Meditation by the Reverend D. Scott Russell
Chaplain, The Canterbury House: Episcopal Chapel and Student Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Jesus was in the habit of flipping things, not just tables in the Temple during Holy Week, but throughout his ministry, often through his teaching. His words and actions confounded expectations, flipping the script instead of tables as it were. Jesus touched the untouchable, embraced the unclean, challenged the confident, and comforted those with no reason to hope. Jesus would talk with anyone, even if by doing so, eyebrows would be raised: a Samaritan woman, several tax collectors, women with questionable reputations, a Pharisee full of questions, and even a rich young ruler with everything to lose. But it would be in his parables that Jesus most often flipped the script: a Samaritan becomes the hero, a profligate son is celebrated, and widow who wound up giving more than the rich men who didn’t even notice her.

Meditation by the Reverend Sean A. Ekberg
Rector, Episcopal Church of the Resurrection
Diocese of Oklahoma

We weren’t created to suffer. I know that might come as a shock to some of you given the chaotic last…few centuries...but it’s true. Being created in the imago Dei, our lives were and continue to be intended to reflect the likeness and love of God. God’s perichoresis—the divine dance between the three persons of the Trinity—is a heavenly waltz of pure and unfiltered love for each person involved, while also existing ‘of one being’.

Meditation by the Very Reverend Michael Panzarella
Priest-in-Charge, Grace-St. Paul’s, Mercerville and Holy Apostles, Yardville

The Gospels are filled with reversals of expectation.  Today’s Gospel in Luke brings to light the reversals surrounding the expectation of who is the Christ, or what the Messiah will do.  Seasonally, we are the beginning of our Lenten journey, but Luke tells us Jesus already foreshadows the impending work of Salvation upon the Cross, placing the end at Good Friday in our minds.

Meditation by the Reverend Canon Susanna Cates
Canon for Formation and Vocation
Diocese of New Jersey

Many years ago, I visited Sonora Caverns out in Texas. During one part of the tour, we were far underground and the cave guide turned off all the lights. Immediately a blackness that was so complete it nearly had weight to it surrounded us. I couldn’t remember what our surroundings were. Were there stairs behind me? A rail? A shelf of rock? Or was all that in front of us?