By Ben Cluff, Lay Preacher Numbers 21:4-9 Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21 Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in thy site, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Good morning - Here we are at this 4 th Sunday of Lent, known as Laetare Sunday. According to the Episcopal Church glossary, the naming of this Sunday as Laetare Sunday, “is derived from the opening words of the Latin Mass, “Rejoice Jerusalem, Laetare Jerusalem, from Isaiah 66:10. The glossary goes on to state, “ The church is called to joyful anticipation of the victory to be won. This joyful theme provides lightning from the penitential emphasis of Lent. Since the 13 th Century, the celebrant of the Eucharist has been permitted to wear rose-colored vestments which express the change of the tone in the Lenten observance, Rejoice, Celebration! - on that note; Let’s take stock, for a moment of our journey so far this Lent; We began with Jesus, upon being baptized, being driven into the wilderness to face temptation for 40 days and 40 nights. This is followed by Jesus informing his closest that he must undergo great suffering and he will be rejected by elders, chief priests, and scribes. And when Peter takes issue with this, Jesus rebukes him, telling Peter, “You're setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” And then, last week, we find Jesus expressing great anger and frustration at the marketplace and money changers in the temple. And now, here at this 4th Sunday of Lent, we encounter God’s expression of Divine Love, shown through Jesus' presence here on earth. In our gospel reading today, Jesus makes reference to our Old Testament reading, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” This link between today’s gospel and Moses' experience in the wilderness has prompted me to reflect on this age-old relationship between God and us humans, here on earth. It certainly has been a back and forth, at times contentious relationship. God’s presence has been constant, and we, I mean the collective we, us humans, have participated in this relationship so diversely. Sometimes we have behaved like petulant children, other times we have behaved as if we are consciously aware that we are recipients of God’s Grace, and at other times we seem so aware that we are recipients of God’s Divine Love, only to return our behavior back to that of petulant children. For example, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” and the turning to Moses - “pray Moses, to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” And God provides a solution, through the bronze serpent. This is just one of so many of our experiences of trying to get our relationship right with God - this ongoing experience of always striving, falling back, striving again - And God’s provision of a variety of means to us, of experiencing God as accessible - for example the rainbow following the flood, the leadership and care of Moses, the covenant with Abraham, and today on Laetare Sunday, we rejoice and celebrate Jesus life, his death, and resurrection and how all of that makes it possible for us to experience God and God's Love as accessible to us. I want to pause here for a moment and invite us to consider the concept of incarnation. There is a book I have found to be a wonderful resource, it is titled “Making Sense of the Christian Faith” by David J. Lose. The format of the book can seem a little hokey; it is a back and forth, question and answer conversation between two people. I would like to offer some selections from that conversation: Author David Lose writes, “Christians confess that, in Jesus, God became human and took on our life and our situation in the world - showing our hopes and dreams, vulnerability and limitations. This is what Christians call the Doctrine of Incarnation.” Incarnation comes from two Latin words, in meaning into and carne meaning flesh, incarnation literally meaning into flesh. David Lose provides two stories that attempt to portray this notion of incarnation, the first comes from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard; “He describes the incarnation as being like a royal king who fell in love with a lowly serving girl. How could the king earn her love? He couldn’t do it by a show of power, or she would be intimidated. And he couldn’t just pour riches on her or decree that she was his equal. Then she might just love him for what he could give her, not for who he really is. So He Became a humble servant like her in order to win her genuine love. For Kierkegaard, that helped explain some of incarnation. It tells us why God became human, even if we can’t understand how. “So Kierkegaard thought that God became human in order to win our love.” “Right” “But God wanted our love for the right reasons. God became human so we wouldn’t love God because we were afraid or just for what God can do for us, but we’d love God for who and what God really is.” “And the other story?” “We are not sure who wrote this story. It is about a man, a farmer who never went to church, even though his wife did regularly. Well, one cold and blustery Christmas Eve, after his wife had again pleaded with him but couldn’t convince him to come with her to church, he was reading comfortably by the fire when he heard a thudding against the windows of their house. He looked out and saw that sparrows trying to get out of the cold, harsh wind and attracted by the light and heat inside, were crashing into the windows of the house. He covered the windows, but that didn’t work. So he decided to put on his coat, gloves, and hat and go out and open his barn doors wide, so the birds could find sanctuary there. But they wouldn’t come in. He put the lights on, but they didn’t come. He spread a trail of cracker crumbs, but they wouldn’t follow. He tried to shoo them in, but that only frightened them more. If only, he thought, I could become a sparrow, for a little while, I could lead them into the barn to safety. And at that moment, he realized that’s what Christmas Eve - the story of God being born as a human - was all about.” “So in this story God comes to us in a form we can recognize and understand, in order to communicate to us and lead us to safety.” “Right. It’s about the gap between humans and God that God decides to close in order to help us.” end quote and thanks to David Lose for these stories. I continue to be amazed, struck by the humanity of Jesus, the earthiness of Jesus. Look at our readings this Lent - temptation, being misunderstood, anger and frustration. Jesus is constantly faced with the inherent tension between the secular and the spiritual. The profound secular context of balance and imbalance of power and control in the society in which he lived. Being understood and misunderstood. Being faced with incredible temptation and experiencing grief. Requiring times of solitude and quiet in order to rest, replenish, reflect, and commune. These human aspects of Jesus time on earth, these are our struggles, our temptations, our human experience. Jesus shares them, participates in them and all the while provides guidance, counsel, and comfort for us. Jesus is the human embodiment of the power of unconditional love, without exception and so very importantly, the means by which we are able to experience God in our lives. As a result of being with us, among us, and yet so very different from us, we are able to realize that God knows our struggles. I am sure we are all able to identify times in our lives when God has seemed so very large and so very distant, and so very separated from our daily lives, our daily struggles. And our journey back, or the change in our perception, or our change in being, has so often been through our re-connection with the notion that Jesus' life on earth guides us back to God. God knows our human struggles and we know this because of Jesus' time on earth; and this, when we are open to it, proves to us, once again, that God is not so large or too distant or so very separate from our daily lives. And if we are open to it, we know through this experience that we are loved and God is there for us and it is by grace-and unmerited love and favor of God. When our conscious contact with God seems good, we become aware of the notion that we are of value simply because we exist - the Grace of God. We are all of value because we exist - no exception. As we live in our secular world; as we encounter the inherent tension between the secular and the spiritual - the balance and imbalance of power and control in our lives - of being understood and misunderstood- of being faced with temptation and grief, of feeling the need for rest, replenishment, time for reflection and communion - We can know that we will always be loved and there will always be a safety net, so to speak, because of God’s Grace. The evidence of that is so poignantly provided us in the life of Jesus on earth. On those days when we are able to be secure in this knowledge, we are able to participate in this world, with those around us, those we know and those we we don’t, in a manner wherein love wins, fear is at bay, all is well. Our preservation, our rescue, our salvation is provided to us through the small details of Jesus life and the large events of his life, death, and resurrection. Laetare Sunday! Rejoice! Celebration! For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Amen. Making Sense of the Christian Faith by David J. Lose
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by David Sund, Lay Preacher Almighty and Loving God, by the power of Your Spirit, may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, in Jesus’ name, Amen! I need your help doing a little Word Association exercise: First, I’ll turn up my hearing aids, now I’ll ask you to shout out your favorite word to describe Jesus: No sentences or phrases, just single words, please. O.K. Begin! What about Angry? Today’s Gospel reading is all about an Angry Jesus! (Time for a big Gulp!) And that brings me to a question. How do you and I ‘come’ to church? I’m not asking whether you drove, walked or peddled here. I’m not asking you show me your literal route with a Smart Phone app. When I ask, “How do you and I come to church?” I want us to examine our states of mind, the condition of our hearts… In everyone’s favorite books of the Hebrew Scriptures: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; every detail of the sacred space (The Tent of Meeting, or Tabernacle) was mandated and there were also lists outlining required minimum attendance. Jacob’s descendants were expected to make pilgrimage to the worship center at least three times a year: Passover, Pentecost (which in the Hebrew Scriptures is a harvest festival), and the Feast of Tabernacles. There were also confusing and exhaustive lists of observances and rites. Over 3,000 years later, modern, western folks like us perceive those practices as uncomfortably strange: (Especially if, like me, you can be a bit squeamish!) But careful study of all these details reveals an elaborate, exquisitely crafted symbolic system that provided object lessons about the nature and character of YHWH, and how God chose to relate to beloved children. Boil down the system to its essence, and you will discover a Deity who sought and instigated relationship with humanity. Here was a truly perfect, supernatural person, offering imperfect humanity a clear, accessible path of discovery and even intimacy. Here was a God who, even with all the dishes, flatware, furniture and drapery; modelled and inspired reconciliation, restoration, justice, integrity and community. Here was a Creator who promised to love, bless, sustain, heal, teach and listen. Each role and rite was an object lesson pointing to a present God who sought out fellowship. This fellowship expressed itself as a lifestyle of love, forgiveness, hope, peace, generosity, honesty, mercy and compassion. Not that the symbolism was always understood or taken to heart. More often than not the job of the prophets was to call for reformation, for renewed commitment, for course correction in the midst of crisis. While so much of Tabernacle and Temple life was prescribed, what wasn’t prescribed was HOW one CAME to worship. Then, in all those familiar Psalms, we finally discover that the state of one’s heart and mind doesn’t seem to matter at all! Fearful? Come to worship. Joyful and Celebratory? Come to worship. Confused and Doubting? Hurt and Offended? Bitter and Vindictive? Angry? Come to worship. Just Come, honestly, as we are, and an encounter with God will (sooner or later) sort it all out. God is enough and more than enough. Showing up at the Temple with honest, if raw emotion brings us back to the Angry Jesus in today’s Gospel narrative. Jesus and his friends arrive at the Temple. Elsewhere in the Gospels we’re told that Jesus’ friends loved this immense, campus: the beautiful, monumental architecture was a source of civic pride. But Jesus, being Jesus, sees beyond the façades and the civic pride and is eager to confront a textbook example of institutional religion run amok. Let me use our sacred space to illustrate what I mean by that. Imagine how you would feel, if you entered this beautiful space next week to find some serious changes that were both concrete and symbolic. How many of you, like me appreciate the reredos and the stained glass? Nope! They are obscured by a heavy tapestry and only the presiding bishop sees them once a year. A wall has been constructed, partitioning off the apse, so that the altar is accessible through a door that can only be entered by the priest in charge. All the pews have been taken out and another wall, with a gate in it, has appeared at about the spot where we are used to the Gospel being read. You can’t get through the gate unless you’re an Episcopalian, born and bred, baptized and confirmed, and male by DNA testing. Women and non-Episcopalians can enter the church but they can’t come through that gate. That’s strange enough, but on top of that some greedy forces are at work which make a God-Encounter all but impossible for women, gentiles and other designated ‘outsiders.’ Furthermore, the space in which they are confined has been co-opted. It’s best described as a commercial and financial circus. The powers that be, intent on institutional maintenance, and eager to line their pockets, insist that you pay for everything: your wafer, your sip from the cup; candles, leaflets, etc. Everything has a price tag. Pledges are due upon entering the narthex. Weirdly there is also a sort of wet-market with special livestock and poultry for sale if you want to celebrate any special occasion on-site. The kicker is that you can’t use regular currency or credit cards for all your purchases: you have to use special “Episco-dollars.” The exchange rate is exorbitant and exploitive. So only people of means can participate. Furthermore, the system isn’t up for debate. The amazing edifice was in danger of becoming a farce. Ritual and regulation have eclipsed relationship. Exclusivity has trumped invitation and community. Justice has been pre-empted by spectacle. Exploitation has commoditized souls. If this worship scenario is distasteful to us, then how could it be anything but infuriating to Jesus? It’s no wonder that Jesus goes all prophetic: turning over tables, liberating livestock, and going full-on Mosaic with the loan sharks. The narrative seems compelled to explain Jesus’ uncharacteristic lashing out with a quote from Psalm 69, “Zeal for Your House has eaten me up.” In which, the psalmist so identifies with God, that when God’s character is besmirched and God’s reputation is tarnished, especially in Temple Worship, the psalmist takes it personally and reacts from the deepest emotional level. What comes to mind when you hear that phrase, “zeal for your house has eaten me up?” Put another way, do you have an “all-consuming passion?” Is there something for which you would tap all cherished resources, exhaust your talents, and invest you time? Is there a dream or goal, with which, you are so identified that IF it’s questioned or challenged you take it personally? For Jesus, that personal investment was all about unimpeded access to, and relationship with, GOD. I suggest that in our text, the “House” of God is about more than just property and geography. The letters of Paul remind us that for Jesus-Followers, God’s precious house, about which Jesus is so passionate, has nothing to do with monumental architecture or institutional maintenance, and everything to do with being vibrant faith communities. Isn’t it awe-inspiring to realize that you, that I, that we are that Spiritual Temple that stirs up the protective passions of Jesus? But also, the text is a warning to honor Jesus’ passion by never trampling the sacred spaces that are the hearts of our spiritual siblings! We must never exploit the vulnerable, exclude marginalized seekers, extinguish the joy of the expectant, manipulate the religious system, commoditize souls, design hurdles to worship, or allow a lust for power or control to motivate “doing church,” or “being church.” Jesus, thank you for all your passions and grant us your passion for all your people! Amen. by Will Harron, Lay Preacher “That Ridiculous Faith Reckoned as Righteousness” The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek God shall praise God: "May your heart live for ever!" I’m currently involved in the world’s slowest bible study. There’s no record-checking to prove this claim, but it certainly feels true. For the past year or so, my friend Bird and I have been meeting on a voice call to read through the book of Genesis. It started out weekly, but we’ve both lost track of our schedules, and so are meeting much less regularly at the moment. But the bible study was also slow because we were taking our time. Each time we met, we’d read through a chapter out loud, spend some time in silence, and then spend a half hour or so reflecting on the text. Genesis is 50 chapters long, so this is not a fast process – and Bird and I are nearly at the end. But this study has given me a certain familiarity with the text, a joyful connection to this story and its characters; its families; and its promises. And so, reading through this morning’s lesson from Genesis, I was struck by some of what is included, and what is excluded from the portion. As the lesson shares, Abram is ninety-nine years old and the Lord appears to him and announces that God will make a covenant with Abram. Abram, in deference to God, falls on his face, and God continues: this covenant will make Abram the ancestor of a multitude of great nations, great in both the numerical sense and in the power exercised by those descendants. Abram will now be called Abraham, and his wife Sarai is now to be called Sarah, and she will be blessed by giving birth to a son. The lesson skips over 8 verses that detail that the sign of this covenant is circumcision, and the mechanics of how that sign is carried out, which is fine, but it also ends at verse 16, which I find interesting. In verse 17, Abraham reacts to this pronunciation by once again falling on his face, but this time in laughter. “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” There is a comedic resonance to Abram, falling down on his face before God both in awe and wonder as well as in the throes of hilarity. That makes me wonder, why is our lesson structured this way? What were the framers of the lectionary up to? Sometimes our lessons from the first testament flow in a continuous story, especially in the long stretches of Sundays after Pentecost. In Lent, in Year B of our cycle of readings, however, the first testament lessons serve to echo themes found in the later lesson or the Gospel reading. Today’s portion from the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans gives the key to what this particular selection from Genesis is highlighting. There is a pretty direct connection between the two. Paul is talking about faith – specifically about Abraham’s faith – being what connects us to God’s promises, rather than following laws. This is how he explains it: Abraham lived before the covenant of laws that God made with Moses. Despite not having those laws to follow, he was worthy of God’s promise. Thus, Paul writes, following the law of the covenant isn’t the key thing to being worthy of God’s promise – instead, Paul writes to his audience of Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ in Rome, what is most important is faith. Paul is being a little tricky, playing a little fast and loose with the story to make his point. This morning’s lesson is just one part of a complicated argument Paul is making about the unity of the emerging Christian community, and about the bonds of that unity. He is trying to do something very challenging, to weave ties between the different and feuding communities of Christ-followers in Rome, trying to summon connections that can transcend the previous markers of community, and can also transcend previous grudges and bad feelings – the things that separated one body of believers from another. This is challenging at the best of times, and he’s doing this from across the Mediterranean in a letter dictated to Tertius and read aloud in Rome by Phoebe. So we can perhaps forgive him for fudging some minor details in order to make a larger point – Abraham believed in God’s promises and it was reckoned to him as righteousness; therefore, according to Paul, we who believe in God’s actions in raising Christ from the dead are also connected to that faith which is righteousness. That concept is a tough one to wrap my mind around. “Faith reckoned as righteousness.” What does that even mean, for faith to be reckoned the same as righteousness? My mind immediately resists the concept, thinking of contemporary examples of blind faith leading to catastrophic results. Was that righteousness? How many pieces of our broken world, fragments of the nightmare made from God’s dream, are the result of faith in something death-dealing being treated as righteousness? So, Paul, you’ve got me in a double bind. Because, thinking back to Abraham – and that verse which was omitted from our lectionary - Abraham immediately laughs at God’s promise. Abraham immediately treats it as ridiculous. He falls on his face laughing. “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” What does it mean for us that in the text of Genesis, Abraham questions God’s promise, even as Paul makes the claim that “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old).” Paul is no fool – even when we disagree with him, we must give him credit as a skilled interpreter of scripture. What, exactly, is Paul doing here? Let’s carry that question with us to the Gospel lesson. Our Lenten gospel lessons, in one week, have hopped halfway through Mark. We’re now in chapter 8. Just before this passage, Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was, and Peter confessed his belief, his faith, that Jesus was the Messiah, a promised, anointed deliverer of the people Israel from colonized oppression. Nodding, Jesus tells them that he must undergo suffering, be rejected by the religious authorities, be killed, and to rise again three days later. Peter, perhaps emboldened by the experience of confessing faith in his teacher’s divine status, steps forward again, takes Jesus aside, and rebukes him. That’s not what the Messiah means. Suffering, rejection, death – those aren’t the plot points of the saving of the world. Those are what Peter already sees around him. His faith demands more. Perhaps he doesn’t register Jesus rising on the third day – perhaps it is too ludicrous to consider, or the audacity of the claim underscores the need to get Jesus on message, to keep being the Messiah Peter believes in. Jesus won’t have this. “Turning, and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ Let’s pause here. This can land with a shock. Peter has just expressed two moments of tender vulnerability with Jesus – first confessing faith in him, then privately pushing back against claims he doesn’t think are fruitful. And Jesus rebukes him and calls him Satan in front of the other disciples. But I believe it is fruitful to dig some more at this. For one, if you recall from last week’s Gospel lesson, Jesus has met Satan. Jesus has experienced being tempted, being accused, being asked to set aside who he truly is for what the world and society around him think the Son of God should act like:
This, to Jesus, is Satan. And so, he rebukes Peter. This is not the way. This is not divine. This is not what Messiah means. And Jesus calls the crowd, speaking to and beyond his disciples – to follow him is to deny oneself, to take up their cross and follow him towards his death. Trying to save your life will fail, but letting go of that fear, stepping with Jesus across the chasm of pain, rejection, humiliation, and death – will bring life, will save life. What good is gaining the whole world – the goal of princes and generals and conquerors and rulers throughout time – when you’re still going to die anyway? That isn’t the divine dream. That’s a human nightmare. Jesus’s rebuke of Peter is a challenge to his friend, an invitation to broaden his faith beyond a narrow conception of what God-breathed liberation looks like and into the expansive faith that destroys death. It is a challenge to the disciples, and to all who hear it – that the Good News isn’t the pursuit of power or glory, but the denial of it, bringing freedom and overcoming death. This is faith reckoned as righteousness – faith that, despite monuments of power, the chronicles of oppression, and the pursuit of death-dealing to stave off oblivion – the true divine thing in this world, the way to follow Jesus, is to give all of that up, give up life itself, to walk in love as God loves us. This sort of faith, for Paul, despite its foolishness, is hope. This faith can bridge estranged communities and heal distrust, can make reparation and repair breaches. It doesn’t matter for Paul that Abraham laughs at the ridiculousness of God’s promise. It is a ridiculous promise, just as the promise of resurrection is ridiculous. But we can laugh at something even as it compels us to follow. Amidst war and genocide; amidst the seemingly irretrievable state of our political institutions, especially in light of unending gun violence; amidst environmental catastrophe; amidst the pervasive and persistent anti-Blackness, homophobia, racism, transphobia, misogyny, and hate within our society and amidst the death caused by such hate; we still get up each new day, we still dream of justice, we still find hope in the love that surrounds us. That is ridiculous, and yet it is true. We may be as good as dead, as Paul quips of Abraham. We’re all going to die, and there’s no escaping it. But the way of Love, the way of divine things, of denying death-dealing systems and embracing the hope that our faith offers, remains. God always offers this mercy, bringing us back again and again to that ridiculous faith which is reckoned as righteousness. Amen. by Kathryn Aubry-McAvoy, Lay Preacher In today’s Gospel reading from Mark, we witness Jesus’ baptism. As he rises from the water, the heavens are torn apart and the spirit descends like a dove on him, God speaks those exquisite words to Jesus “you are my beloved with you I am well pleased”. Then that gentle dove drives him into the wilderness! Luke and Matthew say he was led there, driven or led by the hand of the Holy Spirit, he begins his wilderness days of prayer and fasting. Mark (as usual) gives very few details about what happens in the wilderness. Matthew, never at a loss for words, tells us that he was tested 3 times by the devil, once tempted to feast to appease his hunger, (the temptation of the flesh), once tested to ask God to prove God’s power and love for us, (temptation of pride of life, and temptation to abuse power) and lastly tempted to worship all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Jesus does not yield to the temptations and so wins this battle and is then attended by angels. He emerges from this wilderness proclaiming that the kingdom of God is near. On this side of the resurrection, we know what was coming near, in his baptism and wilderness time Jesus is preparing for the ultimate test, crucifixion on Good Friday and then that 3rd day on which we sing “the strife is 0’er the battle done, the victory of life is won, the song of triumph has begun!” Today we begin our Lenten journey, our yearly time in the wilderness. Of course, wilderness times come frequently in life; times when we are struggling with sorrow, loss, confusion and fear. Historically, in the church, Lent was a season when those persons preparing for baptism began a time of prayer and fasting, so that they were prepared to sign on to their covenant with God. (Spoiler alert: we reaffirm our Baptismal vows at the Easter vigil and we will welcome 2 persons into the household of God during the Easter season, here at James and Andrew.) In this season of Lent, we are called to wrestle with this question: have we been keeping our baptismal covenant? This is a chance for us to prepare for renewing our baptismal promises and search for ways to better keep those promises. The great litany, that dramatic listing of various petitions and responses, was used as early as the 5th century in Rome. It is an all-embracing prayer for everything and everyone: from natural disasters to guidance for leaders of the nations! It’s not an easy prayer, but it leads us into Lent in our tradition, and it can be a prompt to review how well we are doing in keeping our baptismal promises. Yes, we are asking for Gods help, but maybe our Lenten discernment could be to ask ourselves: “how well are we keeping up with our end of the bargain?” In the Great Litany we ask God to “spare us from evil and mischief: In our Baptismal Covenant we promise (with God’s help) to resist evil and when we don’t to repent and return to God. In the Great Litany we ask God to deliver us from worldliness, and false gods, : In our Baptismal Covenant we pledge with God’s help to believe in God, in Jesus Christ and in the holy Spirit (period!). In the Great litany we ask God to visit the lonely, strengthen those who stand, comfort and help the fainthearted and raise up the fallen; In our Baptismal Covenant we pledge to respect the dignity of everyone, seeking and seeing Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. I need to add a personal note to self here (this might help you): Keeping the covenant does not necessarily mean work harder or take on exciting new ministry opportunities. It was moving to hear vestry members talk about their Lenten practices at our meeting this past week. So many of them described small, personal gestures of love, care, comfort and respect; for family, coworkers, neighbors and friends, recognizing Christ in all persons. As we wander into our own Lenten wilderness, we have an opportunity to review and renew our Baptismal promises and search for ways to better keep those promises, to review how well we are keeping up our side of the covenant. There are a few paper copies in the Narthex, our Baptismal Covenant is on page 305 of the Book of Common Prayer; also found online at bcponline.org Lent is a chance to ask ourselves this: how can we more fully “believe, continue in the Apostles’ teaching, resist evil, repent, return, proclaim, seek, serve and strive for justice and peace?” It’s a big ask, I know, but remember that God has already given us hearts full of love and compassion. We all are “the great joy of God’s life”. I believe, with God’s help, we can do it. Amen |
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