When our family immigrated to the United States almost 10 years ago we first settled in the Imperial Valley (Southern California). It’s a prosperous farming community in the desert. No, I did not misspeak, in the desert, and it’s hot, really hot. We’re talking about 110F and up during Summer and Fall. Thousands of acres of prime farmland have transformed the desert into one of the most productive farming regions in California. It is all thanks to the All American Canal.

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In Romans 12:9-21 the Apostle Paul gives us a series of well known instructions on how to live as followers of Jesus. In essence he interprets what it means to “love your neighbor” in the context of a faith community. A life of faith is exemplified by showing genuine concern for both those in and outside our faith family.

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Ever wondered why the Samaritan decided to stop and help the man left for dead next to the road to Jericho? What made him different from the other two passersby before him? After all, there existed a lot of distrust and animosity between their peoples. Not a lot of love there, yet the Samaritan does the unexpected and reaches out to help a despised enemy. One would hope that if we would find ourselves in similar circumstances we would do the same. But would we? After all, two religious and faithful persons looked the other way, before the Samaritan came along. Would you and I really be able to see beyond the social and cultural norms and convictions of our time? Are you and I capable of seeing beyond the social-economic and cultural world we are immersed in?

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Dear faithful readers,

Bread for the Journey will be on break this week and next, but will resume afresh on April 19.

May the peace of the Risen Christ be yours, today & every day!
~Laurie~
for Kobie & Dan

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We continue this week with the story of the Good Samaritan which Jesus told after the Great Command. It is probably one of the most well known stories in Scripture. (Luke 10:30-37) It’s the story of a traveler who helps a robbed, beaten, half-dead man of another culture. The traveler is a Samaritan and a despised social enemy of the wounded man. The traveler has one of two choices: take upon himself the burden of a stranger’s plight or look the other way and pass by (as the other two passers-by before him have done). He knows the victim detests him and his kind (and the feeling is probably mutual), yet he chooses to transcend the distance, the alienation and estrangement between them and carry the victim to safety.

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This week I want to pick up on a statement I made last week regarding the Great Command and explore it a bit more. In Luke 10:25-28 an expert on the Law asks Jesus “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by asking him: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” He answered: “Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

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Speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all those abandoned by others.
[D]efend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9)

We continue our conversation this week on the question, “Why Jesus was crucified?” We discovered one clue to the puzzle, which lay with what Jesus was teaching. Jesus lived in an oppressive and violent time. It was the time of the Roman Empire. We who grew up in the West have an idealized view of the Roman Empire and civilization. I can still remember learning in high school about the Pax Romana – Rome bringing peace and prosperity to the world. Fabulous slogan, but in essence just propaganda.

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Someone once asked me at a Spiritual Retreat: Why was it necessary for Jesus to die? And why such a violent death? If God is God, why can’t God just forgive us? That is a good question. Maybe we should look at it again as we prepare for Easter. This is a question many have tried to answer through the ages. Each of the Gospel writers answers this question differently in an effort to make sense of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the implications for us as Jesus’ followers. In the Letter to the Romans the apostle Paul even supplies us with not one, but six different possible theories of how it is that Christ’s death saves us.

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One way to approach the season of Lent is to reflect prayerfully on our lives lived with God. God accompanies us through all the different seasons of our lives. Part of our journey through Lent is taking a moment to gaze back over the lives we have lived and look for traces of God’s presence in our journey of faith, in the various seasons of our life. One way to do this is to ponder the words of a Scripture text to open ourselves up to the awareness of the presence of God’s Spirit in our pilgrimage through a life of faith. For this purpose I chose for us a text from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

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God humbled you with hunger, and then fed you manna, which was unknown to you and your ancestors, to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that flows from the mouth of God. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

It is that time of the year; the “Season of Self-Denial.” For the next six weeks the chances are big that someone is going to ask you: “What are you giving up for Lent?” When I opened up my Facebook account last Thursday, the morning after Ash Wednesday, countless postings popped up proclaiming everything that’s being given up for Lent. “I’m giving up chocolate,” “I’m giving up coffee,” or my favorite one “I’m giving up Facebook.” The list of things being given up seems to be endless.

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