOUR SELF.

Challenge yourself; bring yourself back to the words of God, of Jesus. Be yourself a daughter or son of man.

What are you advantaged if you gain the whole world and lose yourself and be cast away?

TOUGH WORDS. Begin now!

by Charles Hill

Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 51:1-17
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Our acceptance of the ashes imposed on the forehead indicates our recognition of our earthly mortality and the beginning of our forty-day journey through the darkness of Lent ending in the glorious resurrection on Easter morning.

All of the texts under discussion illustrate the need for this journey and a hoped-for result, or a move from false piety to true piety. The prophet Isaiah puts this in the context of fasting. Is it an ostentatious display or a means of helping the destitute? The psalmist cries out for purging and forgiveness. It is hard to believe that several hundred years have passed between these texts and the New Testament ones because the themes and even the terminology are very similar.

Life is so simple in the Bible: there are the hypocrites and the true believers. But for the twenty-first century New Yorker it's not so easy. Why do we rush to church before going to work to receive the ashes that we can ostentatiously display all day rather than staying home a few more minutes to plan ways we can utilize our spirituality for the betterment of others? Are we not like the hypocrites of all ages who display their piety in public? Only God knows.