Photo by Manu Schwendener on Unsplash

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT


Sermon Starter

Have you ever been thirsty and I mean really thirsty? When I was in grade school, my siblings and I spent many days in Mom’s garden planting seeds, getting rid of the weeds, and gathering in the harvest. On the really hot days, Dad would bring the garden hose over to where we were working and turn on the spigot and we could drink as much water as we wanted.

In high school, I would work in farmer’s fields with my siblings and friends from another family “walking beans.” Now, for those of you who don’t know, “walking beans” means walking up and down the rows of soybeans and hoeing or chopping out the weeds. Nowadays, I guess most farmers use herbicides because I don’t know of many “bean walking” crews any longer. We only worked when the ground was dry, which meant working under the sun for six to eight hours each day. We would walk down one row and then back where there was a thermos of water for each of us. Now, the thermos wasn’t very big, so we drank sparingly, no matter how hot or thirsty we were. We drank just enough to “wet our whistle” as they say. We had to wait until the day was done and we were back home to get a good long drink of water.

Owning a home meant yard work during all four seasons of the year. I had forgotten how thirsty I can get from shoveling snow. My big project when we lived near Culver was clearing brush that had grown up in a corner of our property. I would cut down small trees and pull them over to the burn pit where I would cut them up before throwing them in, I would mow and rake where I could, and pull weeds where the mower couldn’t get to. Then I would rake it all up and put it in the burn pit. Doing that on a hot summer day would sure make me thirsty. I would go in the house and get a tall glass of cold water and soak up some of the air-conditioning before going back out to that corner of the property to do it all over again.

Do you know what would happen each time I would drink that water? I would get thirsty again.

Collect of the Day

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.