Lent Sermon Series: Again and Again… We are Shown the Way
Reflections
The church member sins during the workweek, either by doing what is wrong or by failing to do what is right. Then on Sunday morning, this same individual, perhaps convinced of [their] personal righteousness, heartily sings the hymns, happily shakes the hands of others, and generously puts a fifty-dollar bill in the collection plate. That makes the church a den of robbers — a cave of thieves. It becomes a safe place for those who are not truly repentant and who do not truly follow what Jesus asks. The church becomes a place of showboating, not of fishing for people.
— Amy Jill-Levine, Professor of New Testament, Vanderbilt University
- Guest speakers: D.L. Mayfield and Kelley Nikondeha
- The temple functioned more than just religious practices, there were lots of marketplace activities, looking more like Wall Street, “colluding with the Roman empire”
- religion married with power
- Lament is a way to deal with anger
