From the Lectionary for 22 March 2026 (Lent 5A)

Romans 8:11 (NRSV)

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

John 11:1-45 (The Death and Raising of Lazarus)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2011%3A1-45&version=NRSVUE

~

"Modern thinkers - philosophers such as Heidegger, sociologists such as Ernst Becker - have shown us how much we are “beings-toward-death.” [Rene] Girard gives us the anthropological explanation of how the powerful catharses around death are at the foundations of culture, and thus as a driving force behind our human experience. Moreover, Girard's faith takes him beyond where Heidegger would dare to go, such that Jesus can be seen to offer us freedom from our “Being-toward-death” into a “Being-toward-life.”

"Jesus, in John 11, is concerned before his passion to help his followers to be prepared for the founding of God's culture, founded in the boundless life of the Resurrection. Living in God's culture begun at the Resurrection, our “Being-toward-” can undergo the fundamental transformation from death to life. “Eternal life” isn't just something that happens to us after we die. It is something that happens to us the instant we begin to experience the Resurrection and begin the journey of becoming “Beings-toward-life.” John 11 gives us a story about Jesus' warm-up exercise to experiencing the Resurrection. It is a coaxing preparation for being able to live in the light of the Resurrection."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from Resources section on John 11 on the Girardian Lectionary page for Lent 5A (link below)

~

"Does [an] emphasis on teaching us how to face death totally spiritualize this story out of being a miracle? [...] I'll speak for myself in reflecting on the miraculous nature of raising Lazarus.

"First, we might ask more generally, what was the point of Jesus doing miracles? In what did the miracles consist? More to the point: when Jesus performed a miracle, which was the more important “miracle”: the suspending of physical laws of nature that worked a miraculous change in the physical world, or the effect which that “miracle” had in changing human hearts? Which is more significant: working a dramatic change in the course of natural events, or working a dramatic change in human hearts?

"I ask these questions because [...] what is important to me about such miracles, is the miraculous change it can make in us. Jesus wasn't there to simply wow the crowd with a few magic tricks. He was there to invite them into a whole new orientation to life and death, a miracle of human transformation that wouldn't be complete until his own death and resurrection. Jesus was there to confront their old ways of facing death and to begin to give them a new way. To the extent that he, along with the Holy Spirit, is actually able to give us that new orientation, that for me is the real miracle. It's not that the raising of Lazarus didn't happen or that we should debunk it; it's that there's something even more important going on, a potential change in the human heart. In other words, if we stop with only the literal raising of Lazarus, we still miss the most important miracle that may happen here, something that even goes beyond the resuscitation, that dramatic change in the course of natural events.

"What could be more meaningful than the resuscitation of a dead friend? Lazarus would still die a death of his earthly body some day. Jesus was saving him from that only for the time-being. But what if, in the meantime, Lazarus' new lease on living could be transformed into an existence that is wholly for life? That's what I think John's Jesus means by “eternal life.” And it is a “realized eschatology” to the extent that one can immediately begin to experience this “eternal life” the moment one believes in Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life. Martha responds to Jesus about resurrection in terms of something in the future, “on the last day.” Jesus further responds to her in the present tense, “I am ...”"

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from Reflections and Questions section on John 11 on the Girardian Lectionary page for Lent 5A (link below)

~

"In John's Gospel, as a matter of fact, raising Lazarus back to life after four days in the grave, is not even called a miracle. No, in John's Gospel, it's called a sign. It's the seventh and last sign. It began with the wedding at Cana, turning the water in the ritual purification jars into wine. The water for a somber ritual was turned into the wine of a joyful celebration of life. Then, in ch. 4, Jesus heals the son of a royal official – the second sign. In ch. 5, it's the healing of a lame man at the pool of Bethsaida. Chapter 6, two signs: feeding five thousand and walking on water. We heard the sixth sign last week: healing the man born blind. Today, the seventh and final sign – final, that is, until Easter morning, the eighth sign on the eighth day, the first day of the new week, the first day of a New Creation. In John's Gospel, these are not miracles. They are signs of the Creation beginning again.

"They are signs to help us to believe, signs to signal our entry into the New Creation, signs to help us be faithful by working in the New Creation. And that's why Jesus is not only sad at Lazarus's wake, but he's also troubled in spirit, perhaps even angry. The word used for “troubled” in verses 33 and 38 is translated in Matthew and Mark's Gospels as being angry or frustrated. Why would Jesus be angry or frustrated at such a sad occasion? Because he is giving them signs to invite them into New Creation, and they aren't getting it. He has staged this entire event with Lazarus death – staying a couple of extra days on purpose, to make sure that Lazarus would die – and they still aren't believing that he is all about resurrection and life. They aren't yet understanding.

"What about us, two thousand years later? Do we get it yet? Yes, we believe that God raises us after we die. But like Jesus says to Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. It's not just happening someday in the future. It's happening right now, Sister! I'm trying to invite you, empower you, right now on how to live wholly and completely for Life.’ Do we get this still? Do we know how to live completely on the side of life here today, and not just put it off until tomorrow?

"Here's what I mean. Perhaps the most telling conversation in John's Gospel is between Jesus and the Judean leaders in chapters 7 and 8. Jesus has come to invite them into life, too, but they are such stick in the muds for the Law, for Torah, that they can't get past Jesus's healing on the Sabbath. To them, Torah is Life. And as a good Jew, it is for Jesus, too. But then you have to understand how to have Torah lead you wholly and completely into life. The Judean leaders still use it to impede working toward life by following the letter of the law instead of the Spirit of it – like getting on Jesus's case for healing on the Sabbath. They also use the law to elevate themselves above others, seeing themselves as fit for life and others as not.

"Jesus had to tell the Pharisee Nicodemus to be born again from above. He had to help him to understand that unless he is able to see every person on this earth as God's child fit for life, then he was really living for death, not life. And Jesus would go on to tell the leaders point blank (in chapter 7) that they would use the law to kill him. And for good measure, when they bring an adulteress to him, ready to stone, ready to kill, he would halt them in their tracks, telling them, “You who is without sin may cast the first stone.” The law is for Life, never for death, never for killing, never for neglecting others because you think that somehow you are better.

"Now do we understand? [...] Do we understand that we can do greater works than Jesus, effecting many more people if we do the work of God's New Creation as best we can, guided by the Spirit?

"If not, Jesus comes here to remind us once again this morning that he is the resurrection and the life right now, here today. This isn't just about some future life in a far-away place. This is about God's Creation here and now. He is here in bread and wine to feed us for living wholly and completely for Life, for the sake of the world. He is here to say to us, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I have gone to the Father, so that I may live in you and you in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit…” Amen"

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from a sermon delivered at Prince of Peace Lutheran, Portage, MI, on April 10, 2011 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/lent5a_2011_ser/)

~

John 11: 32-33: When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 

"When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews also with her weeping, he was greatly - greatly angered in spirit is what it actually says, and the translators for some reason dumb it down - and deeply perturbed. So here's the questions always being raised: [...] why was he angered by this, and deeply perturbed? Well, the word perturbed appears in Jesus' case whenever some confirmation that the Passion is about to come. In John's Gospel, as it were, the perturbances that happen in the Garden of Gethsemane in St Luke's Gospel, happen in the temple, and here, as well as in the Garden of Gethsemane. [...]

"So Jesus, facing up for what is about to come to him, is lived through. But then there's the question of this anger. He appears to be angry with death, with this whole scene, with these people engaging in the weeping and wailing. He's angry at the cult, what I would call the cult of death, at the notion of all these people giving meaning to something that should have no meaning. If you are Life itself, you're naturally angry when you see people run by death, which they needn't be and shouldn't be.

[...]

"This extraordinary fact, someone who was dead, who was well after the number of days at which it was assumed that the soul left the area of the tomb (it was assumed in Palestinian circles at the time that it was about three days after death that the spirit left the vicinity of the tomb), so the fourth day is very clearly [indicating] there's nothing there to, as it were, to put together. It's a wholly new miracle of bringing to life and Jesus has enacted this in the face of what his whole mission has been about from the time when he said "Come and see" [John 1:39] to what is going to happen to him in the tomb

"In other words, he is producing in them the faith that he himself has in what God is going to do, and this is what we are being asked to receive so that we can be inducted into it, into this power of Life that means we need not fear death, meaning not fear those who are out to get us but we can walk in the light in the midst of darkness."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Fifth Sunday in Lent 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mklxp1Er6s)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein quotes and link to Paul Nuechterlein sermon, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for Lent 5A, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/lent5a/]

From the Lectionary for 15 March 2026 (Lent 4A)

Ephesians 5:1-2; 8-9; 13-14 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. [...] For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. [...] [E]verything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Sleeper, awake!
    Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

~

John 9:1-41 (A Man Born Blind Receives Sight)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%209%3A1-41&version=NRSVUE

~

"In this story [...] we watch a revolution in the understanding of sin, and a revolution that takes place around the person of Jesus, but is actually worked out in the life of someone else. The structure of the story is the same as is to be found time and time again in John: that of an expulsion, or proto-lynching, one of the many that lead up to the definitive expulsion of the crucifixion, which is also the definitive remedy for all human order based on expulsion. The revolution in the concept of sin consists in the following: at the beginning of the tale, sin was considered in terms of some sort of defect that excludes the one bearing the defect. At the end of the tale sin is considered as the act of exclusion: the real blindness is the blindness which is not only present in those who exclude, but actually grows and intensifies during the act of exclusion.

[...]

"We can go further with this Johannine approach to sin. There are indications present in chapter 9 that more is intended in this story than a merely casual description of a particular incident regarding sin. The question of the sin as being related to the origins of humankind is hinted at in Jesus' use of clay in his restoration, or fulfilment, of creation, as well as in the insistence that the man was blind from birth. The relation of this story to something original is understood by the former blind man himself, who reckons that never (ek tou aiônos) has such a healing taken place. In the light of John's irony this means much more than that a particularly spectacular miracle has taken place, such as has never taken place before. It also suggests that there has been present a blindness from the beginning of the world that only now is being cured for the first time. Furthermore, when Jesus speaks, at the end, about judgment it is clear that he is not concerned with a particular local incident, but about a discernment relating to the whole world (kosmos). Here we have a highly subtle teaching about the whole world being blind from birth, from the beginning, and about Jesus, the light of the world coming to bring sight to the world, being rejected precisely by those who, though blind, claimed to be able to see."

- James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong, pp. 121, 122-3

~

"Last week we saw Jesus offering living water and we saw the effect on the Samaritan woman as she was turned herself into a bearer of Living Water. Today we have a look at Jesus as the Light of the World and as the Criterion for the world that, he's come as the Judgment, or the Criterion, for the world, by which we may know and see things. ... But if he was more than a prophet last time, here he is doing something even more striking because he is demonstrating that he is the Creator. And the relationship between Creator and humans that is central to John's Gospel, and to our understanding of the gospel, is beautifully brought out in this passage.

[...]

"He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes. Now apparently behind the Greek here there are Hebrew or Aramaic references to ground, Adam, earth [...] So what is he doing? He's fulfilling Adam, he's making Adam whole, the notion that as humans we are all in one way or another incomplete, and that what Jesus is doing, what the Creator does coming into our life, is not simply rescue us from, as it were, an evil creation but say, “No. Creation was wonderful but it somehow got trapped in something less than itself. I am here to make it whole.”

[...]

"“The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ So they're still used to him being a non-person in their midst, about whom people talk but who does not himself talk - he has no agency. But now he keeps saying, “I am the man.” But in Greek of course what he says is a phrase which usually only Jesus gets to say, he says 'egō eimi' - “I am.” The other person who gets to say 'egō eimi' is Jesus. When Jesus says “I am” it's a reference to the Lord, it is God, it's the Creator. So here we have the created one at last standing up and being a human being, able to be the image of 'I am'. We know that Jesus is 'I AM' in the big sense. [The man born blind] is what it looks like as a human to being gradually brought into agency and life.

[...]

"So Jesus, bringing to life as a disciple another sign of who he is, the Creator bringing the fullness of creation into the light in such a way that that creation becomes fully human, develops agency, and is able to recognize the Lord in what he makes. And at the same time those people who are frightened of loss of authority, prestige, power, ganging up against this person and actually becoming blind, not actually able to see the Creator in their midst.

"This is, if you like, a wonderful, dynamic account of the creation, because we normally think of creation as something separate from the cultural process of becoming fully ourselves. And yet, in the Christian understanding it's precisely the notion that we are all on our way to being fully created, but that our being fully created requires the work of the Lord, who requires us to be forgiven so that we can learn our way out of the entanglements of our blindness, our belonging to false structural forms of goodness over against despised others. So that eventually we can stand tall and say, “As an image of God, I am.”"

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Fourth Sunday in Lent 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8-xp-uRnE0)

[Source of quote from James Alison's The Joy of Being Wrong, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for Lent 4A, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/lent4a/]

From the Lectionary for 8 March 2026 (Lent 3A)

John 4:5-42 (The Woman at the Well)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%204%3A5-42&version=NRSVUE

~

Instead of presenting the whole passage here, below are comments on selected verses from James Alison's video "Homily for Third Sunday in Lent 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CxyCdRf0tM)

~

v 10: Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

JA: "Now this word gift, [...] it's the only time this word appears in this Gospel, in fact in any of the Gospels. The only other times this word appears in the New Testament [is] in the Acts of the Apostles and in some of Paul's Epistles, and there it almost invariably means the gift of the Holy Spirit. In other words, he's not talking about a passive gift at the same level as a drink of water might be. [...] He's talking about the gift of God, which of course she could not possibly have known about, and the gift of God is the self-giving of us, that which turns us into people who are capable of giving ourselves away, which is how we receive who we really are. And it's that which is this *making utterly alive of us* which is then brought out in the discussion about the well, but it's the notion that the gift of God is something which turns us into gifts that's what the gift of God is about.

"I think it's really quite important to remember that one of the moments when 'the gift of God' becomes, I feel, a matter of controversy is in the Acts of the Apostles, precisely when [...] Simon the Magician tries to buy the gift of God, and it's understood that really that is the ultimate way that you cannot have it. The gift of God is that which by nature turns you into giving yourself away, which is the richest thing you could possibly have, because as you give yourself away you're on the inside of God's self-giving, which means that you're held by the Creator and turned into an endless source of generosity for others. And this is what Jesus is attempting to offer, “If you knew the gift of God,” in other words, what it's like to be turned into this self-giving. And who it is who's asking you for this gift, precisely giving you the chance [of] getting involved in this self-giving of yourself away - you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. In other words I'm inducting you into a conversation which is going to end in you being able to give yourself away with living water."

~

vv. 17-18: The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

JA: "Why did Jesus say that? Well, the easy answer is to say, well he's detected that she had a, let's say, an interesting matrimonial history: one. Or two, that he's making reference to the fact that Samaria was considered a place that had been under the rule of five idolatrous kings, and was now under the rule of someone who was also an idolatrous king, so he's referring to Samaria's prophetic history, the history which would have been well known, and this would be a Jewish way of referring to Samaria and its past under the rule of these idolatrous kings, that's part of the history which you get in the in the Hebrew scriptures.

"But it appears to be a mixture of the two, so he's referring to her marital status which, let's remember, almost certainly means that she is a greatly mistreated woman, that if she is a person of unstable marital life it's almost certainly because she has been passed amongst people for their own advantage. So the notion that she's particularly bad a person makes no sense at all, she's a particularly vulnerable person which is why he's able to speak with her. He's speaking to a vulnerable bearer of her city's idolatry. As has been pointed out this makes her rather like the Gerasene demoniac who was clearly living out in himself the violences of his entirely pagan city. But here the woman is rational, she knows what's going on, she understands why she has to live in this precarious and humiliating situation. But she also understands that Jesus is not trying to get at her, he's talking about her town as well."

~

vv 23-24: “But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

JA: "So it's going to be this strange relationship between people in which we are enabled to turn each other into gifts by bearing witness to the gift that we are receiving that is going to make all the difference from here on out."

~

vv. 28-29: Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

JA: "So something about how she has felt spoken to that didn't shame her and that put her in the same place as the inhabitants of the city enabled her to talk to people without shame, and because of that she develops quite a power of invitation. She convokes other people of the Spirit, the gift has started to work itself out in her, she's being able to give herself away in the midst of others."

~

v. 42: They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”

JA: "Her witness - she's been able to give herself away, she's not in control of it, she's been able to give herself away, and because of that it's become a multiplied and a fruitful thing. The gift that Jesus is bearing witness to, enabling others to bear witness to, and which is able to spread especially amongst the humiliated, the apparent heretics, those who are not caught up in bizarre discussions about laws and things like that [as in Jerusalem], that is where it flows easily. And the disciples need to be shown this to be able to learn that this is the way that the Lord enjoys sharing the harvest with reapers and laborers."

~

"The encounter is an interesting parallel to the story of Eve. In Genesis, the devil tempts the woman to eat forbidden fruit to gain divine knowledge. At the well, Jesus invites this Samaritan woman to drink God's water to gain spiritual wisdom. The entire story is a reversal of the one recounting the origin of sin; here, Jesus and the woman re-enact Eden with a different result. The woman's eyes are opened; she understands. Yet, instead of being run out of the garden by an angry god, she runs and tells her friends that she has met the One who is Living Water. She is not cursed. Rather, the woman is blessed and offers blessing. Water is present at creation, and it is here also, at the world's re-creation through Jesus."

- Diana Butler Bass, Grounded, pg. 76

~

"In John 4, Jesus meets a woman at a well. The conversation quickly turns to the question of Jesus's identity when she asks, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask of drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (4:9). Jesus speaks of water, wells, and worship, and then springs it on her that he is the Messiah. How does the woman respond? She drops her water jar, runs back to town, and tells everyone, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” (4:29). In this story, questions of Jesus's identity and her identity thread together in mutual revelation. Knowing who Jesus is leads her to know who she is - and, instead of feeling shame about her mistakes, she feels new freedom to tell her story.

"And so it goes throughout the Gospels. Almost everyone leaves Jesus's company saying: “He made me whole!” “I have been healed!” “I'm not a prostitute, a sinner, an outcast, or a leper. I now know who I really am!” “I may be a Samaritan, but I can still know God.” “I am loved!” “I am accepted as I am!” Being “in” Jesus, in his presence or in conversation with him, pushes the other person beyond social roles and masks to deeper awareness of “Who am I?” transforming the question from an external one to a relational one that might be better rendered “Whose am I?”

"Thus, the biblical query “Who am I in God?” is a starting point of Christian spirituality. Why do Christians pray? Christians do not pray to have wishes granted; rather, Christians pray to find themselves in God and that they might be more aware of their motives and actions. Why do Christians worship? Christians do not worship to be entertained; rather, Christians listen to sermons, sing, and partake of bread and wine in community to be in Jesus's presence and come to know themselves better. Why do Christians serve others? Christians do not act charitably to earn heavenly credit; rather, Christians find Jesus in their neighbors and such proximity enables greater insight to live fully in the world. Christians practice seeking Jesus in their lives because when they find themselves in God, pretence slips away to reveal the truest dimensions of selfhood and gives individuals the power to act in transforming ways."

- Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion, pp. 186-87

[Source of Diana Butler Bass quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for Lent 3A, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/lent3a/]

From the Lectionary for 1 March 2026 (Lent 2A)

John 3:1-17 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

~

"[I]f you're a Pharisee what you're really interested in is the Law and the Text. The temple was important but it was less important and especially not the elements of it from the old Temple which were to do with mystical things, to do with Heaven and the Son of God being born in the Holy of Holies. And there were remnants of those texts still in the holy scriptures, they hadn't yet been edited out completely - they were edited out shortly afterwards. Now we have to read the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures in order to understand what's being referred to because the Hebrew version was edited afterwards so that there are certain parts that were in the Bible at the time Jesus was alive and are no longer in the Hebrew Bible.

"But Jesus says, effectively he's saying, okay you are part of the Mosaic order the order that is to do with law and security and the temple but in fact no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above - he's referring to the birth of the Son of God in the Holy place. In other words, the ancient sacrificial structure of the temple was so that God could come through and make God's self visible and known through God's sons, the first son being the High Priest, the Melchizedek priestly figure. And the prophecy was that the Melchizedek priest would come and would do the sacrifice. So Jesus is saying you have like a two dimensional view of all this but remember that there actually a three-dimensional reality in the center of the temple which is the coming of the Son and the performing of the sacrifice in the midst out of love for people.

[...]

"Now Nicodemus, from the Deuteronomistic world - the text, history, one thing after another, if you like what I call the two-dimensional understanding - says, “How can anyone be born after having grown old. Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?” But Jesus of course is living in the world, if you like, of the first Temple. He has been baptized, which has meant him coming up out of the waters and the Spirit coming upon him and the words to do with the birth of the Son of God in the Holy of Holies having been heard, Psalm 110. That's the world in which Jesus lives, so he's well aware that the ancient world in which the one who was going to come into the temple was this Son of Man figure who was both earthly and heavenly at the same time. That's what had happened to him he had undergone this, he'd seen what had happened, he'd borne witness to it. And remember that after that had happened to him John the Baptist bore witness to him and the next time Jesus came by, John said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” meaning this is the one who is going to be the Son, the Priest of the sacrifice at the end of the time in the temple. But that required a much more ancient understanding than the authorities of Nicodemus generation wanted.

"So Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit” - he describes what had happened at his baptism, and what happens at all our baptisms - “What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Now flesh in John's gospel doesn't only mean simply [...] 'meat', it refers to the structure of the world that's not run by Spirit, the world, if you like, run by memetic desire - violence closed down on itself unable to break out, of trying to resolve all its problems by shortcuts, sacrifices, casting people out, all that sort of thing - that's the world of flesh. And the world of Spirit is the reverse of that, the Spirit of God coming in at an absolutely earthly level, taking hold of our lives and turning us into people who begin to open up that world. Spirit, if you like, is as worldly just a different sort of world.

[...]

"This is what enables us to be born from above because we understand that the heavenly reality is vastly bigger and not on the same level as the earthly reality, it's able to undo it from within through the Spirit. So this is what he's saying to Nicodemus: this is not a two-dimensional thing, this is a three-dimensional thing. This is what's happening. It's not that I'm just the teacher you say, but I'm the One coming in.

"And then he says the lines which we know and which are so famous even though usually mistranslated. The usual translation is, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” But the translation is slightly wrong because it makes it sound as though “for God *so* loved the world” as though it was an emotional thing. But actually it means “For God loved the world in this way,” this is a demonstrative: for God loved the world in this way. What was the form it took? Well that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life. So he's talking about, not the intensity of God's love, but the shape of God's love. The shape of God's love is [...] going to be God having come into the midst of us who are inclined to perish and get involved in every sort of violence with and against each other and he's going to offer himself into our midst so that in fact by believing in that love we can give up that. We can, believing in him, receive eternal life. That's what the center of all this is about. [...]

"Now Nicodemus must have been baffled, he had the two-dimensional approach, it was the words, it was the text - that sacrifice stuff yeah it had to happen but not really very important. Whereas Jesus is saying, no the real thing is going to take the form of what happened in the temple - he didn't explain it will actually happen outside the temple, on the city dump, but it will be the same thing as what was being enacted in the temple - and for those who understand the depth of my love, of God's love for you in empowering me to come and do this, to give myself to you."

- James Alison, from video "RCL Homily for Second Sunday in Lent, Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSnShOBp15g)

~

I think that the English translation "believe" in John 3 of the Greek word 'pistis' is misleading and unhelpful, especially in modern times where belief for Christians is so closely identified with intellectual assent to certain propositions about Jesus and God. Michael Hardin offers the following reframing of 'reason' and trust:

"The Gospel has broken into [the intellectual maze of 'reason'], it's given us a different frame of knowing, a different way of knowing, a different form of knowledge. [..'] It's a knowledge that is not simply limited to the social construct [in our minds], to the way we perceive ourselves, the way we perceive others, the way others perceive us, the way others perceive themselves, and everything in between about perception and knowledge and reality.

"The Gospel invites us to take a completely different orientation. It invites us to begin with 'pistis' - trust - and [...] this particular trust is cruciform in its very character. It's the trusting of the Father in spite of what is perceived. It is trusting that God will raise you from the dead as you hang on a cross. It's trusting the Father loves you that much, and cares for you that much. That's pistis.

"You see, it begins there, without that there is no proper conversion, there's no proper re-orientation. It's only from that point that one is able to look at all reality and all life in a completely different frame - through the lens of the forgiving victim, through the lens of the Father who loves, through the lens of the Spirit who brings about this inner crucifixion, or, to use the old reformed term, mortification of the flesh. Well, we need the mortification of the mind.

"Now [...] I'm not about being irrational. [...] I'm talking about the way we approach the whole phenomenon of the intellect and knowledge. Because the one thing we followers of Jesus are not, is we are not Gnostic. We do not believe in secret knowledge. We do not believe there's a certain knowledge limited to a very select few, that if you know this you can somehow be free. [...] That's an illusion, a total illusion."

- Michael Hardin, from video "Michael's Musings" posted on in July 2018

~

"Interestingly, John almost never uses the term “kingdom of God” (which is at the heart of Jesus' message for Matthew, Mark, and Luke). There are two exceptions, both of which occur in this unique conversation [with Nicodemus in John 3]. Instead, John normally translates 'kingdom of God' into another phrase ['zoé aionios'] that is notoriously hard to render in English. Most commonly, John's translation of Jesus' original phrase is rendered “eternal life” in English. Unfortunately, the phrase eternal life is often misinterpreted to mean “life in heaven after you die” - as are “kingdom of God” and its synonym, “kingdom of heaven” - so I think we need to find a better rendering.

"If 'eternal life' doesn't mean 'life after death', what does it mean? Later in John's Gospel, Jesus reduces the phrase simply to 'life', or 'life to the full'. Near the end of John's account, Jesus makes a particularly fascinating statement in a prayer, and it is as close as we get to a definition: “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [God has] sent” (John 17:3). So here, 'eternal life' means knowing, and knowing means an interactive relationship. In other words, “This is eternal life, to have an interactive relationship with the only true God and with Jesus Christ, his messenger.” Interestingly, that's what a kingdom is too: an interactive relationship one has with a king, the king's other subjects, and so on.

"The Greek phrase John uses for 'eternal life' [zoé aionios] literally means 'life of the ages', as opposed, I think we could say, to 'life as people are living it these days'. So John's related phrases - 'eternal life', 'life to the full', and simply 'life' - give us a unique angle on what Jesus meant by “kingdom of God”: a life that is radically different from the way people are living these days, a life that is full and overflowing, a higher life that is centered in an interactive relationship with God and with Jesus. Let's render it simply 'an extraordinary life to the full centered in a relationship with God.'"

- Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, pp. 36-37

[Source of Brian McLaren quote, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for Lent 2A, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/lent2a/]

From the Lectionary for 22 February 2026 (Lent 1A)

Matthew 4:1-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

‘One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.’ ”

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

~

The Old Testament reading for this week is Genesis 3 (the temptation and "fall" of Adam and Eve), and the Epistle reading is Romans 5:12-19, culminating in the following verses:

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19, NRSV Updated Edition)

The thread through the Matthew 4 passage of Jesus' temptation is clear: the 'failure' of Adam, the faithfulness of Jesus, and the consequence thereof.

~

"I would like to suggest that St. Paul’s typology of the first Adam and Second Adam is highly resonant with the evangelical anthropology around fallen desire, rather than some version of fallen human nature itself. Our desire is fallen because it takes the wrong model: each other. Desire isn’t bad in itself. It’s simply that the First Adam put us all on the road of desiring according to each other’s lesser desires.

"It takes the coming of the Second Adam to finally have a human being who fully lives God’s loving desire in this world. His perfectly loving desire can become, through the help of the Holy Spirit, the model for our [imitative] desire on its way to becoming more loving. Prior to this Second Adam we had no such model to imitate, short of learning to somehow model God’s love directly, so our redemption is impossible without the coming of the Second Adam. The way of the First Adam is one that leads to death; the way of the Second to life."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from "Reflections and Questions" on Romans 5:12-19 on the Girardian Lectionary page for Lent 1A (link in comments below)

~

"[The imitative] nature of desire is illustrated graphically in the accounts of the devil’s temptations of Christ in Matthew and Luke. First the devil tries to undermine Jesus’ identity, “if you are the Son of God,” attempting to make him feel a lack, and so prove himself out of a feeling of lack of being. Jesus’ replies show that he receives his sense of being as Son from, and by a non-envious obedience towards, God. The final Matthaean temptation shows the devil explicitly as deviated transcendence: the devil offers to give Jesus power over everything if he will worship him. That is to say, distorted desire is the ruling principle of all the kingdoms of the world, and Jesus was being offered to incarnate that principle if only he would distort his desire from pacifically imitative of God, to conflictually acquisitive.

"The devil here is represented not only as obstacle, but as [...] distortion of desire, making gifts that should be received from God turn into obstacles that turn us away from God. The irony of this passage is that, by his obedience to God, his allowing God to constitute his consciousness pacifically and without obstacles, Jesus is in fact enabled, himself, to become the bread by which men can live because it is the same as the word which comes out of God’s mouth. He is able to become the Temple from which he refused to cast himself down. Finally he becomes, in his death, the king of all the kingdoms of the world. However, all this comes about as something he receives the hard way, through obedience to his Father, not something he grabs via a short cut, through allowing his desire to be distorted to an acquisitive [imitation]."

- James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong, pp. 158-59

~

"Now please notice what Jesus has done: he has rejected the three classic Messianic temptations: that of prophet, that of priest, and that of king. He is going to redefine hereafter what is meant by prophet, what is meant by priest, and what is meant by king: the principle of power, the principle of blessing, and the principle of speaking and living the truth. These three are going to be radically altered by what Jesus is going to live through hereafter.

"It says, “Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” So it's interesting that the movement from the water of baptism, which in Luke he comes straight up, and the sense is that already his ordination has kicked in, and so now he is able to be within the Holy Place; the Holy Place has now become associated with him. Here it's interesting that the wilderness acts as a psychological step through into the Holy Place, so that the real Holy Place is not simply something that happens by an extrinsic act like baptism, but it's something that actually we grow through and into by our baptism, like by Jesus's baptism.

"As we become the priest, the prophet, and the king, so we are to learn to say no to the shortcuts, to agree to be held in being and allow ourselves to be given the capacity to be good to others, to be given the capacity to forgive and make forgiveness available for others, and to be given the capacity to exercise the kind of power that actually helps people live in truth. All of these are processes into which we are taken by baptism, and Jesus is showing us that this is the true path of Israel. The same elements will come up in different readings over the next weeks and I hope you will keep this in mind as we invite our Lord to help illuminate our Lenten Journey."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for First Sunday in Lent 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DLHErAUKYw)

[Source of quotes from Paul Nuechterlein and James Alison's The Joy of Being Wrong, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for Lent 1A, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/lent1a/]

From the Lectionary for 15 February 2026 (Transfiguration Sunday - Year A)

Matthew 17:1-9 (NRSV)

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

~

"When the disciples heard the voice from the bright cloud, they “were overcome with fear.” What were they afraid of? Was it just the power of a voice from Heaven? That could account for the fear. But maybe there is more to it. The disciples had been following Jesus for some time but they often failed to understand him, not least when Jesus predicted his imminent suffering and death. Were these predictions giving the disciples second thoughts about Jesus? If so, the heavenly affirmation of Jesus would have been frightening if it was Jesus’ willingness to suffer that made Jesus the beloved Son with whom God was well pleased. Worse, this could mean that being willing to follow Jesus through the same suffering and death was the way for them to be sons with whom God was well pleased. The glory revealed on the mountain was a powerful encouragement, but the kind of encouragement that must have left the disciples shaken, as it should leave us shaken."

- Andrew Marr, Abbot of St. Gregory’s Abbey (Three Rivers, MI), from 2020 blog post titled “The Beloved Son on the Mountain” (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2020/02/22/the-beloved-son-on-the-mountain/)

~

James Alison, in an essay on the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16, describes how the priest readies himself to enter the Holy of Holies:

"At this stage, the High Priest is going to get into a brilliant white robe or tunic, pure, glistening white, and this is because he is about to acquire angelic status - not an angel in the modern sense, but in the more ancient sense in which the “Angel of the Lord” meant “a particular localized instantiation of the Lord”. It is as “Instantiation of the Lord” that the High Priest will emerge from the Holy of Holies, in glistening white, with the Tiara bearing the Name YHWH - the Tetragrammaton - upon his head, and maniples, or cufflinks, also bearing the name.

"Of course, we have a memory of this moment of the rite in the narrative of the Transfiguration where Jesus is revealed as the instantiation of YHWH in refulgent white. Naturally Peter and the other disciples want to stay with this bit of the rite, so Jesus has to insist from then on that he is going to head down the hill and up to Jerusalem to perform the sacrifice which is the next part of the rite."

- James Alison, Jesus the Forgiving Victim, pp. 245-46

~

"How do we know all this? Is it mere theory? It is just what the church says? Is it myth or fiction?

"Barth has already given his reply in principle: the ground of being is the ground of knowledge. We do not know it 'a priori' nor can we come to know it by demonstration. The divine act has a subjective as well as an objective character.  It establishes itself in the knowing subject. It has the character of revelation.

"Noetically [ie. according to what know intellectually] we begin with the church and particularly holy scripture, but these lead us to the unique history of Jesus Christ in his self-revelation, which we can read and expound but cannot control. The Holy Spirit opens it up to us [...] by disclosing what is objectively concealed. In this witness Jesus Christ is present as the one who rose again in an unequivocal self-demonstration intimated already in his life, for example, at the Transfiguration, but fully given only when what is revealed had been effectively completed at the cross.

"Corresponding to that death, taking historical form yet also as an act of divine majesty or a miracle, the resurrection gives us a particular knowledge of the one who first loved us - a knowledge which rests on a genuinely historical investigation of the texts. In its totality the resurrection includes the ascension, thus telling us where Jesus came from - he rose from the dead - also where he went to - he ascended to the right hand of the Father. In this exaltation, which is his for us, is manifested also the exaltation of the cross."

G. W. Bromiley, "An Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth", pg 200

~

Now, the Son of Man, the true human, has been glorified, and God is glorified in him. And if God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and will glorify him at once. (John 13:31-32)

"All of this glory language [...] refers, not to Jesus being magnified by God, not to Jesus being vindicated by God, none of that. [...] When Jesus says, “God is going to be glorified in him,” you might as well translate this as “God is going to be humiliated in him,” because for this writer, it's this act of humiliation that Jesus does, [...] going to the cross, that's the act of service, and what is happening on the cross is the forgiveness of sin. And this writer sees that as the ultimate glory of God - God is most glorious [in the act of] forgiving the human species from the cross.

"This is utterly different than beginning with the presupposition that God is majestic and God is almighty like we do in the Western tradition, the Calvinistic tradition, the Charismatic tradition. We start off with how great God is, how powerful God is, how all-knowing God is, and all this - no, no, no, no. The ultimate glorification of God for this writer is to bear witness to the crucified Jesus, and that is the most difficult thing in the world, for the world to do, or for Christians to do. Because what's happening here on the Cross is that there is a Creation that's being completed, and that act of creation includes the forgiveness of all."

- Michael Hardin, from a lecture on John 13

[Source of James Alison quote and link to Andrew Marr's blog, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/transfiguration_a/]

[In the Roman Catholic lectionary, today is the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (corresponding to Epiphany 6A in the Revised Common Lectionary). For James Alison's reflections on that Gospel text (Matthew 5:17-37): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU3LaT0FTMo)]

From the Lectionary for 8 February 2026 (Epiphany 5A)

1 Corinthians 2: 6-7 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed. But we speak God's wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory

Matthew 5:13-16 (NRSV)

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

~

"In Matthew's gospel Jesus tells us that we are salt. Does that mean we know about God's secret wisdom? Is that what makes us salty? Paul says God determined this wisdom in advance, before time began, for our glory. God was working for our benefit in a way beyond our imagination before the world began. It's so good we have trouble believing it and it's for our glory, not God's glory. It's from God but for us. [...]

"God's wisdom embraces self-sacrifice and forgiveness; that's the secret hidden from the beginning of time and now revealed in Jesus and him crucified. Living out self-sacrifice, co-suffering love and forgiveness makes us the salt of the earth. [...]

"God's wisdom is grounded in non-violent, non-rivalrous, and totally forgiving love. It contrasts sharply with human wisdom where every word and action is subject to rivalry and fear, vengeance and hierarchy. [...]

"[... O]ur saltiness comes from being attuned to the wisdom of God; that wisdom that knows about sacrificial self-giving rather than sacrificing the other, that knows about co-suffering love rather than making sure only the other suffers, and that knows about a forgiveness so deep it leaves no enmity in its wake. This wisdom knows we are the light of the world, a city on top of a hill that cannot be hidden."

- Thomas L. Truby, from sermon delivered on February 5, 2017

(https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Truby-Epiphany5-2017-The-Big-Difference.pdf)

~

"[T]he Christian religion continues to sing and preach and teach about Jesus, but in too many places (not all!) it has largely forgotten, misunderstood, or become distracted from Jesus' secret message. When we drifted from understanding and living out his essential secret message of the kingdom, we became like flavorless salt or a blown-out lightbulb - so boring that people just walked away.

"We may have talked about going to heaven after we die, but not about God's will being done on earth before we die. We may have pressured people to be moral and good or correct and orthodox to avoid hell after death, but we didn't inspire them with the possibility of becoming beautiful and fruitful to heal the earth in this life. We may have instructed them about how to be a good Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, or Methodist on Sunday, but we didn't train, challenge, and inspire them to live out the kingdom of God in their jobs, neighborhoods, families, schools, and societies between Sundays."

- Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, pg. 84

~

"What would it mean to seek to be table-salt Christianity today? How is it possible to be salt that dramatically changed the taste of human life for the better, giving life to the earth in the 21st century? To answer this question you have at once to take into account an entirely other perspective about the “spread abroad” quality of inherited Christianity.

"Elsewhere I have argued that Christianity has had such a profound cultural impact it decisively and progressively affects our underlying responses and opinions, above all in our recognition of the victim through an undertow of Christ's compassion. This paradoxical impact explains why there is in fact so much implicit Christianity in so-called secular culture and why it is so easy to find a kind of diffused humanism and spirituality entirely away from the churches. For this kind of thing Jesus used parables of seed and its amazing, unstoppable growth. If we take the liberty of mixing this phenomenon with the image of the salt, it's as if the whole world is suspended in a kind of saline solution! Everything today is mixed with Christianity.

"However, this is of very little comfort when there are also many accumulated crises facing humanity. As a planet we have desperate decisions to make about inequality, poverty, the climate, weapons and war. Never in fact has the need for genuine disciples been more critical. I would say, therefore, that it's the single tangy grain of salt resting in the water which reveals what the whole medium really is. [...]

"Such a single grain can be achieved only in direct relationships where it is possible to see the qualities of compassion, nonviolence, forgiveness and peace at work. It is a challenge, and failure and false-starts are a constant possibility. But [we should not underestimate] the seasoning power of a single grain of salt, that tangy thing Jesus was talking about!"

- Anthony Bartlett, from blog post entitled “Salt Solutions” (no longer available online)

~

"The salt - this would have referred to two sorts of things. The salt was sometimes referred to wisdom, the kind of salt that comes with the savour of fine things that have been understood. These are people who are going to be producing the wisdom of this world the salt of the world. But also the salt that would be put on sacrifices that they would be pleasing to the Lord. These are the people who, by giving themselves away in the midst of the world and its lies and its violence, are showing what is true and a revealing God. So they are taking part, going to be taking part, in his one true sacrifice which is to come, which of course is not the same as any of the world's sacrifices, which are to protect us from the light, but are the ways of allowing the light to come in. So he's saying this is going to be up to you this is going to be your task. [...] [T]he savour is going to be related to you learning how to give yourself away and discover wisdom during that.

[...]

"[Putting your lamp on a lampstand] gives light to the whole house, whether you want it or not, so he's saying. “So here in the same way let your light shine before others.” In other words, you're going to become the celebratory lights that other people might try to put out, but you are not to allow yourselves to be put out. You are going to become that which lights the whole house, the whole city, you're going to become the light of the world.

"“So that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.” In other words, you're going to become witnesses through going through this process that makes you radiant witnesses for the one who is bringing you into being, so as to show the light of God, [...] your Father in Heaven.

[...]

"So, another challenge to us to find the way of radiance, the way of saltiness, as we come through Matthew's gospel, finding ourselves on the inside of the precarious of the world, and finding that God is in there, always trying to come through into us so as to make God's self better known through us, who will be discovered to be God's daughters and sons."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_19HUQX1UQ)

[Source of Brian Maclaren quote and links to Thomas Truby sermon and Anthony Bartlett blog, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/epiphany5a/]