Note: During the season of Lent you may want to have the following items available for your gathering space: a candle and matches, a cup of water, a roll or a piece of bread, a cut out of a heart, a cross and a piece of purple cloth.
Welcome
Invite those gathered to bring a designated item and use this liturgy as a way to begin your time of learning together.
One: This is the season of Lent, 40 days to remember and pray, worship and think deeply on the ways we can…
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: He came as a baby to bring light to the world and how us how to…
(Place a candle on a table in your gathering place and light it.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus
One: The Bible tells the story of the way he called disciples when he was on earth and how he still calls disciples today who will…
(Place an open Bible on a table in your gathering place.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: When people were hungry, he gave them food. When people were thirsty, he gave them water. When people needed love, he loved them — even those the world thought were unlovable and called us to do the same as we…
(Place the bread, the cup of water and the heart in your gathering place.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: When it became obvious that we still had trouble being faithful, he made his way to Jerusalem and to the cross so that through his grace we would be able to…
(Place a cross on a table in your gathering place.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: And so, each year, for the 40 days leading to Easter we remember what Christ did for us, pray for forgiveness for our unfaithfulness, worship the God who loved us enough send us the Son and think deeply on how we can…
(Drape the cross with the purple cloth.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: We are here, Holy Spirit, ready for your leading.
God sightings and prayer offerings
Invite each person to share where they saw or experienced God this week. Invite each person to share something — a person, community, experience, event, etc. – for which they want to offer prayer.
Good and gracious God, we thank you for all the ways you were and are present in our lives and in the world. [Invite each person to say aloud the sighting they named earlier.] We bring our prayers to you, prayers for… [invite each person to say aloud the prayer need they named earlier]. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
Connecting with Scripture: John 3:14-21
Read the Scripture aloud the first time using the New Revised Standard Version or the Common English Bible.
As you listen to the Scripture read a second time, which part of this passage stands out to you and why?
Connecting through story
Listen and watch as children read Peter Spier’s book “People.”
- What do you think Peter Spier wants people to understand through this book?
- Which of all those people did God create?
- Why do you think God created people to be so very different?
Connecting with our lives
Engage in dialogue:
- What do you think the Gospel of John is trying to make people understand in this passage?
- Why did God send the Son, Jesus Christ, into the world?
- Whom does God love?
- Why does God love them/us?
- Why do we struggle to love people who are not like us?
- Whom did God come to condemn?
- If God does not condemn the world and all those who live in it (even in their vast differences), then why are we prone to condemn others?
- What do we have in common that transcends all our differences?
- What unites us?
- If Christ is the light God sent into the world to show us how much we are loved, why do we resist living in the light?
- If you truly believed that God love the whole world – you and everyone else in the world – with the same life-giving love, how would you live differently? How would you see and treat those who look or act differently than you do?
Teaching points that can be incorporated into your discussion:
- The Gospel of John was written for early non-Jewish Christians who were more oriented toward the Greco-Roman culture.
- John uses metaphors, signs and symbols in this Gospel.
- John wants people to understand that while Jesus is fully human, he is also fully divine.
- As evident from John’s opening verses in Chapter 1, Jesus was with God from the beginning and would be glorified in his return to God.
- The theme of love is pervasive in the Gospel of John, as with the letters of John. Christ’s followers are given a new commandment to love one another.
- God shows us how to love first – by sending the Son for the salvation of the world – not simply a select few, but the whole world.
- The emphasis on love extends to all who follow Christ. We love because God first loved us.
- When the risen Lord appears to the disciples at the end of John, Jesus asks, “Peter, do you love me?” Upon Peter’s positive response, Jesus commands, “Feed my sheep.” Three times the disciple is asked and each time Jesus requires an outward and concrete expression of the disciple’s (and of our) love for Christ.
- John 3:16 is the outward and concrete expression of God’s love for all humanity: No matter our skin color, hairstyle or any of the other differences highlighted in Peter Spier’s book, “People” — God loves whom God decides to love. Thankfully, God loves all that God creates. We have a concrete example of God’s expansive and inclusive love in Jesus Christ.
- With human greed, idolatry and the world’s general “busted up” nature, it would be completely understandable if God condemned the world. But that is not God’s nature. Rather, God loves the world, despite our propensity to stray, enough to send and sacrifice the only Son.
- This is a gift beyond our ability to fully understand. Therefore, our lives become our outward expression of gratitude as we love one another across any and all differences.
Last week, your family was invited to think about what each of you personally, or as a family, could “take on” during the season of Lent that would deepen your understanding of what it means to follow in the ways of Jesus. This is our weekly “check in” with one another:
- What Christian practice did you “take on” this week?
- Share a story or describe an experience from this week that invited you to consider how you are following in the ways of Jesus.
Prayer
Close your time together by praying for one another, your neighbor, community and the world
REBECCA DAVIS is the associate professor of Christian education at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. A teaching elder and certified educator, she served congregations for over 20 years before moving into academic teaching. In addition to teaching and mentoring students, her passion is child advocacy and ministry.
