This week's lectionary readings confront us with the tensions inherent to the life of faith. In our conversation, Fr. Nathaniel and Jim McNeely discusses how the Old Testament readings reveal God working redemption through unexpected means - using pagan King Cyrus to restore Jerusalem and the exiles. The New Testament passages remind us that though we were dead in trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ by grace through faith.

We explore how true faith is not detached resignation, but a grappling with real desires, suffering, and seemingly impossible situations. Like Abraham, we are called to a scandalous persistence, trusting God even when His path seems offensive or foolish to human wisdom.

The Psalms depict the people of God caught between lament and praise, desolation and hope in God's vindication. John's Gospel shows the disciples struggling between confusion and devotion as Jesus teaches in increasingly paradoxical ways.

Our dialogue keeps circling back to this "strange stuckness" of faith - how we want God to meet our expectations, yet He remains inscrutable, working all things according to His sovereign purposes. As we make our Lenten journey, we are invited to release our demands and cling to Christ, the stumbling block who alone can reconcile us to the Father.

Join us for a rich discussion of what it means to persist in faith through tension, uncertainty, and trials that mock the very reality of God's presence and love. Together we will nurture hope in the God who revives the dead and causes all things, even our sufferings, to work together for good.