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Samuel thinks he knows what a king should look like: strong, tall, impressive. Yet, God challenges him on this notion, declaring, “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” This same theme of seeing beyond appearances in John 9 emerges when Jesus heals a man born blind and invites everyone present to reconsider what true sight really means.

What should be a moment of joy becomes a debate. The disciples assume someone must have sinned. The neighbors doubt what they see. The religious leaders question the miracle itself. Everyone believes they understand the situation; however, Jesus suggests they may be the ones who cannot see.

Blindness in this Gospel is not just physical. It is spiritual; certainty that closes off curiosity, and assumption that prevents compassion.

Lent invites us to examine our own vision. Where might we be confident in what we see — yet missing something deeper? What assumptions do we hold that shape how we view others? What would it mean to let Christ reshape the way we see?

Opening Exercise

Tell of a time you formed a quick opinion about someone but later realized you were wrong.

• What changed your perspective?
• Why do we tend to make snap judgments?
• In what ways are people judged by appearance today? (Clothing, social media, background, politics, ability, reputation.)
  • Transition to the text: In today’s Gospel, many people think they see clearly — but Jesus reveals something deeper.

Text Read Aloud

1 Samuel 16:6–7, 11–13;

John 9:1–7, 24–25, 39–41

Remembering Rev. Jesse Jackson: Seeing the Whole Story

When news spread of the death of Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., people across the country began sharing memories. Political leaders, clergy, activists, and community members reflected on his decades of advocacy and his call to “keep hope alive.” Many lifted up his work for voting rights, economic justice, and human dignity. Others remembered moments of controversy or disagreement. As often happens when a public figure dies, stories surfaced: some celebratory, some critical, many complicated.

Public leaders rarely remain just people. Over time, they become symbols. Headlines reduce long lives into a few defining moments. Social media compresses decades into a sentence or a meme. It becomes easy to see only one angle of a life.

But every human story is more than a headline.

Rev. Jackson was shaped by the Black church and the civil rights movement. He preached before he organized. He marched before he ran for office. His faith fueled his public life. Like any leader who speaks boldly about justice, he experienced both admiration and criticism. His life, like all lives, held courage and imperfection, conviction and growth.

Moments of remembrance invite us to pause and ask: What do we choose to see when we look at someone’s life? Do we focus only on the moment that confirms what we already believe? Do we allow space for complexity? Or do we prefer a simpler version?

–

In John 9, a man’s healing should have been simple good news. Instead, it becomes interrogation. People question the man, his parents, and even Jesus. Everyone seems certain about what they are seeing. Yet, they miss the deeper truth unfolding before them.

The irony is sharp. The man who once could not see begins to recognize who Jesus is. Those who claim spiritual clarity refuse to see at all.

Blindness in this story is not about eyesight. It is about assumption. It is about protecting our version of the story rather than remaining open to transformation.

When we remember leaders like Rev. Jackson, we are invited into that same self-examination. It is easy to reduce a life to a headline or a meme. It is harder to hold a whole story with humility.

In 1 Samuel, we are reminded that “the Lord does not see as mortals see.” God looks deeper — into motives, into wounds, into growth, into the long arc of a life.

To live as “children of light,” as Ephesians says, is not simply to shine. It is to see clearly. It is to allow Christ to challenge our assumptions and widen our vision.

The miracle in John 9 is not only that a man gains sight. The greater invitation is that we might, too.

Reflection Questions

• Who do you identify with most in this story and why?
• In John 9 who do you think is blind? 
• What shapes how you see public figures or leaders? How do media and culture influence your view?
• Where do you see spiritual blindness today?
• What might it look like to see others the way God sees them?
• Where in your life are you asking Christ for clearer vision?

Closing Activity: If God Made the Meme

In the article, we noticed how lives can be reduced to headlines — even memes. Memes are quick and shareable, but they simplify something complex into one image and one caption. Sometimes we do the same thing with people.

For this activity, imagine God creating a meme about you.

• Not your friends.
• Not social media.
• Not your worst day.

God.

If God were the author — looking at your whole story — what would the caption say?
Remember: God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16). God sees the full story, not just a single moment. God sees courage forming, kindness growing, gifts emerging.

Create a simple meme on paper or your phone. Draw a quick image or write a caption.

Examples:

• “Still growing. Still loved.”
• “Braver than you think.”
• “Work in progress. Masterpiece in motion.”
• “Light shining, even on hard days.”
• “Beloved. No filter needed.”

Afterward, invite volunteers to share if they are comfortable. Ask:

• Was it hard or easy to imagine God speaking kindly about you?
• How is God’s view different from the world’s quick judgments?

Prayer

God of light,

You see what we cannot. When we reduce ourselves or others to simple labels, YOU see the whole story. Open our eyes. Clear our vision. Help us see others – and ourselves – through your mercy and truth. Teach us to live as children of your light. Through Jesus, the Light of the world. 

Amen.

Bio

Rev. Michael Jannett serves as pastor of Community of Grace Lutheran Church in Grayson, Georgia. He brings 25 years of experience in youth ministry and faith formation.

 Prepare 

In John 4:5–42, Jesus travels through Samaria and stops at Jacob’s well. The location is important because Jews and Samaritans shared ancestral roots, but had centuries of religious and ethnic conflict. They worshiped the same God but disagreed about the proper place of worship and the authority of certain Scriptures. Many Jews would have avoided traveling through Samaria altogether.

At the well, Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman – crossing multiple social boundaries at once. In the first century, Jewish men did not typically initiate public conversation with women who were not family. Add to that the deep hostility between Jews and Samaritans, and this interaction becomes even more surprising.

The time of day is also significant. Wells were communal gathering places, usually visited during cooler hours. Her arrival at noon suggests isolation, though the text does not explicitly explain why. Be cautious not to speculate beyond what Scripture says, but notice how the detail invites reflection.

This passage contains one of the longest recorded conversations Jesus has with anyone in the Gospel of John. It moves from physical thirst to spiritual thirst, from personal history to communal worship, and finally to public witness. Jesus reveals knowledge of the woman’s life without condemning her, and she becomes the first person in John’s Gospel to openly share news about him with her community.

As you guide discussion, pay attention to themes of belonging, truth, vulnerability, and invitation. Where do participants see barriers being crossed? What changes in the woman between the beginning and the end of the story?

Opening Exercise 

You know your context best – so choose based on your students (and even the vibe of the day).

Either have students split into pairs or small groups OR give them something to write on to reflect independently. 

Reflection: 

• Think of a time you felt like you didn’t belong or had to hide parts of yourself. 
• How did that feel:
  • Physically
  • Emotionally
  • Spiritually
• What was your reaction afterwards? (Close off, isolate, snap-back, try harder)

After a few minutes, invite volunteers to share themes they noticed – or even just answer the questions: What did that feel like? What was your reaction?

• Connect this / Transition to today’s scripture: Today, we’re hearing a story of someone who may have felt out of place, but finds themselves fully seen by Christ – and what that teaches us about belonging. 

Text Read Aloud 

Read John 4:5-42

• Invite participants to listen for anything that stands out to them or instances of transformation.
• Since this is a longer passage, you may want to just read it through in full once. The article focuses on verses 5-26 and 39-42

Belonging 

There are parts of Jesus’ world that feel distant from ours. In 2026, most of us aren’t walking into a new town at noon, tired and thirsty, with no gas station or coffee shop in sight.

But Jesus does. 

Fully human, weary from travel, he sits beside a well in the heat of the day. And a woman approaches alone.

Wells were typically social spaces. Women gathered in the cooler hours of the morning or evening. Coming alone at midday suggests she wanted to (or was forced to) be alone. Maybe she is avoiding whispers, tired of explaining herself, or she simply doesn’t feel like she belongs with the others.

If we’re honest, that feeling isn’t foreign to any of us. 

We all thirst for belonging. We want to know we fit somewhere – not because we’ve performed well or curated the right image, but because we are wanted. And yet, so much of our world teaches us that belonging must be earned. 

• Be impressive and successful, build that college application.
• Be agreeable, yet have opinions, but not too strong.
• Be fun, but not too fun. 
• Be someone your friends love, and their parents approve of.

It can feel like constantly editing yourself – showing certain parts and hiding others – just to fit the mold of who you’re “supposed” to be.

–

Jesus begins by asking the woman for water. But then he offers her living water, the gift that satisfies more than just physical thirst. She wants this. In fact, don’t we all want something that will cure our desire to BE what we feel we have to be?

Then things turn personal. Jesus names her story: her relationships, her complicated past, the parts she might prefer to stay hidden. This would be the moment she expects rejection. When someone knows too much about us, we brace for distance.

 But Jesus doesn’t name these to shame her. And he doesn’t withdraw. He stays. 

She is fully known, and he stays. 

Much to the woman’s credit, instead of hiding, she leans in. She asks questions, she learns, she feels the change. Then she leaves. 

After being fully known and not pushed away, she runs back to the very community she may have been avoiding and says, “Come and see.”

She doesn’t offer a polished testimony nor pretend her story is tidy. She simply tells the truth: he knew everything about me. And still, he stayed.

The woman who came to the well alone becomes the one who invites others in.

Belonging with God is not something we earn by fixing our stories. It is something we receive in the middle of them. In Christ, we do not audition for love. We are met in our thirst and told we already belong.

And when we begin to trust that, we stop chasing acceptance everywhere else and we become people who make room at the well. For our own messy stories and for the messy stories of others, all of whom belong to Jesus, the one who doesn’t turn away.

Reflection Questions 

1. What does Jesus notice about the woman at the well? How does he respond?
2. Why is it significant that Jesus crosses cultural and social boundaries to speak to her?
3. What does living water represent in this passage? What does living water look like to us?
4. How would our world be different if we didn’t feel like we needed to pretend or be better?
5. How might this story invite us to make room at the well (in our lives) for others – including those who are different, marginalized, or “messy”?

Closing Activity 

We all feel like we don’t belong sometimes – think of things you’ve been told or ways you’ve been treated that help you feel you belong. 

• On a sticky note, write one way you can invite someone into belonging this week: at school, home, online. This can be a phrase you may say to someone or something you do. 
• Place the slips somewhere in your room or in your Bible as a reminder. 

Examples: 

• “Invite someone I don’t know well to sit with me.”
• “Give a genuine compliment to someone.”
• “Thank a teacher or parent for something they do that usually goes unappreciated.”

Final Prayer or Blessing 

God, in our messiness, in our lowest days, when we feel like we don’t fit – we believe we belong with you. Help us to know ourselves as your beloved and to reflect that belonging and love into the world to show others they belong, too. 

Amen.

Bio of Author

Liz Dinkins (she/her) is the Director for Youth and Campus Ministries at Lutheran Church of the Epiphany in Winston-Salem, NC. She’s in her final semester of an MDiv and preparing for call as a Minister of Word and Sacrament (Pastor) in the ELCA. Liz is passionate about helping people discover their identity in God’s grace and live it out in whimsical, courageous, and hopeful ways. When she’s not working, she’s probably discovering new crafting hobbies or hanging out with her four cats, dog, and/or husband, Andrew.

Prepare 

As a Pharisee, Nicodemus would have been respected and educated, one you would go to with questions and hope for answers. And yet, he came to Jesus under the cover of night, confused about the teachings he’s heard and wanting some answers.

Jesus tells him he must be “born from above.” The Greek word anōthen means both “again” and “from above.” Nicodemus hears it literally, but Jesus is pointing to something deeper—a spiritual rebirth initiated by God.

Being “born from above” isn’t being morally superior or getting everything right. It’s about the identity we receive that is rooted in the Divine Spirit. It is something God does, not dependent on anything we can do or achieve.

Jesus compares the Spirit to wind—moving freely, unpredictably, beyond human control. That image reminds us that faith is not something we manage or master. The Spirit is active in ways we may not fully understand.

Then there’s John 3:16, one of the most quoted verses in all the Bible. Often, when it’s quoted or memorized, the emphasis lies on “whoever believes…will have eternal life.” However, there are two things one can easily miss. First, God’s love precedes our belief. It’s important to note that God’s love reaches the whole world—not just the church, our country, the people who look like us, the ones who believe as we do—but the whole world. Secondly, verse 17 reminds us that God sent God’s Son into the world to save it, not condemn it. The two verses should be read and understood together.

FORMAT

This passage invites you and your students to reflect on identity, grace, and freedom. In a culture that pressures us to prove ourselves and draws sharp lines between who belongs and who doesn’t, Jesus points us back to God’s expansive love for the whole world. To be born from above is to see your identity from God—identity that is not built on division, status, or superiority, but on grace. From that grounding, we can see the Spirit at work—moving freely, sometimes wildly and unpredictably, toward life and unity in a world insisting on separation.

Opening Exercise 

You know your context best – so choose based on your students (and even the vibe of the day).

Either have students split into pairs or small groups OR give them something to write on to reflect independently. 

Ask: 

• When have you felt like you needed to prove yourself? Maybe this is a grade to make your parents proud, doing something to feel belonging in a group of friends, wearing or doing something to impress a person you’re interested in. 
• What did that feel like?

After a few minutes, invite volunteers to share themes they noticed – or even just answer the second question: What did that feel like?

Connect this / Transition to today’s scripture:

• Today, we’re exploring whether our identity is something we do/prove or something we receive. 

Text Read Aloud 

John 3:1-17 

• Read it twice. During the first reading, ask them to focus on anything that stands out or confuses them. Then on the second, focus on anything that comforts them. 

Born from Above, Already Loved

Nicodemus is a religious leader, a Pharisee formed in Scripture and familiar with the ways God moves, acts, and breathes. He’s supposed to know the answers, yet Jesus says something he can’t quite understand.

So Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night.

We don’t really know why, only that he’s confused by what he’s heard Jesus teaching. Maybe he comes so no one will see him wondering. Or maybe because night feels safer for asking hard questions.

Jesus says, “You must be born from above.”

I think when a lot of us hear this, we’re thinking, “A restart sounds nice.” This is what Nicodemus hears – a chance to do things over, right the world, improve himself. But Jesus is talking about our identity, not simply a re-do.

In our world, we’re constantly asked to prove who we are. We feel like we have to curate a specific image, defend the things we like or spend time on, market ourselves to look like who we want others to see. Jesus reminds us that being born from above (or born again) isn’t about climbing higher or being more impressive. It’s not something we choose (just like we didn’t choose our first birth). It’s about receiving life rooted in the Spirit of God.

FORMAT

Jesus compares this Spirit of God to the wind – it can’t be contained, predicted, or managed.

That can feel unsettling, right? We like control. We like certainty, especially now when there is so much chaos going on and our world feels divided, loud, and even fragile. In the midst of that, we are constantly told to pick a side.

But then we hear the words in verse 16 – “For God so loved the world…” Not just the polished, faithful parts. Not just the parts I agree with. The WHOLE world. Before any of us believed, before we have anything figured out, even when we don’t agree – God loves. God did not send Jesus here to condemn us, but to love and save us.

So if that’s our identity, if we are born into love and to love, that means a couple of things. First, we are freed from the work of proving ourselves – because God has already told us who we are. Second, we are called to love others, helping them see that freedom.

Being born again (born from above) is not an escape from the world but a deep participation in it. It is seeing ourselves and others as already claimed by God. It is trusting that even when the Spirit is quiet, she is still moving toward life and renewal.

Nicodemus shows up again later in the Gospel of John, reminding us that this work isn’t done overnight. But today we can step into life and courage.

Today, you can start to trust that you, as you are, are already loved.

Reflection Questions 

1. What confuses Nicodemus? How does Jesus explain being “born from above”?
2. Why do you think Jesus compares the Spirit to wind? 
3. What difference does verse 17 make? How does including it change the way we understand God, compared to reading John 3:16 on its own?
4. If your identity begins with being loved by God, how might that change the way you live this week? What pressure might be relieved?

Closing Activity – Breath Prayer Practice

A breath prayer is a short, simple prayer you pray in rhythm with your breathing; slowly inhale while silently praying one phrase, then exhale with the second phrase, letting the words settle in your body as you rest in God’s presence. Invite participants to sit comfortably.

• On the inhale:
  “Born from Above”
• On the exhale:
  “Already Loved”

Repeat slowly for 1–2 minutes. Encourage them to carry this breath prayer into moments of stress this week.

Other breath prayer options that may work better for your context: 

• Inhale: God loves the world
• Exhale: That Includes me 

 

• Inhale: Spirit, breathe in me
• Exhale: Move me towards life

 

• Inhale: Loved by God
• Exhale: Loving the World

Final Prayer 

Loving God, 

You loved the world before we ever knew how to love you back.
Breathe your Spirit into us again and again.
Free us from the need to prove ourselves.
Root our identity in your grace.
Send us into the world, not in fear, but in love. 

Amen

Bio of Author

Liz Dinkins (she/her) is the Director for Youth and Campus Ministries at Lutheran Church of the Epiphany in Winston-Salem, NC. She’s in her final semester of an MDiv and preparing for a call as a Minister of Word and Sacrament (Pastor) in the ELCA. Liz is passionate about helping people discover their identity in God’s grace and live it out in whimsical, courageous, and hopeful ways. When she’s not working, she’s probably discovering new crafting hobbies or hanging out with her four cats, dog, and/or husband, Andrew.

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If last week’s text was weird, this text (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7), commonly called the fall , has baggage. It is the story of the original sin, which we all inherit. So maybe it’s a story about our baggage, but it also has some baggage of its own. It’s weighed down by readings that continue the blame game of 3:12, which, even in the story, seems to make everything worse. Specifically, some interpretations of this text blame women for the fall. I would assume that people who know this story are familiar with those interpretations. I would assume people have feelings about those interpretations. It is important to acknowledge both those feelings and those readings.

It is helpful to note that the blame game doesn’t help. In verses 12 and 13, the man blames the woman, and the woman blames the serpent, and God assesses consequences on everyone. Blame is an attempt at control; however, there is so much of life that is always beyond our control.

In the article, I talk about guilt and shame. Guilt says, “I did a bad thing,” while shame says, “I am bad.” Both are important for this text. So, too, is reconciliation, where relationships are repaired and forgiveness is shared.

Opening Exercise

Give participants a stack of scratch paper or some index cards. Read a word, and have participants write down or draw the first word, phrase, or icon (it’s okay to invent one) that comes to mind. Count to three and then have the group reveal their response. Ask if anyone would like to share and explore together what is similar and what is different. Go as many rounds as make sense for your group. (I’m grateful to Lyle Griner’s Really, Really Greats! for this idea.)

• Fruit
• Snake
• Guilt
• Shame
• Good
• Evil
• Forgiveness

Alternatively, break up into pairs and ask:

• What is the difference between guilt and shame? Is one worse than the other?
• How do you cope with feelings of guilt and shame?

Text Read Aloud

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

The Knowledge of Good: God’s Answer to Shame

Isn’t it strange that this story doesn’t say that Eve—and Adam—felt guilty for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of

good and evil, but ashamed of their nakedness? Maybe it isn’t that surprising, because surely they had bumped into one another accidentally while gardening, or taken the last bite of something the other was hoping to savor? Guilt is the feeling we have when we’ve done something wrong—accidentally or purposefully—and we know it. Guilt says, “I did something bad.” But shame says, “I am bad.” When Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what they know first is shame.

The family Madrigal in the Disney movie Encanto knows something about shame (for a quick plot refresher, you can watch the trailer here). The family is ashamed because Bruno’s gift doesn’t work the way they want it to. And they are ashamed because Mirabel isn’t given a magical gift like the rest of the family. Shame breaks apart their family’s home.

The knowledge of evil seems to be this: things are tangled up for us, and that tangledness makes it hard for us to do what is right. We live within systems that tell us because we don’t fit in just so, if we don’t look just so, if we don’t have certain things, then we should be ashamed. Adam and Eve realize they aren’t, in a sense, dressed properly, and now they know it, and it makes them ashamed. In other words, the first thing they learn from the tree is not some new sin; it is that they are exposed as inadequate. They’re ashamed. That is the knowledge of evil.

But if that’s the knowledge of evil, what’s the knowledge of good?

TITLE

The knowledge of good is the antidote to shame. Shame isolates, but reconciliation reunites. After the Madrigals’ Casita is destroyed by an earthquake, Mirabel runs away and her abuela finds her. They are reconciled. They work to repair their relationship and forgive one another. Think about the last big singing number. The family is all together, but the house is in ruins. Together, with their community’s help, they rebuild Casita. The knowledge of good is that God is always making things right, and we’re invited to be a part of it. That’s reconciliation. That’s the good.

Past the verses we read from this story, God gives consequences to the woman and the man and the serpent. They’re all going to have to leave the garden, but God takes the time to make clothes for them. God sees their shame and works to make things right, moving toward them, not away from them. God doesn’t abandon them.

It can be tempting to treat this story like humanity’s biggest mistake, but it certainly seems to me that this story is the beginning of God’s biggest triumph. The theologian Richard Rohr points out that Jesus is God’s Plan A, as in, Jesus isn’t the backup plan because we messed everything up so badly. Jesus is God’s ongoing pattern of reconciliation made visible. In Jesus, God is reconciling the world to God’s self (2 Corinthians 5:19). God isn’t counting our faults but working to restore relationship with us and with the world. This is the good.

This story can absolutely be the story about how sin entered the world. It can be the story about all the tangled-up realities of life on earth. It can be the story about broken relationships between God and humanity and between humans. And it can be the story about how God is committed—from the very beginning—to repairing, restoring, and reconciling. This is the knowledge of good.

Reflection Questions

Read the text again.

• What did you notice in the story this time that you hadn’t noticed before?
• Why do you think God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden in the first place?
• What happens to Eve and Adam after they eat the fruit? What was supposed to happen?
• How do you think God reacts to us when we mess up?

Closing Activity & Prayer

Say a confession and forgiveness together, such as the one in Setting 12 in All Creation Sings (pgs. 29-30), or one that is familiar to participants. Before you begin, encourage them to listen for words of reconciliation: where God is forgiving and making things right for us, for everyone else, and for all of creation.

Bio

Adrianne Meier is an ELCA pastor who serves among the people at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Indiana. When she’s not working—and even when she is working—you can find her furiously knitting.

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To begin, let’s admit that the Transfiguration is a weird story. We’ve got heroes from the Bible’s past. There are voices from heaven. People faint from fear. Jesus transfigures, whatever that actually means. This story is just weird.

There are a few things to keep in mind about Moses and Elijah that might be helpful for understanding this story. First, no one saw Moses and Elijah die. When Moses dies, God grants him, alone, a glimpse of the promised land and then God buries Moses, but no one knows where (Deuteronomy 34). Elijah ascends into heaven by means of a chariot, fire, and whirlwind (2 Kings 2). But here is more: both Moses and Elijah, in their time, meet God on mountaintops, in fact, it’s the same mountain – Mount Horeb. God calls Moses through the burning bush and later, on the same mountain, gives him the Torah, the law. Elijah meets God in the sound of sheer silence and receives instructions to anoint new kings and name a successor. 

Before and after this story, Jesus predicts his death several times, and he confronts his disciples with the truth about how hard it is to follow him: it is like taking up a cross. And, when Jesus, Peter, James, and John come down from the mountain, they’ll learn the other disciples have been trying, and failing, to help a little boy with epilepsy.

Transfigured means changed—not like a costume change, but a change in form. Yes, Jesus’ appearance changes, but there seems to be something more. Whatever it is, the disciples see him both more clearly and less so. Peter lacks the words to express the depth of this moment, but he knows what is true: it is good to be here.

Opening Exercise

• You’re hosting a dinner party for yourself and five other people—some you know now, some from history you wish you could’ve met. Who do you invite? Why? How do you introduce them to one another? What kinds of conversations would you hope to have?

Text Read Aloud

Matthew 17:1-9 

It is Good to Be Here

Winter is never mild in Ukraine, but it has been particularly harsh this year. Many people are without power for all or part of the day. A lot of people don’t have water in their homes anymore because of the war with Russi

a. It is easy for things to feel helpless. But the people have started to throw dance parties on frozen rivers and lakes. They’ve got little racing buggies that they run on the ice, and DJs set up full rigs in the middle of frozen lakes. In an interview, one person said, “It’s gotten so much harder to be happy, but we have the small flame of hope in our hearts that we try to keep burning.” When the way looks helpless, God kindles hope in our hearts within communities where we know it is good for us to be.

Peter sounds pretty ridiculous when he starts babbling about tents, but it has been a harsh journey to this point. He and his fellow disciples have been stretched and challenged in countless ways. They have seen incomprehensible things: Jesus walking on water, feeding thousands, curing all sorts of diseases. The disciples who followed Jesus had been criticized and scolded by Pharisees. And, while they had left home, left their jobs, and left their families to follow Jesus, he recently told them that that wouldn’t be enough. Jesus told them that disciples carry crosses, instruments of torture and death. 

And it wasn’t like things were easy before they followed Jesus, either. The Sea of Galilee was being overfished, the treasures of their lake exported to Rome. They had been taxed, tolled, and fined by the Romans, who occupied every inch of their homeland. 

So when Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain, and they see the heroes of their bedtime stories—Moses and Elijah—we can understand why Peter says, “It is good for us to be here.” Things were hard, and Jesus drew together this extraordinary community, renewing his disciples’ sense of hope.

Recently, I was at a reunion of sorts, an opportunity to bring together people who work in the same field. We get together once a year or so, and we look forward to it. But it seems like things have been especially hard for people recently: there’s a lot of bad news, and people are lonelier and more disconnected than they used to be. We were all feeling disconnected and discouraged. So, we were all in agreement when one of my colleagues walked into the room and proclaimed loudly, “It is good to be here.”

At its best, this is what church can be for us: that when we’re discouraged and disconnected, Jesus gathers together an extraordinary community, renewing our sense of hope. And this is what other communities—times of fellowship and time with our friends and family—can also be for us: gathered together, Jesus with us, hope renewed.

Reflection Questions

• Who can give the best impression of Peter on the mountain?
• What would you have said if you were Peter? 
• Where do you go when you’re feeling disconnected or discouraged?
• What are some things you do to help you feel more hopeful? What is something someone else has done for you?

Closing Activity

• Take a few minutes to draw or write about a place where you’ve been a part of a gathering that renewed you. Maybe it was a team meeting in a locker room before a big game, or during worship, or just getting together with friends. Invite participants to share their responses, if they’d like.

Final Prayer/Blessing

• Light a candle and place it on your drawing or writing, or carefully hold your work while you pray.
  • Encouraging God, you gathered Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John with Jesus on the mountain when they were feeling challenged, stretched, and even frustrated. When we’re uncertain about the future, disconnected from one another, or discouraged, put your hope within us. Fan it from a spark into a flame, that we may be sustained in community with one another, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Bio

Adrianne Meier is an ELCA pastor who serves among the people at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Indiana. When she’s not working—and even when she is working—you can find her furiously knitting.