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It is not often that all three lessons and the Psalm carry the same theme, but in this morning’s readings … in the middle of Lent … we are confronted with blindness and sight, of darkness and light, of seeing with more than just our eyes in a world which, at times, is all too literal.

“A Samaritan woman came to draw water …”

In our reading from John’s gospel this morning Jesus is returning to Galilee from the highlands of Judea and decides to journey through the district of Samaria.  This must have been an intentional choice on his part as it was somewhat out of the way, and certainly not a destination a Jew would necessarily have chosen.  The people of Samaria and the Jewish people who surrounded them had their differences, and generally avoided each other. 

In the first twelve chapters of the Book of Genesis we hear the stories of the Creation, Adam and Eve and the Temptation, Noah and the Ark … now on the big screen starring Russell Crowe … and the Tower of Babel among others.  Then the text turns away from these mythic tales to the epic story chronicling the beginning of monotheism … the story of Abraham and Sarah and their descendants.  The storyline follows Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel. Jacob and Rachel had twelve sons, one of whom was Joseph … the one sold to slavers and taken to Egypt.  This brought the Israelites to Egypt to escape a famine, but generations later they lived under the oppression of the Pharaoh.  Then there was Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt to a land of milk and honey where eventually judges and kings ruled until Jerusalem fell to the Assyrians under Solomon, King David’s son.  After exile and return the Israelites struggled in their homeland, oppressed for centuries by one empire or another.  And then Jesus, one of their own … a descendant of Abraham and Sarah … began his ministry in a little backwater region of the Promised Land.  But let’s go back to the twelfth chapter of Genesis. 

In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.

Ash Wednesday.  The beginning of the forty days of Lent.  So what are you giving up for Lent?  Ice cream? Chocolate?  Chocolate ice cream?  Aren’t we supposed to give up something for Lent?  Aren’t we supposed to give up something that reminds us of how self-indulgent we are?  Isn’t that what we were taught about Lent?

In the name of the God of all Creation. 
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus, 
And the power of God known in the Spirit. 
Amen. 
 
Today is the Last Sunday of our Epiphany Season. We begin Lent this week with Ash 
Wednesday. Among the definitions of the word “epiphany” are “disclosure,” “manifestation,” 
“unveiling,” and “appearance.” The reading from Matthew’s gospel this morning is certainly an 
epiphany … complete with a blinding light, a heavenly voice, and visions of Elijah and Moses. 
This season of Epiphany began with the celebration of the Wise Men honoring the baby Jesus, 
followed on the next Sunday with Jesus’ baptism by John in the River Jordan. As Jesus came up 
out of the water there was voice from heaven “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am 
well pleased.” This morning we heard those words again, this time on a mountain and coming 
out of a cloud in what is called the Transfiguration. Baptism at the beginning … Transfiguration 
at the end. These are the bookends of the Church’s season of Epiphany.