Lent Readings, week one

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/7ZxMEwTD5t0

Last year, a Global pandemic erupted in the middle of Lent. Although it comes every year, this particular Lent feels like a time warp. We were just here. I encourage you to lean in to this feeling, recognizing that we are often powerless to change our circumstances, to heal our woes, to protect those we love. Maybe we used to think life was linear, so our only chance to find meaning or joy was to work hard and fast until we felt secure. This second pandemic-Lent forces us to recognize that life with God is not linear. That God’s timing is eternal, God is present everywhere, and our life with Christ has seasons of doing, of being, of plenty, of want, of joy, of pain, of rush, of stillness. The pandemic has felt for many like a pause, and I hope this year we will recognize that sometimes frantic doing actually hurts our ability to find security. Lent allows us to observe that joy and meaning often come in moments of stillness, silence and solitude. What better time to lean in than when we are forced to be still, to be silent and to be alone?

We diminish the power of God when we try to protect and expand our own power and security instead of looking to God for significance and peace. In the past, I wanted God’s Kingdom to be made in my image, so the hardest workers and the kindest, the most intentional people won. The Beatitudes remind us that God’s values are different. God promises to be present, generous and sustaining to those who have no power, to those near the margins, to those who align themselves with the overlooked. 

Knowing this, I’ll suggest a few disciplines for the season ahead

1) Consider giving up a treat, an excess, or activity that gives you a hit of pleasure. When you long for the satisfaction it brings, ask God to reveal the hunger you have for comfort or belonging, and to sit with it before your Maker.

2) Consider making an effort to spend time with those who are underserved and overlooked by your community. Find people and institutions who care for vulnerable people, and increase your proximity to widows, orphans, immigrants, refugees and those trapped in poverty, learning from and serving them.

3) Consider picking up a new practice that allows you to make space for stillness, silence and solitude. Pay attention to your body’s sensations, your mind’s thoughts and your heart’s emotions as you contemplate the love of God. Pray scripture, and try sitting before God, consenting to Divine action and just BEING with God.

Given the chance to introduce himself, God says, “I am.” That’s my best name. I am the present one. The always here one. The never past or future tense one. The ongoing in the moment one. To be near God is to be awake for this life, for these current moments: joyful and heartbreaking and everything in between. May these readings be an invitation into presence, with yourself, with others, with the God of “I Am.”

For these 40 days, allow yourself to recognize the abundance in your life, while also leaning in to the lean places. In my own experience of God, there is a connecting holiness—an embodied solidarity—that comes when I decide to stay present with pain instead of escaping. The Torah and the Bible speak of a God who is willing to wrestle with us, to cry with us, to listen to our lament; indeed, God is just as present when we cry as when we refuse to let the tears come, only hoping for, or seeing, the good. This Lent, create moments of stillness so you can notice your own joy and heartbreak. Cry. Or don’t. But don’t believe the lie that crying is unfaithful.

If we want to prepare ourselves for Christ’s coming kingdom, we would do well to spend 40 days marinating in the words Jesus used to describe it. On Tuesdays I will post a few thoughts and quotes for the week ahead. Each day there is a scriptural reading (all poetry…Yikes?! Or Yay?!), and each Sunday we will read the Beatitudes and Woes from the Gospel of Luke. 

Dear friends, find stillness, and believe the Gospel.

Week One

To Ponder:

“God is that way with us, He wants to hold us still with Him in silence…They cannot all be brilliant or rich or beautiful. They cannot all even dream beautiful dreams like God gives some of us. They cannot all enjoy music. Their hearts do not all burn with love. But everybody can learn to hold God…We shall not become like Christ until we give Him more time.”                                                    -Brother Lawrence

“Maybe you search for understanding, but find only one thing for sure, which is that truth comes in small moments and visions, not galaxies and canyons; not the crash of ocean waves and cymbals. Most traditions teach that truth is in these small holy moments.”                                          -Anne Lamott

To Read:

Feb 17 Matthew 5:1-12

Feb 18 Proverbs 2:1-15

Feb 19 Ps 94:12-22

Feb 20 Micah 6:6-8; Mark 7:6-8

Feb 21 Luke 6:20-31

Feb 22 Ps 90:12-17; 91:1-2

Feb 23 Ps 95:1-8