Brother Lawrence, a reading and a momententary lapse of reason....

"There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.
"
— Brother Lawrence

John 5:1-24; After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids--blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk."And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed."But he answered them, "The man who healed me, that man said to me, 'Take up your bed, and walk.'"They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk'?"Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you."The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Press on, press in... Don't ask what He would do, do what He did.... Honor Him in your mind (what you think), in your heart (what you love), in your body (what you do), and in your spirit (what you worship).... In doing so you will give honor to Jesus, and Glory to our Father in Heaven.... and remind me (lovingly of course) when I fall short of that - you have my permission....

Todays reading and a final Merton moment

John 4 Study this Passage

31. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, "Rabbi, eat."
32. But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."
33. So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?"
34. Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
35. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.
36. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
37. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.'
38. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
39. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did."
40. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.
41. And many more believed because of his word.
42. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world."
43. After the two days he departed for Galilee.
44. (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.)
45. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.
46. So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill.
47. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
48. So Jesus said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe."
49. The official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies."
50. Jesus said to him, "Go; your son will live." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.
51. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering.
52. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him."
53. The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." And he himself believed, and all his household.
54. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

"Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair."
— Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island)

Merton, my meandering thought and today's reading....

"Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon."
— Thomas Merton (The hidden ground of love: The letters of Thomas Merton on religious experience and social concerns)

This is one of my favorite ... and most challenging encounters with Jesus in Scripture. Favorite because he challenges all social norms in reaching across social, racial, and gender lines to listen and speak into the wounded heart of another. Challenging because of what His actions and example demand of me as I struggle to walk in obedience..... How's it hit you?

John 4:1-30

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John

2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples),

3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

4 And he had to pass through Samaria.

5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."

8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock."

13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."

16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."

17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband';

18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true."

19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."

21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things."

26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?"

28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people,

29 "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?"

30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Thomas Merton and todays reading

"But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question."
— Thomas Merton

John 3:22-36

John the Baptist Exalts Christ

22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing.

23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized

24 (for John had not yet been put in prison).

25 Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification.

26 And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness--look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him."

27 John answered, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.'

29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.

30 He must increase, but I must decrease."

31 He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all.

32 He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.

33 Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.

34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.

35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Thomas Merton and todays reading

"To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name."
— Thomas Merton

John 3:1-21

You Must Be Born Again

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

2 This man came to Jesusby night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him."

3 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'

8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?"

10 Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God So Loved the World

16 "For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."