For this special episode we’re reading the Narrative Lectionary texts for both Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in John 19:23-42. The text opens with two starkly different scenes set at the foot of the cross where Jesus is dying. On the one side, Roman soldiers gamble to see who gets to keep Jesus’s nice garment, indifferent to the agony of the one they are executing. At the same time, on the other side of the cross, unfolds a tender scene in which Jesus stitches together a new relationship between his mother and the beloved disciple, creating a new family, formed at the foot of the cross. Which group will we join, we wonder. Those who fight over scraps while ignoring our own cruelty, or those who are knit together in unexpected ways by the God of love?

This week, for Palm Sunday, we are juxtaposing two texts, set less than a week apart, but with a veritable eternity between them: Jesus’s celebrated entry into Jerusalem in John 12:12-27, and his crucifixion later that same week, in John 19:16b-22. Both texts are powerful, but the juxtaposition of them holds them each in new light. We feel the jubilant joy and hope in John 12, but we notice now that this joyful text also pulls in the specific encouragement that we mustn’t be afraid. We notice how the idea of kingship floats atop both texts, once in the mouths of Jesus’s followers, once written by the hand of Pilate – but what do they mean? And we see how doing the hard thing – the right, hard thing – in any given moment, pays dividends of good into the world, into the future ... But it’s not always the easeful, Disney movie kind of good. Don't be afraid indeed.

This week we’re reading a painfully difficult text, the continuation of Jesus’s trial before Pilate as told in John 19:1-16a. Here we find the religious leaders coercing Pilate into executing Jesus by accusing him of disloyalty to the Empire. “We have no king but the emperor,” they say, betraying the very essence of their religious faith. This text serves as a caution for us about the ways proximity to power can corrupt religious faith, tempting Christians to hand over Jesus ourselves in pursuit of our own interests, whether motivated by ambition or fear. Amy also reminds of the particular dangers of this text for the Jewish community, cautioning us to tread lightly with its anti-Semitic tropes, which have caused such harm through the centuries. It is a difficult but urgent task we have before us today.

Today we are reading John 18:28-40 - Jesus has been brought to the Roman authority by the religious authorities, and *all* the authorities mostly seem eager to make this situation go away. The story made us wonder - Why is it so very hard to speak what is true? How can it be that the intersection of religion and political power in this story seems to make it even harder? We might think that in a criminal case, one would focus on establishing the facts. And that in a religious system, getting to the truth of things would be first and foremost on everyone’s mind. But in this story, this is not what's true, and we can only wish this bore no resemblance to the world we know.

This week we’re reading Peter’s denial of Jesus as told in John 18:12-27. In what may be one of the most challenging discussions we’ve ever had, we discuss the moral injury that accrues, for Peter and for ourselves, when we encounter the gap between who we thought we were and who we turn out to be in life’s most challenging moments. We think about the incremental decisions that lead Peter to denying both Jesus and his own true self, the well-meaning denials that seem to start out innocently enough but build until Peter has rejected Jesus altogether. We notice that when the rooster crows in John’s version of this story, Peter doesn’t even notice, so little has he even realized what he has done. When the rooster crows for us, we wonder, what will we notice?

Today we are reading John 13:1-17, the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples as they head into the day before Passover. The story is just steeped in relationship – Jesus's relationship to God as he prepares to return to God, and Jesus’s deep connection to the people who are here with him on earth. How do these things fit together? Why does Jesus’s awareness of the power he derives from his relationship to God cause him to disrobe and don a towel and wash the feet of his students? Is this about cleansing, or hospitality? How can it prepare them for what is to come?

This week we’re reading the story of the raising of Lazarus as told in John 11:1-53. We think about the disciples, so keenly aware of the threat to Jesus’s life but willing to follow him anyway, living in the light for as long as there is light to live in. And we ponder Mary’s words that bring Jesus to tears, as she invites him to experience the realities of human death and sorrow, saying to him what he has said to so many—“Come and see.” And we notice the threat that life brings to the Empire, as immediately after Lazarus walks out of the tomb the elites begin plotting to kill Jesus for the sake of the nation. A rich text in troubled times.

For our Ash Wednesday episode, we are reading John 10:1-18 and, I’m not going to lie, wishing we had a lot more experience with sheep herding and sheep folds. We wonder – who are these robbers and thieves climbing over the fence, and what kind of fence is this if robbers and thieves can just skip the gate entirely? What difference does it make that the shepherd walks out ahead of the flock, where he can lead and guide, but can’t really keep an eye on the sheep or attune to the surrounding dangers in the same way? What does Jesus mean when he refers to his *own* sheep – might there be sheep in the fold who are not his own? And after talking up all this trust and care and deep connection between the shepherd and his own sheep – whaddya mean the shepherd has other flocks too? It seems like this intimacy is not the gatekeeping kind.