Day 1 (Monday)
Exodus 33:4–23, 34:1-9, 27-35
Last time we read in chapter 32 about how the people made and worshipped the golden calf, and the punishment that they brought upon themselves through their sin. In the next two chapters, Moses pleads with God for mercy, and to remain with them as they go to the Promised Land. For God had said that He would not go with them. Let's see how the people and Moses respond.
33:4 When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments. 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do to you.’” 6 Therefore the Israelites stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
The Tent outside the Camp
7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent. 11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.
Moses’ Intercession
12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
17 The Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” 21 And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23 then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you, and do not let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; and do not let flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, “The Lord.” 6 The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”
8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. 9 He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
Then God agreed, and renewed the covenant, repeating the instructions to drive out the sinful people from the Promised Lan, and not to be corrupted by them, to keep the festivals, to dedicate and redeem all the firstborn, both of humans and of animals, to keep the Sabbath, and the other things we have already read.
27 The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. 28 He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
The Shining Face of Moses
29 Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; 34 but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should note the fact that Moses talks to God face-to-face, but also asks to see God’s face. This is another place where we see plurality in Yahweh. It seems to indicate that Moses is talking with the the Son of God, but is not able to see the face of the Father; he can see the Son, but cannot see the Father and live. The way that Moses’ face shines when he has been in the presence of God is one of the sources for the “halo” that we see in the icons of the Saints. The glory of God is shining from their faces, and we depict that with the gold halo. Finally, since Lent begins this coming Monday, we should note that Moses goes outside the camp, and up the mountain when they are there, to meet with God. We can thinking of fasting as a means of leaving the camp and going up the mountain in our own lives; we are intentionally separating ourselves from the world around us and going out into the wilderness to meet with God. And again – Moses is up on the mountain with God for 40 days))
2) What do we learn about God in this story? (We see that He is merciful, and gives sinful people yet another chance, even after the Golden Calf)
3) What do we learn about human beings in this story?
4) What do you find difficult about this story? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this story make you think that you need to change anything in your life? (We need to seek God – this is why we fast – we hold fast to Him, and leave everything else behind)
Day 2 (Wednesday)
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom on the Christian Life
These last few weeks we have been reading excerpts from Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s “Beginning to Pray.” This time he is talking more generally about what the Christian life looks like, and how Christians are separate from the world, not because we are crazy, but because we are the only ones who are truly sane.
As Christians we are always in tension – in anguish and at the same time in bliss. This is mad, ridiculous. But it is true – accepting the dark night just as we accept the brilliance of the day. We have to make an act of surrender – if I am in Christ, there are moments when I must share the cry of the Lord on the cross and the anguish in the garden of Gethsemane. There is a way of being defeated, even in our faith – and this is a way of sharing the anguish of the Lord. I don’t believe that we should ever say, ‘This cannot happen to you.’ If we are Christians we should go through this life, accepting the life and the world, not trying to create a falsified world.
But, on the other hand, the Christian is like someone who lives in three dimensions in a world in which the majority of people live in two. People who live freely and within a dimension of eternity will always find that something is wrong, they will always find themselves being the odd man out. The same problem was faced by the early Christians when they said that their only king was God. People turned round to them and said, ‘If you say that you are disloyal to our king’ and often persecuted them. But the only true way of being loyal to this two-dimensional world is to be loyal to the three-dimensional world, because in reality the world is three-dimensional. If you really live in three dimensions and do not simply live in two and imagine the third, then life will be full and meaningful. The early Christians were able to do it and Christians today are also able to do that.
Beginning to Pray – pg. 18-19
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should note the idea that the revelation of Jesus Christ is the true reality; it makes no sense to those who choose to believe that only what they can see really exists. We might note, too, that this quickly becomes driven by what people choose to see. Christians allow the Lord to open their eyes, and then follow Him and are faithful to Him.)
2) What do we learn about God in this story?
3) What do we learn about human beings in this story?
4) What do you find difficult about this story? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this story make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 3 (Friday)
Luke 10:25-42
Last time we saw Jesus send out the 70 Apostles, and when they came back He talked to them about how God always chooses to reveal Himself and work through simple, weak, ignorant, and even foolish people, and how finally, what had been desired by all the great saints of the Old Testament was being revealed to them, those who were following Him and listening to Him. Let’s see what happens next.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Jesus Visits Martha and Mary
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Discussion Questions
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should point out how these two stories illustrate the point Jesus was making before. The lawyer knows the right answer, but he struggles to live it; Jesus shows what it actually looks like to love God and to love our neighbor. Then, He shows Mary and Martha that the things the world thinks are important aren’t as important as listening to and following Him. In both cases, the “normal” rules of the world are turned upside down, as Metropolitan Anthony said in the reading on Day 2.)
2) What do we learn about God in this story? (He doesn’t work in the way that we expect, and He doesn’t care if we know the right answer if we don’t LIVE the right answer).
3) What do we learn about human beings in this story? (We have a very hard time not getting completely mixed up and confused in how we are supposed to follow God).
4) What do you find difficult about this story? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always.).
5) Does this story make you think that you need to change anything in your life? (Hopefully everyone sees that Jesus isn’t just asking us to be “good people.” He wants us to actively and truly follow Him, to be radically changed, to be transformed. That involves doing “good things,” but will as often involve living in a way that drives the people around us nuts, not least because even in living in that way, it will condemn them for their failure to actually follow Jesus).