The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Lent
The season of Lent disrupts the liturgical year and the lectionary in many ways. Click here for more information on the season and its readings.
Overview and Connections
The Old Testament reading grapples with who God is and what should we call God. It is also a story of being sent to proclaim deliverance and salvation. Paul reminds us no matter how “good” we get, we are always subject to a fall. And then Jesus tells us that we don’t have forever on this road of transformation. It will end at some point and we must make a choice.
Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15
This story always reminds me of my time in the Middle East. To enter someone’s home there and not remove your shoes would have been a grave insult. It’s highly possible that custom stems from today’s story. Muslims also always remove their shoes when entering a mosque. Isn’t it strange that we don’t remove our shoes at the doors of the church? I think about this sometimes when I walk into my own home and remove my shoes. Yes, it’s mostly about stopping dirt at the door. But every now and then I make it an intentional act. I remove my shoes because I am on holy ground. Holy ground is to be found all around us because holy ground is wherever God is and God is everywhere. So maybe this week try to make the act of removing your shoes more intentional. Realize for just a moment that you are on holy ground and then remove your sandals in acknowledgement of that.
V1 sets the stage first with relationships. Jethro is the priest of Midian. The Midianites were closely related to the Israelites. Abraham had a son named Midian by his concubine Keturah (see 1 Chronicles 1:32-33). We don’t know exactly what gods they worshipped in the area of Midian or how, but Jethro is a priest. After Moses fled Egypt (because he killed an Egyptian, see Exodus 2), he sought shelter in the land of Midian and eventually married Zipporah, daughter of Jethro. His job is to tend the sheep for his father-in-law. Today’s story finds Moses “beyond the wilderness,” or, more literally, taking them across the desert in search of good pasture. He ends up at the “mountain of God,” called here – Horeb.
Another name for Horeb is Sinai. Its precise location is debated. In modern times, it is generally placed in the Sinai peninsula, although some place it in northern Saudi, east of Egypt.
In v2, an angel of the Lord appears to Moses. This phrase “angel of the LORD” is used many times in scripture as a euphemism that generally means God’s self. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament used angelos for this word, hence our association with angel. But the Hebrew word here lacks the connotations of heavenly beings with wings. Rather, it indicates that God is appearing in some sort of visual form. For examples of the use of “angel of the LORD,” see Genesis 16:7, 13; Exodus 14:19, 24-25; Numbers 22:22-35; Judges 6:11-18.
God appears as fire and fire is always evocative of the divine presence. It both illuminates and purifies. Moses decides he has to have a look at this bush that is burning but not consumed. God calls to him and Moses answers in the ritually prescribed way: “Here I am.” God begins the encounter by instructing Moses to remove his sandals because he is on holy ground.
In v6, God then introduces God’s self as “the God of your father.” He then continues to say he is “The God of… the God of…” Rabbinic teaching explained that, although God was the God of the ancestors, each person had a personal relationship with that God, as are we to have. Moses hides his face upon learning who this is. He is afraid to look upon God. Later in his relationship with God, he will beg to see God. But at the outset, all he knows is fear.
God tells Moses that the suffering of the Israelites has been seen and noted, and God is preparing to act. Not only will God rescue them, he will bring them into something far better, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” This is a proverbial expression of the abundance of the land. Milk refers to the raising of animals for food and clothing. Honey is generally seen as the nectar of fruits such as dates, figs, and grapes. The latter half of v8 is left out of the lectionary, presumably so that lectors do not have to suffer through pronouncing all these foreign tribes. But it’s worth remembering that the good – milk and honey – is balanced with the fact that there are already people living there, people who will have to be displaced in order for the Israelites to occupy the land.
Vv9-12 are also not in the lectionary. This is God’s call of Moses and Moses’ insistence that he is not up to the call. Culturally, when an inferior person was called upon to do something by his superior, that person was expected to protest based on his inferiority. This is a ritual question and its purpose was to allow the superior to provide help of some sort in a way that does not shame either party. Moses will raise a total of five objections in 3:11, 3:13, 4:1, 4:10, and 4:13.
Moses’ second objection comes in v13: he doesn’t know God’s name. In that culture, however, to know someone’s name is to possess power over them. Previously, God named God’s self as “God of your father,” the one you’ve known through your ancestors. But this is about to be a new revelation of God in a new way, and new names are usually given at important transition points. So now God gives a different name, one more adequate for this new time. But God doesn’t yield power by giving an actual name. Instead, he answers with YHWH, known as the tetragrammaton (four letters) in Hebrew.
The name God gives is a form of the Hebrew verb to be, haya. After the return from exile, pious Jews began to avoid pronouncing this name, and over time the exact pronunciation of it was lost. It is translated in many different ways:
- I AM (to be, being itself)
- I AM WHO I SHALL BE (a gradual revelation)
- HE IS
- HE WILL BE
- CAUSES TO BE (the origin of all)
- I WILL BE WITH YOU
- I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE: my nature will become evident from my actions (from the Jewish Study Bible)
It is a verb tense expressing action continually in progress. God is continually BEING. Adonai is the general Jewish replacement, and Jehovah is also a common pronunciation. The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) uses the word kyrios, or lord.
This story presents so many good avenues for prayer. You might want to sit with it imaginatively. Maybe take the sheep out across the desert and see what you encounter. Or perhaps recall a time when God has called you to something. How did you respond? Or perhaps you want to ask God for God’s name. Who is God for you? Who does God want to be for you?
1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12
Chps 8-10 address problems arising from living in pagan environment. 10:1-13 are about the dangers of overconfidence. Here we learn from scripture that a calling from God does not prevent punishment for rejecting the call or acting counter to it.
Paul speaks to a Gentile audience, but he presumes at least passing familiarity with the Exodus events. In v1, Paul references “our” ancestors, encouraging his Gentile audience to claim the Jewish patriarchs as their own family. The story Paul references in this passage follows the general order of events found in Exodus 13-32: the cloud, the sea, the manna, the water, and the rebellion.
Part of Paul’s approach here is to interpret the past in terms of the present. Usually, when we do exegesis of scripture, we use the past to interpret our present experiences. Paul does this to some degree but he also seeks to re-interpret the past through the lens of his present experiences. This was a critical shift in theology at Vatican II: the understanding that our own personal experience is key to understanding God’s revelation to us. And sometimes that understanding allows us to reinterpret and more deeply understand past events in a whole new way.
Part of this passage is crucial to sacramental theology. The church might have wanted to say that participation in the sacraments guarantees us union with God. In fact, the sacraments are an important avenue to union with God, but Paul makes it clear that they do not guarantee such union.
V2 makes a reference to baptism. Moses led the Israelites through the Red sea from slavery into salvation life. This is the foundational image of baptism. There is no Jewish precedent for Paul’s phrase “baptized into Moses.” This is a strictly Christian interpretation of the story.
V3 references manna and v4 is a reference to the water God provided in the desert (see Exodus 16, Numbers 21:17). A common Rabbinic story in first-century Judaism was that the rock which provided water in the desert followed the people in their wandering, thus providing water throughout their journey.
Paul recounts in v5 how most of the Israelites failed the tests, all of which were geared towards showing them that God could be trusted. Their sin was a failure to trust God over and over again. In v6 Paul says that the whole Exodus story, the successes as well as the failures, provides an example or lesson for us: that we too must learn to trust God.
Vv7-9 reference the most embarrassing story of the Exodus: when the people built a golden calf to worship. Exodus 32 tells this story and the subsequent plague that afflicted them. There are a number of such events in the desert wandering. Paul says again in v11 that these events should serve as examples to us.
V12 is Paul’s thesis statement for this section. Elsewhere Paul will exhort this community to tamper down their emphasis on things like speaking in tongues. They felt that certain gifts made them superior. Paul will tell them elsewhere that this is not the case, but in this passage, he reminds them that even the superior can fall. Put another way, the sacraments alone will not save us if we do not allow God to transform us.
But even this is balanced by the reassurance of the next verse. V13 seems like such a helpful verse during Lent! I’m not sure why it is left out of the reading. Paul reminds us that failure is never inevitable! Raymond Brown translates this verse as follows, “No temptation has taken hold of you except a very human one. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tested beyond your capacity. With the test, God will also create a way out, so that you can survive.” The test for us, like the Israelites in the desert, is whether or not we will trust God.
The Jewish people have their stories but most of us have our own cautionary tales. Think of some stories of people who met bad ends. How might God be inviting you to learn from those stories this Lenten season?
Spend some time with v13. Ask God to show you a particular test that is currently trying your patience. Do you truly believe that God will not let this test be more than you can bear? Have a conversation with God. Let God know how you feel. If you are searching for words, flip through the book of Psalms. Especially if you want to express anger and deep frustration to God, the Psalms always provide language for the human experience.
Luke 13:1-9
The first Sunday of Lent is always the story of the testing of Jesus, followed by the Transfiguration story on the second Sunday. The remaining three Sundays in Lent depend on the year. Year C features stories from John’s gospel: the parable of the fig tree not bearing fruit, the prodigal father, and the woman caught in adultery. These stories speak to us of sin and its effect on our relationships. But, perhaps more importantly, they speak of God’s ever-present love for us, always at work within us.
Jesus is consistently compassionate towards sinners. But, eventually, we are forced to choose, and Jesus is not wishy-washy about this fact.
This version of the story about the fig tree is unique to Luke. Mark 11:12-14, 20-23 and Matthew 21:18-21 both contain a story where Jesus curses a fig tree. Luke’s version might be a more benevolent rendering of the same story while still driving home its message. And Luke has a more universal message. Mark and Matthew’s use of the fig tree both curse Israel for their inability to listen and respond to Christ’s message. Luke’s version prompts all people to respond to that message in a timely manner.
Preacher and author Barbara Brown Taylor remarked how interesting it is that this gospel is read and we all respond, “Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.” The liturgy trains us in the ways of faith, she says. Disaster strikes? Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. Life is finite? Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. Faith requires our active choosing? Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. We say it over and over again in the hopes that it becomes a natural expression of our faith. No matter what happens, may we respond with, “Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.”
The passage begins with a reference to a story that is not known to us historically. It was probably much like one of those “15 minutes of fame” stories that we know today: we hear it and quickly forget it. The Jewish historian Josephus (along with others) recorded plenty of incidents that indicate Pilate’s brutality and his predilection for massacres. We can assume that Pilate executed some people from Galilee while they were worshipping in Jerusalem. The culture assumed that a good life (and, by extension, a “good” death) indicated God’s favor. By dying in such a tragic way (in the midst of worship), many would assume these Galileans had done something to offend God. Jesus challenges his hearers who may be thinking that perhaps those Galileans deserved such a fate.
Vv2-5 are very similar to Hebrew parallelism where one verse expands or complements one another:
V2 people deserve their fate (the Galileans)
V3 fate comes to all
V4 people deserve their fate (tower of Ailoam)
V5 fate comes to all
You think this doesn’t happen in the church today? Billy Graham preached (and later retracted) that AIDS might be divine punishment for homosexuality (at a crusade in Columbus, Ohio of all places). Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson staunchly held that 9/11 was punishment on abortionists, feminists, and gays. But recall Paul’s words above and ask yourself, in what subtle ways do I assume that someone gets the fate they courted?
In v3 and then again v5, Jesus calls us to repent, or metanoia. The Greek word means an about-face, a change of heart. It calls us to make a choice and then act on it. To illustrate, Jesus then tells a parable.
We can read this parable in multiple lights. It is both a parable of compassion and a parable of judgment. Fig trees generally took 4-5 years of growth in order to bear fruit. The owner seems to be looking for fruit at a time when none should be expected. The gardener advocates for one more year. Perhaps the tree will bear fruit in year 4. If not, says the gardener, you can cut it down. The gardener will do all he can to cultivate the tree, but he refuses to have a hand in cutting it down. The owner reminds us that we do not have forever to bear fruit. We must make a choice. The gardener reminds us that we have trees all around us that need cultivation, and that it is not our job to cut things down.
Take time to really ponder Jesus’ parable. Believe it or not, this is a great one for imaginative prayer. Picture a fruit tree growing in a garden. See it over the years as it gets taller and spreads out its canopy. But, year after year, there is no fruit. Now imagine all the plants that try to grow near it. They reach for the sun but the tree’s leaves block it. Focus a while on those other plants and you might begin to understand why God requires a definitive choice from each of us. Perhaps it’s not so much that we are “wasting” God’s time listening to our prayers and forgiving us over and over again. As much as God desires our friendship, perhaps this story is less about us and more about those in our shade, the people we influence. Humanity is an intricate web and what I do affects you in some way. As you pray with this parable, ask God to show you the many people around you who might sometimes be in your shade. What is God asking you to choose in order to bear fruit and share light with others?
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© 2025 Kelly Sollinger