A great article to help us in our Lenten journey.
Ash Wednesday: Practice Truth-Telling
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Friday Five: Mid-Lent Check-In
Sophia wrote:The pastor of my grad school parish once gave a fascinating reflection, at about this mid-point in the season, called "How to Survive the Mid-Lent Crisis"! As I recall, his main point was that by halfway through the season we have often found it very challenging to live up to our original plans....But, he suggested--on the analogy of the healing and reframing of our life plans that can happen during a mid-*life* crisis--that that can be even more fruitful.
So here's an invitation to check in on the state of your spirit midway through "this joyful season where we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed" (Roman Missal). Hopefully there's a good deal of grace, and not too much crisis, in your mid-Lenten experience!
1. Did you give up, or take on, anything special for Lent this year?
I took on something, increased attentiveness to hear God's voice, to quiet myself to listen, especially through lectio divina. A group of us gather 3 mornings a week for that and God's presence has been almost tangible in our time together.
2. Have you been able to stay with your original plans, or has life gotten in the way?
Not 100%, but pretty much I've been able to stay with my original plan.
3. Has God had any surprising blessings for you during this Lent?
Absolutely, there have been 2 in particular. I have not been as wound up and obsessed inside about my school work and have been able to enjoy being in the moment with family and friends. The second is that wonderful sense of God's nearness and presence.
4. What is on your inner and/or outer agenda for the remainder of Lent and Holy Week?
For my inner agenda, I just want to be open to God and the multiple surprises in this journey of faith. Part of my outer agenda will be the stations of the cross, which I have never participated in.
5. Where do you most long to see resurrection, in your life and/or in the world, this Easter?
In my life I long to see resurrection in remembering why I'm at seminary and God's baptismal call in each of our lives. For the world, I long to see it impacted by the reign of God through God's people sharing God's love.
Bonus: Share a favorite scripture, prayer, poem, artwork, or musical selection that speaks Lenten spring to your heart.
What Wondrous Love is This.
flickr picture
Call and relationship
God calls, we respond. Gifted for Leadership has a post reminding us of the relational nature of God's call. It goes beyond a career. I am grateful to be reminded of what should be the obvious, particularly during Holy Week. What Wondrous Love is This!
Check out Phyllis Tickle's post
Phyllis Tickle has written a number of books on fixed hour prayer. She now has a blog and today's post is particularly relevant to those of us observing Lent. It can be found at http://blog.beliefnet.com/thedivinehoursoflent/2008/02/wednesday-february-13-2008.html.
Blessings.
Blessings.
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God Sightings
Once again The Lutheran has some insightful articles apropos for Lent. Check out "God Sightings."
February 2008 issue
February 2008 issue
God sightings Make it your Lenten practice to watch for God's activity Where I live in the beautiful north woods of Wisconsin, restaurants still serve fish on Friday nights. I wonder if anyone thinks of sacrifice these days while eating walleye. I also wonder what people think about during Lent in 2008. All rituals can be empty or inspiring depending on clarity and earnestness. Here’s a suggestion: Let’s all give up mistrusting God for Lent. Wouldn’t that be worth a Hallelujah chorus or two? How would we even start trusting, you might be thinking? Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (famous for several things, including the term “cheap grace”) suggested that trust follows obedience. Likewise, obedience follows trust. If we trust that what Jesus said is true, we will act. If you act on God’s behalf, you will see that God can multiply your efforts. If you separate trust and obedience, the church quickly becomes a mere social gathering with a tired conscience and good intentions.  Let’s get more specific. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could experience spiritual renewal this Lent as easily as King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:14)? His servants brought up a dusty old book from the basement that turned out to be the Scriptures. He read it and called for immediate national repentance and a “return to the Lord.”Can you imagine the king thinking: “Oh, did God mean every Sabbath? Uh ... what exactly does ‘humble yourself before God’ mean? Whoops, I’m not sure I trust God, but I believe God exists. Is that enough? Hmm … I thought ‘grace’ meant I don’t have to worry about obedience? Really? I thought everyone went to heaven.” What would it mean for us to confess and “return to the Lord”? I suspect any attempt at spiritual growth and change will begin with Bible study and prayer. If we take a good look at what Jesus came to do (besides die), we might also get a clearer look at what God is still doing in the world. If we begin to see that God is, in fact, still specifically active in the world, it will refuel us to more resurrection life than we can imagine. I believe that at the heart of our infamous Lutheran shyness is insecurity about claiming anything but grace in the name of Christ. It’s not that we are genetically silent or evangelically impaired. I think we aren’t quite sure where and how to look for what my sister-in-law calls “God sightings.” When I spent time studying the book of Isaiah a couple of years ago, I was prompted to write Holy Purpose: The Blessings of Service, Obedience, and Faith for the “Lutheran Voices” series (Augsburg Fortress, 2007). I wanted to help people have more confidence in seeing where God has been in their pasts and in their present. If I could retitle the book now, I’d call it “A Field Guide for God Watching.” The cover art would be a picture of people in bird-watching gear: the scared, the excited, the puzzled and, of course, the bored teenager waiting in the car with headphones on—all watching for the elusive migration of the Spirit. Once you begin to trust what many dismiss as spiritual coincidences, it becomes difficult to keep what you’ve seen to yourself. That is “witness” in the best sense of the word. You have to have a story to tell before you can talk convincingly about God. Looking through the lens of what I would call “the Messiah’s job description” in Isaiah (42:1-9, 61:1-2), I began to ask people: Have you experienced God’s wisdom when you prayed for guidance and good judgment? (God cares about justice, both fairness and good judgment). Have you ever thought you didn’t have strength to make it through some difficult time? When you prayed for strength, did you receive it? (God strengthens the weak.) Have you ever walked in the valley of the shadows and lost hope for the future? Did you believe you were at a dead end and suddenly found yourself at a spaghetti junction? (Jesus brought hope to the hopeless, including the dying.) Finally, and these are the hardest God sightings to share because of the pain and guilt associated with them: When have you had a wholehearted experience of guilt and shame lifted from your life? (Jesus came to forgive and release those who could only ask for mercy.) When you have some guidance for prayer and reflection, like the four categories in Isaiah, you’ll find the Spirit can begin to reveal where God has been answering prayers and sending you divine assistance. When I road-tested this idea with people in our congregation, I saw awareness and excitement dawn in the eyes of many. The stories, and tears, began to flow. When people talk about “God sightings,” it encourages their joy and my faith. Here are some real life stories from Wisconsin: • “I’m not sure why I was prompted to get involved with Habitat for Humanity. Must have been a God thing.”If you would like to trust God more, start with prayer. Here are some things we can learn from Martin Luther about prayer, in various passages from The Book of Concord: “The prerequisite to trusting that God will hear the cries of our hearts is an earnest desire to be obedient. This is the first and most important point, that all our prayers must be based on obedience to God, regardless of our person, whether we be sinners or saints, worthy or unworthy. “Where there is true prayer there must be earnestness. “It is our duty to pray because God has commanded it. “Pray earnestly and very specifically.” When you pray specifically, you give God an opportunity to encourage you with answered prayers. Pray for more faith, which is trust that God answers prayer and keeps promises. Pray for God to give you an undivided heart, the will to be obedient. Pray for eyes to see where God has given you wisdom, encouraged you to consider your responsibility for those with few resources or ability to improve their lives, given you strength from outside yourself, brought hope to what seemed like a hopeless situation, and took the worst moments of your life and used them for holy purposes. Those are good places to begin to look for “God sightings” this Lent. But don’t take my word for it, ask God. |
But God Can
Over breakfast I was looking though the latest issue of The Lutheran and came across this article.
Story by Glen A. Bengson
'But God can'
Ash Wednesday reminds us God renews, reforms, revives our lives
I had baptized 4-year-old Sarah and her brother some months before and was visiting the family to see how things were going. “Has Sarah mentioned anything about the experience?” I asked her mother.
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “She said the pastor made a cross on her forehead. I told her, ‘But you can’t see it now.’
“‘But God can,’ replied Sarah.”
When the ashes of Ash Wednesday welcome us into the disciplines of Lent and Christian life, we begin that 40-day journey of repentance and renewal confident that, indeed, “God can.” God can bring life out of death. God can join water and word, bread and wine, repentance and forgiveness, and cross and community to fashion a new beginning and a new people in Christ. God can renew and reform and revive my life because of Jesus.
The sign of the cross we share marks us as one body witnessing to God’s gracious presence. We bear the sign of our baptism as we receive those ashes. We enter the baptismal life of daily repentance, as Martin Luther reminded the church in the first of those famous 95 Theses: “When our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he meant the whole life of the believer to be one of repentance.”
Lent begins with that invitation to renewed repentance, to submit once more to what only God can do with sinners: turn them into saints. Lent has historically been the time of baptismal preparation—baptism celebrated as the sun rose on Easter morn, baptism into the Risen Lord for a daily journey of faith, hope and love.
Sarah was too young to know the full implications of that water, those words and that sign. But by the power of the Spirit, active through family, sponsors and congregation, she grew to trust that the promise of God in Christ was for her. “God can.”
Ash Wednesday leads us into the Lenten disciplines of faith, the practices of Christian life that reflect the presence of Christ in our life. The Gospel text for Ash Wednesday is Matthew 6:1-6 , 16-21. Jesus calls his disciples to give, pray and fast—without fanfare, without trumpets blaring and without grumpy faces.
But Jesus does assume they will do them: “When you give … when you pray … when you fast.” The caution is to do these traditional disciplines in ways that honor God and serve the neighbor, rather than bringing attention to the disciple.
“When you give alms” challenges us to use the gifts God has placed in our hands to empower others. Our giving may begin with thoughts of charity but the goal is the strengthening of the lives of others so they also serve God and their neighbor.
Whether it is money given to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal; time dedicated to volunteer efforts at the local food pantry, feeding program or Habitat for Humanity project; or the yield from the annual spring cleaning given to a neighborhood clothes closet—our giving seeks to serve the neighbor God has first given us.
And “giving alms” may mean other ministry as well. How about those who give up vacations for mission trips to Honduras, the Gulf Coast or their own nearby inner city? We serve, and hopefully learn, as we experience in a new way the lives of people both different and the same as ourselves.
Call to loving community
“When you pray” invites us to open our hearts and lives to the movement of God’s Spirit, to commend our world to God’s care and to ask God’s leading to discover the ministry that our neighbor may need. This seems to be the breadth of the prayer Jesus taught those first disciples. When you pray, give thanks for and place yourself at the service of God’s kingdom and will and have confidence in the Lord’s care even to the end. At the prayer’s center, the petitions for “daily bread” and “forgiveness” call us into loving community in the Lord who gives and forgives.
Our prayers may take many forms. We pray around family tables filled with the signs of God’s gracious love, both food and each other. We gather for the more formal prayers of Sunday morning, culminating in the Great Thanksgiving of the whole people of God for the greatest gift of all.
The words that “Jesus took the bread, blessed, broke and gave it” to be shared by all who are hungry for hope recall the miraculous feedings of the thousands. We remember that “Give us today our daily bread” is a prayer for not only me—but for all with whom I share this great blue ball of life.
Another kind of prayer may enter our minds—the active prayer of our advocacy for those who hunger or have other needs. God promises the words to speak to those in power and positions of influence that God’s advocacy for the “least of these,” our brothers and sisters, may be heard. Public policies shaped for the good of all people call forth prayers of praise and thanksgiving.
Down to earth
“When you fast” brings us back down to earth. These words connect us once again to our dependence on God for all that enables life. We are dust. Only the breath of God’s Spirit gives life.
Fasting means far more than striving for a smaller waistline or even healthier eating habits. How can we not “fast” when so many go hungry, unable to enjoy our luxury of voluntary fasting? How can we not fast when earth cries out for relief from the burdens of greater and grander human demands on its resources? How can we not fast when we find ourselves succumbing to the tempting come-ons of consumerism?
Fasting is about disciplining our personal lifestyle as well as our corporate behavior as stewards of God’s creation.
In the Jewish Passover liturgy, one of the refrains of the prayers is dayenu, meaning “it would have been enough.” (“Had God brought us out of Egypt and not divided the sea for us, dayenu; had God brought us to Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah, dayenu.”)
God always provides enough. Fasting helps us to connect once again with the “enough” we receive from God. When you fast, you commit yourself to work so all your neighbors on earth might experience God’s “enough” for their lives.
Perhaps these Lenten disciplines might serve as a “catechism” for intentional life in Jesus’ name. We are dust, but precious dust, enlivened by the breath of the Spirit. We are marked by the sign of the cross, washed in water, shaped by the word, fed at the table.
In our fasting we feast on the promises of our Savior. In our prayers we offer ourselves in his service, even as we acknowledge our utter dependence on God’s grace and power.
We know it is a big commitment to accept the disciplines of Lent. We confess we may not be able to see the results very clearly.
But God can.
http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article.cfm?article_id=6955&id=1
Story by Glen A. Bengson
'But God can'
Ash Wednesday reminds us God renews, reforms, revives our lives
I had baptized 4-year-old Sarah and her brother some months before and was visiting the family to see how things were going. “Has Sarah mentioned anything about the experience?” I asked her mother.
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “She said the pastor made a cross on her forehead. I told her, ‘But you can’t see it now.’
“‘But God can,’ replied Sarah.”
When the ashes of Ash Wednesday welcome us into the disciplines of Lent and Christian life, we begin that 40-day journey of repentance and renewal confident that, indeed, “God can.” God can bring life out of death. God can join water and word, bread and wine, repentance and forgiveness, and cross and community to fashion a new beginning and a new people in Christ. God can renew and reform and revive my life because of Jesus.The sign of the cross we share marks us as one body witnessing to God’s gracious presence. We bear the sign of our baptism as we receive those ashes. We enter the baptismal life of daily repentance, as Martin Luther reminded the church in the first of those famous 95 Theses: “When our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he meant the whole life of the believer to be one of repentance.”
Lent begins with that invitation to renewed repentance, to submit once more to what only God can do with sinners: turn them into saints. Lent has historically been the time of baptismal preparation—baptism celebrated as the sun rose on Easter morn, baptism into the Risen Lord for a daily journey of faith, hope and love.
Sarah was too young to know the full implications of that water, those words and that sign. But by the power of the Spirit, active through family, sponsors and congregation, she grew to trust that the promise of God in Christ was for her. “God can.”
Ash Wednesday leads us into the Lenten disciplines of faith, the practices of Christian life that reflect the presence of Christ in our life. The Gospel text for Ash Wednesday is Matthew 6:1-6 , 16-21. Jesus calls his disciples to give, pray and fast—without fanfare, without trumpets blaring and without grumpy faces.
But Jesus does assume they will do them: “When you give … when you pray … when you fast.” The caution is to do these traditional disciplines in ways that honor God and serve the neighbor, rather than bringing attention to the disciple.
“When you give alms” challenges us to use the gifts God has placed in our hands to empower others. Our giving may begin with thoughts of charity but the goal is the strengthening of the lives of others so they also serve God and their neighbor.
Whether it is money given to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal; time dedicated to volunteer efforts at the local food pantry, feeding program or Habitat for Humanity project; or the yield from the annual spring cleaning given to a neighborhood clothes closet—our giving seeks to serve the neighbor God has first given us.
And “giving alms” may mean other ministry as well. How about those who give up vacations for mission trips to Honduras, the Gulf Coast or their own nearby inner city? We serve, and hopefully learn, as we experience in a new way the lives of people both different and the same as ourselves.
Call to loving community
“When you pray” invites us to open our hearts and lives to the movement of God’s Spirit, to commend our world to God’s care and to ask God’s leading to discover the ministry that our neighbor may need. This seems to be the breadth of the prayer Jesus taught those first disciples. When you pray, give thanks for and place yourself at the service of God’s kingdom and will and have confidence in the Lord’s care even to the end. At the prayer’s center, the petitions for “daily bread” and “forgiveness” call us into loving community in the Lord who gives and forgives.
Our prayers may take many forms. We pray around family tables filled with the signs of God’s gracious love, both food and each other. We gather for the more formal prayers of Sunday morning, culminating in the Great Thanksgiving of the whole people of God for the greatest gift of all.
The words that “Jesus took the bread, blessed, broke and gave it” to be shared by all who are hungry for hope recall the miraculous feedings of the thousands. We remember that “Give us today our daily bread” is a prayer for not only me—but for all with whom I share this great blue ball of life.
Another kind of prayer may enter our minds—the active prayer of our advocacy for those who hunger or have other needs. God promises the words to speak to those in power and positions of influence that God’s advocacy for the “least of these,” our brothers and sisters, may be heard. Public policies shaped for the good of all people call forth prayers of praise and thanksgiving.
Down to earth
“When you fast” brings us back down to earth. These words connect us once again to our dependence on God for all that enables life. We are dust. Only the breath of God’s Spirit gives life.
Fasting means far more than striving for a smaller waistline or even healthier eating habits. How can we not “fast” when so many go hungry, unable to enjoy our luxury of voluntary fasting? How can we not fast when earth cries out for relief from the burdens of greater and grander human demands on its resources? How can we not fast when we find ourselves succumbing to the tempting come-ons of consumerism?
Fasting is about disciplining our personal lifestyle as well as our corporate behavior as stewards of God’s creation.
In the Jewish Passover liturgy, one of the refrains of the prayers is dayenu, meaning “it would have been enough.” (“Had God brought us out of Egypt and not divided the sea for us, dayenu; had God brought us to Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah, dayenu.”)
God always provides enough. Fasting helps us to connect once again with the “enough” we receive from God. When you fast, you commit yourself to work so all your neighbors on earth might experience God’s “enough” for their lives.
Perhaps these Lenten disciplines might serve as a “catechism” for intentional life in Jesus’ name. We are dust, but precious dust, enlivened by the breath of the Spirit. We are marked by the sign of the cross, washed in water, shaped by the word, fed at the table.
In our fasting we feast on the promises of our Savior. In our prayers we offer ourselves in his service, even as we acknowledge our utter dependence on God’s grace and power.
We know it is a big commitment to accept the disciplines of Lent. We confess we may not be able to see the results very clearly.
But God can.
http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article.cfm?article_id=6955&id=1
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