Fifth Sunday of Lent Cycle C (Children)

There are three very important letters that for many years have meant, “I need help.” Whenever ships were sinking, they would always send out these three letters. Can anybody tell me what they are? That’s right, S-O-S.
Does anybody know what those three letters stand for? They could stand for “save our ship.” Or even “save our souls.” I could preach a sermon on that, couldn’t I?
Back before we had telephones or radios, there was Morse code. Messages were sent in code using a tapping sound. When people heard three dots, they knew it stood for “S”. When they heard three dashes–a little bit longer than dots–it meant “O”. The fastest message that you could send with Morse code was three dots and three dashes. So S-O-S, three dots, three dashes and three dots, was chosen to say, HELP.
Sometimes people need help, but they don’t send out a S-O-S signal. Maybe they are very lonely and need a friend. Maybe they are having problems at home. We never know when somebody might be saying silently, I need help. So, the best thing to do is to try to be a friend to everyone. That way if someone needs a friend, but doesn’t say so, you will be still be there.
That is what the cross is all about. God heard our S-O-S. He took it to mean Send Our Savior. He knew we needed help. So he sent Jesus to be our Savior. Now we are to be friends to others who need help as well. We don’t need to wait for someone to hold up three cards like these. We can just try to be friends before they need us–just as God did for us.

 

Purpose: To stress our need of Jesus to show us how to do good things.

Materials: An electric lamp and a piece of white paper cut to represent a bolt of lightning.

Lesson: These two objects remind us of something that we see and use often. Every time we have a thunderstorm, we see the powerful destructive stabs of lightning ripping through the wet air. Most of the time, we look out upon the storm from a warm, well-lighted house where we are safe from the storm.

Now, the lights in our home and the lightning in the storm are charged with the same kind of power, namely, electricity. In one form, it is dangerous and destructive. In the other form, it is a quiet and steady current that makes it safe for us to walk around at night.

We also have great powers within us; powers that can be used for good or evil. We have the power to think, to move, to speak and to act. All these powers have been given to us by God. With these powers we have also received the responsibility to use them in a proper way.

In the Christian faith, we believe that no one can learn the proper use of these God-given powers alone. Therefore, we turn to Jesus for the perfect example of what it means to use the gifts of God as they were intended to be used. When Jesus acted, miracles were performed; and there is no greater miracle than the act of kindness and compassion. When Jesus spoke, people replied, “No man ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46) for he spoke the truth. As we follow Jesus, we too shall learn how to use our God-given powers for good instead of evil. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) Every life, regardless of age or condition, has great powers for good within it, if that life is lived under God’s direction.

Possible Times To Use This Illustration In The Home:

• During a thunderstorm.* When a child has used his abilities in a wrong way; perhaps hurting someone or destroying something.
• When a child thinks that his or her abilities are small and unimportant. (The lamp is more useful than the powerful bolt of lightning.)

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent Cycle C (4)

he Gospel reading for this Sunday is often called the Woman Caught in

Adultery. However, focusing in on the woman or on adultery misses the main point of

the reading. The Lord is teaching us about the power of love and the consequence of

hate.

The incident took place because Jesus’ enemies were looking for a way to

attack him. They set a trap using the woman. They were not concerned about her or

even her sin. They were concerned about finding a way to destroy the Lord. They

viewed his teaching negatively. He guided people to recognize that love had to be at

the heart of all law. This was a challenge to their authority because it put people in the

position of seeing through the actions of their leaders. The pharisees were not

motivated by the love of God, or even, really, by their love of the law. They were

motivated by their love for their positions of authority. They were motivated by their

hatred for Jesus who challenged any authority that did not reflect the image of the

Creator. They had stones in their hands. They really wanted to throw them at Jesus.

There was a Jewish law that said that a woman caught in adultery should be

stoned to death. Joseph, the Lord’s foster father, knew this. He originally had decided

to send his pregnant betrothed, Mary, away, to protect her from the law. Joseph was a

righteous man, one who would do what God wanted.

The Pharisees never even consider whether they were doing the will of God.

They devised a devious plot. Since Palestine was under the domination of Rome, the

Romans would not allow the Jews to kill anyone. Therefore, if Jesus said that the

woman should be stoned, his accusers could denounce him to the Romans as

challenging the authority of Rome. If Jesus said that the woman should not be stoned,

then his accusers could say that he violated the Law of God and promoted immorality

among the people.

Jesus knew what was really happening when the woman was dragged before

him. The second chapter of the Gospel of John ends with the phrase: “Jesus did not

need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” He was

aware of the sin the woman had committed. He was also aware of the sins of those

who were accusing her. Here, as throughout scripture, his main concern was love,

charity. There was a premeditated hatred in the actions of those who accused this

woman. The focus of their hatred was Jesus. The woman was merely being used as

an opportunity for the enemies of God to attack the Lord. I intentionally mean this

phrase to sound diabolical. For anyone who focuses on hate is in league with the

devil, the prince of darkness and the king of hatred.

It has become a trite truism of our time to say that our society is polarized.

There are extremes on each side of the argument who speak words of hatred

regarding the other side. The commentators on CNN and FOX do not just throw rocks

at the other side, they hurl boulders. They prod their listeners to embrace a hatredtoward those with whom they disagree. Even within in the Roman Catholic Church in

America there are extremes with rocks in their hands, ready to hurl them at others.

There are those who call themselves “faithful Catholics” who are in fact throwing

stones at the rest of us, and there are those among the rest of us who consider the

others as a bunch of cooks who are disloyal to the pope. Each side is hurling stones of

hatred. This cannot be our way of reacting to those with whom we disagree.

The Pharisees ready to stone the woman caught in adultery came to a

realization of what they were dong. To their credit and with the Lord’s gentle

encouragement, they realized their own sins and turned away from the scene they

created. Notice that the first to leave were the elders. They were wise enough to know

that they were wrong. Perhaps their first steps towards their own salvation began

when they walked away from the woman and from their hatred.

We really do not know anything else about this woman. We only know for sure

that Jesus told her to sin no more. Tradition says that the woman was Mary

Magdalene. That was because the Gospel of Luke introduced Mary Magdalene as a

sinner who had seven demons expelled. An additional tradition says that this was the

same Mary who is called Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. That

flows from a combination of the incident in the Gospel of Luke at the house of Simon

the Pharisee when a woman known as a sinner anointed Jesus with expensive

perfume and the incident in the Gospel of John when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus

with costly perfume. Perhaps the three, the woman caught in adultery, Mary of

Bethany and Mary Magdalene were the same person. We do not know. One thing is

for sure: all four gospels put Mary Magdalene at the tomb of the Lord as the first

witness of the Resurrection. Was this the sinner caught in adultery who was the first to

experience the resurrection of Jesus? Was her life so transformed by the Love of

Jesus, that she became one of his closest disciples? It seems so very reasonable, for

the power of love has the power to transform darkness into light, sinners into saints.

We all possess the power to transform others with our love or to devastate

others with our hate. We all can throw stones, or we can pick up the sinners. Many

homes have been destroyed by the refusal of spouses to forgive each other, or the

refusal of parents and children to forgive. Many of us cling to hatred as though our

suffering gives us the right to destroy the lives of others.

But there are others of us who have taken today’s gospel to heart and who are

more concerned with love than with their own feelings. A long time ago, I knew a

family in another parish that struggled due to the mother’s chemical dependency. The

children had continual difficulty in school as they acted out their home frustrations in

their classes. The husband attempted to be both breadwinner and home parent

whenever his wife was having a bad spell. It was impossible for him to consider any

promotion that could expect him to work more than the minimum his boss desired. He

could have chosen to hate his wife for what she was doing to their family. But he

refused to hate. He continued to love taking her to doctor after doctor, psychiatrists

and psychologists, dependency meeting after meeting. Only after years of this, did theincidents of his wife’s bad spells become less and less. Only very slowly did the weeks

between incidents become months, and then the months became years. His wife fully

recovered. The children survived, and, yes, in many ways their childhood was terrible.

But in another way, there was a certain beauty. They learned about the limitless power

of love. And when they became adults, they realized how proud they were of their

father.

Yes, the power that you and I have to hurt is hideous and diabolical. But the

power we have to heal is infinite. We possess the power of Jesus Christ’s love. We

have this power, you and I. If we have the courage to take a step from our selfish

grasping onto our hurts and a step into the Love of Jesus Christ, we can join him in

transforming the world.

The life of the woman caught in adultery was radically changed by the man who

was challenged to judge her. He was more concerned with her than he was with her

sin. She found reason to respect herself for she learned from Jesus that she was

lovable, and she was loved.

Jesus calls us to pick up our crosses and follow him. To pick up our crosses we

have to drop our stones.

Blessed are the compassionate, for they will have compassion.

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent Cycle C (3)

Some people will do anything to win. The early days of baseball provide many notable examples. Before stadiums had permanent seats in the outfield, for example, teams were permitted to erect temporary bleachers or simply put up a rope if a large crowd was expected, and any ball hit into that area was ruled a ground-rule double. When Ty Cobb was managing the Tigers and a power-hitting team was visiting, he would have the grounds crew set up temporary bleachers, turning balls that might otherwise have been home runs into ground-rule doubles. And if the crowd wasn’t large enough to justify putting up the seats, Cobb would have the ground crew sit in those bleachers so the umpire would not order them removed.

In Chicago, Cubs’ fans standing behind the outfield rope would push forward toward the infield when the home team was at bat thereby shortening the field and then back up several steps when the visitors came to bat thereby causing some would-be homers to fall short.

When Bill Veeck owned the Cleveland Indians, he moved the outfield fences in or out depending on the lineup of the visiting team. When the league finally passed a rule prohibiting that, Veeck compensated: He would go out to the ball park at night, dig up home plate, and move it a few feet forward or backward. (1)

Yes, some people will do anything to win–in sports, in business, in politics, in personal relationships, etc. Many of us by nature are very competitive. Since the drive to win is such powerful motivating force in our lives and since winning is so enthusiastically touted by our society, doesn’t it make sense that we should seek to win at those things that really matter? Why not apply the same level of intensity and energy to a game that is really worth the playing?

St. Paul focuses our attention on two kinds of people. One kind has its mind on today and its gratifications. As he phrases it, “their god is their belly.” In other words, they have no discipline, no self restraint. There is no great purpose driving their lives. They are not conscious of any grand design to existence. They feel no high calling. They are content simply to live from one day to the next with their eyes fixed on this world.

There is another kind of people, though. These people do sense a grand design to life. They feel that they are part of something purposeful and powerful. As participants in God’s plan for creation, they do seek to discipline and guide their lives following the best they know. Why? Because they are shaping themselves not only for this world, but also for the world to come.

On which team are you? Let’s consider for a few moments this morning some differences between winners and losers.

LOSERS LIVE ONLY FOR TODAY AND ITS PLEASURES. Theirs is the world of instant gratification. They seek the road that requires the least effort. Their ambition is like that of an Ohio legislator who was concerned with the vicious winter that had just raked the north central part of the country. He filed a bill in the Ohio legislature that would officially abolish January and February and divide their 60 days up among June, July and August, which are more pleasant months. That is one way to deal with your problems. Simply legislate them into nonexistence.

Winners learn early in life to confront problems, to delay gratification, to invest time, talent, effort toward a better tomorrow.

The Greek mathematician Euclid was engaged to teach the science of geometry to a young boy who was the heir to the Egyptian throne. But the young prince balked at learning a system of logic that required him to prove so many elementary theorems before he could move on.

“Is there no simpler way you can get to the point?” he demanded. “Surely, the crown prince need not be expected to concern himself with such trivial matter.”

“Sire,” responded Euclid, “there is no royal road to learning.”

That is a hard lesson that each of us must learn sooner or later. To grow, to achieve, to succeed requires effort, discipline, commitment. It means putting off pleasures until a more opportune time. It means using your brain to control the desires of your flesh. There is no royal road to learning.

One day Frederick the Great of Prussia was walking on the outskirts of Berlin, when he encountered a very old man who was proceeding in the opposite direction. “Who are you?” asked Frederick. “I am a king,” replied the old man. “A king!” laughed Frederick. “Over what kingdom do you reign?” “Over myself,” was the proud reply.

There are very few kings and queens who rule the kingdom of self. That is an essential ingredient in winning, however.

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti was such a winner. He was often described by his admirers as “the new Caruso.” In a newspaper interview, the 6-foot, 300-pound tenor asked: “Do you want to know the hardest thing about being a singer? It is to sacrifice yourself every moment of your life, with not one exclusion. For example, if it is raining, don’t go out; eat this, do this, sleep ten hours a day. It is not a very free life. You cannot jump on a horse. You cannot go to swim.”

There are many things you cannot do if you would be the best. But the gain is worth the pain. Losers live only for today and its pleasures.

In Marcel Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, a lady named Oriane must decide how to spend an evening. She can either sit by the bed of a dying man or go to dine in town. She chooses the latter. Why not? She is a thoroughly modern woman. She lives only for herself. She has no value system–only her own pleasure and comfort to guide her. Why should she not indulge herself and ignore her friend? She has no God to judge her. No sense of right or wrong to cause her shame.

Little does she know that living only for one’s self is a sure path to despair. Paul speaks of those whose end is destruction. They live only for today and its pleasures.

IN THE SECOND PLACE, LOSERS FEEL NO GREAT SENSE OF DIVINE PURPOSE TO THEIR LIVES. Losers sit back and wish for a better world. Winners understand that a better world is up to them.

I heard a silly story about three men who went on a fishing trip. Their boat was wrecked in a storm, but they managed to swim to a deserted island. After a week, one of the three, a cattle baron, became despondent; he missed his ranch. A second longed for his native Manhattan, where he was a cab driver. The third man, a happy-go-lucky type, was enjoying himself, finding the experience rather peaceful. One day, as they were walking along the beach, the carefree fellow happened to see an ancient lamp which he promptly picked up. Then he rubbed it and a genie sprang out. “For freeing me from my prison,” said the genie, “each of you shall receive one wish.” “I’d like to be back on my ranch,” said the cattle baron, quick to grab the opportunity. Poof! He was gone! “I’d like to be driving my hack again,” said the cabby. Poof! He was gone! “And what is your wish?” asked the genie of the third man, who by then was looking a little forlorn. “Well,” he said, “I’m kinda lonely now without the other guys. I wish they were back.” Poof! Poof! (2) So much for wishing.

Bishop Gerald Kennedy once told of visiting the Bell Laboratories in California and seeing a most unusual gadget on the desk of an executive. It was a small wooden casket about the size of a cigar box. On one side of the box there was a single switch. When the executive flipped the switch, there was a buzzing sound, and the lid slowly rose. As it did, a mechanical hand emerged. Slowly, but surely, the hand reached down, turned off the switch, and went back in the box. Then the lid came down and the buzzing stopped. That’s all there was to it–a machine that did nothing but switch itself off! (3)

So many people are like that machine. They have no real purpose in life. They get up in the morning, go to work, come home at five, watch television till eleven, then get up the next morning and repeat the same routine with a terrible sense of emptiness and a feeling that nothing in the world really matters.

Two young women have jobs in a certain large city. One sells radio time for a popular FM station. She’s excellent at her job and is extremely well paid. However, she hates her work and her unhappiness spills over into the rest of her life. The other young woman produces a radio program for the blind. She loves her work and loves her life. What is the difference? The second young lady has a sense of purpose about life. She is doing something she believes in, something she knows will aid others.

Losers live only for today. Losers have no sense of purpose about their lives. FINALLY, LOSERS NEVER TAKE INTO ACCOUNT ETERNITY.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was the second man to step on the moon. Sometime back in an interview on NBC’s TODAY program, he told of the years of education, hard work, dreams and rigorous discipline he spent preparing for that historic mission with Neil Armstrong to the moon.

During the interview Aldrin also told of his later emotional breakdown and slow, painful recovery. This crisis didn’t have anything to do with the moon or with space travel or weightlessness. What caused it? Over and over again Buzz Aldrin kept saying that the breakdown resulted from the terrible disillusionment he felt after working so hard, achieving every goal set before him and then finding it all empty when it was over. (5) His dreams, fantastic though they were, were not lasting enough.

This is to say that what the world calls winning may not be winning at all. Sure its great to dream dreams, to set lofty goals, to work hard and to give 110%. You will indeed go to the top! But what then? This world is not big enough. To paraphrase St. Paul, “If Christ be not raised from the dead, then ultimately we are all losers.” But we are not losers. That is what Lent and Easter are all about. Winners take into account eternity.

Dr. Anthony Campolo tells about a sociological study in which fifty people over the age of ninety-five were asked one question: “If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?” It was an open ended question, and a multiplicity of answers came from these eldest of senior citizens. However, three answers constantly re emerged and dominated the results of the study. These three answers were:

If I had it to do over again, I would reflect more.

If I had it to do over again, I would risk more.

If I had it to do over again, I would do more things that would live on after I am dead. (5)

These folks late in life had gained the perspective of eternity. It would be a shame if we were to wait until it was too late to get it all figured out. Winners understand the value of sacrificing today’s pleasures for tomorrow’s rewards. Winners feel a great sense of purpose in life–a purpose that grows out of their relationship with God. Winners view life from the perspective of eternity. So, if you are one of those imbued with the modern obsession for winning, why not win where it really counts with God and eternity.

1. Ron Luciano and David Fisher, REMEMBRANCE OF SWINGS PAST, New York: Bantam Books, 1988).

2. Donald W. Morgan, HOW TO GET IT TOGETHER WHEN YOUR WORLD IS COMING APART, (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1988).

3. Source unknown.

4. David A. Seamonds, GOD’S BLUEPRINT FOR LIVING, (Wilmore, Ky.: Bristol Books, 1988).

5. Tony Campolo, WHO SWITCHED THE PRICE TAGS?, (Waco, Texas: