Living the Lectionary is a weekly devotional tool intended to give you ideas for living out the Word of God that we encounter on Sundays in worship.
About this Season and Series:
About this coming Sunday: Reformation Sunday – The Priesthood of the Lamb – A big part of the Reformation was setting God’s people free from the erroneous idea that they needed any “other priest” other than Jesus. Law: We, like the people of the Reformation, are in need of a clear Gospel that declares our freedom from human priests who have the tendency to distort God’s will. Gospel: We need only one priest, our High Priest, the Lamb of God who was given to us in sacrifice upon the Cross. 
Sundays After Pentecost/”The Gift of the Lamb” – The long season of the Sundays after Pentecost are split up into series here at University Lutheran, in the last weeks of this long season, we turn to a sermon series based on the Book of Hebrews called “The Gift of the Lamb”.
Reflecting on the Readings (readings are linked to text onESVbible.com)
Jeremiah 31:7-9– Exile in Reverse – Jeremiah writes about the return of exiles to Israel after the Babylonian exile. Interestingly, God wishes to bring people back that the Babylonians probably wouldn’t have tried to transfer in the first place (blind, pregnant, etc). How does God’s inclusion of these people inform your view of Him?
Psalm 126– A Reformation Psalm – The Reformation was a time of restoration in the Church. While not a particularly “missional” or “evangelistic” movement, the clarity of the Gospel that fueled the Reformation caused the Church to grow in ways it had not seen before. How might God renew His Church once again today in a way that matches the language of Psalm 126?
Hebrews 7:23-28 – A Perfect Priest – The writer of Hebrews compares Jesus with the Levitical priesthood, saying that Jesus is the perfection of what an earthly priest should be like. Reformation theology tells us that we are all priests, people who intercede for others. How are you being a priest patterned after Jesus’ priesthood?
Mark 10:23-31– Faith and Followership – Jesus heals the blind man, Bartimaeus, and then Bartimaeus follows Him. This is a clear example of the connection between faith and following Jesus. How does it compare with your faith or your followership?
Living the Lectionary Ideas
Learn: What was the Reformation about? Learn more at http://lutheranreformation.org/
Do: To be a priest is to be someone who intercedes for another. Christians especially intercede for others in prayer. How might you pray with someone this week and intercede before God with them?
Live: The Reformation broke open many of the doors that had been previously closed to those who were not the “religious elite”. How might you engender the same character of equality for all people?