20/20 LENT

“20/20” I said to my beloved today.
He looked at me and said “Dateline?”

Shaking my head negatively, “20/20” I said again.
“Perfect vision?” He replied.

Shaking negative again, I said “20/20.. 20 days before, 20 days behind. We’re smack in the middle of Lent.”
“AHH...” He humors me a lot. “Really.”

Well, it’s true. We are right in the middle of Lent. The dark of winter is almost to a close. Tomorrow will be the first day of Spring. The long Dark now behind us along with the hardest part of the self-reflecting period where I challenged you to think about two questions. Are you engaging your thoughts on the twin questions?
"What would God like me to change?" and
"What would I have God change in me?"

For myself, this year has offered extra opportunity to think about my shadow. I don’t mean like in Peter Pan, the literal shadow of my self that I experience in relationship to the sun or other light source. I’m referring to what therapists refer to as the shadow. It’s a part of our make-up to have both good and bad qualities of the self. The part we dislike the most about our self and want to ignore, or conceal from others can become a heavy burden on the self. It also creates relationship tension. We tend to react negatively toward other people who exhibit the very traits which we dislike in ourselves. It seems to be the worst when we deny that part within our own self. In that case seem to become magnetic in our attracting repellant relationships. We see in others what we won’t acknowledge in ourselves.
“I’m NOT controlling.”
“I never get angry.”
“I’m a peacemaker. I don’t go around hurting people.” Well, you get the picture.

Spiritual growth depends on being able to face that within our self that keeps us trapped in repetitive non-productive cycles. Changing those patterns, behaviors, and beliefs all require looking at the worst part of our self in the full light of day. Alcoholics Anonymous is one group that emphasizes honesty for the welfare of each other. Growth occurs over time when the reality is kept in the light of conscious awareness, rather than being allowed to slip back into the recesses of our subconscious. At least that’s how I understand the process. I can’t quote whose theory it is. I just know that’s how it works for me.

Do we need to go around like members of AA and tell each other the details of our shadow in order to change? For the most part, I would say, no probably not. But I do believe there is value in having others with whom you are willing to share trusting that you will help each other, encourage each other and lift up each other in prayer. I have a circle of friends from seminary# which I use as my covenant. I do encourage the use of a small circle of trusted Christians build faith and friendship. I recently met a lay member in the Annual Conference who said he has a circle of men he has been in covenant relationship with for 20 years. They meet weekly.

When you work on your shadow you need to be prepared to experience a dark period before you see the light. Done properly, you will see a death of your old self and a new birth, by the grace of God. In the cycle of Christian Life, death comes before the new birth, new growth follows the cold of winter. Lent ends in the festivities of Easter.

So here we are 20/20 gaining 20/20. We are standing in the middle of Lent observing our shadow and reflecting on our new self to come into being, anticipating the Celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus and the power over death through the work of God. That power assures us of God’s ability to turn Bad into Good. Yes, even your bad into a “new you” good.

Before the resurrection we remember the journey of sorrows that Jesus endured leading up to his crucifixion. Through our remembrance of Jesus’ journey, we gain assurance that we worship and serve one who also knows sorrow, pain, and hardship but did so victoriously with God. This single week is more important to all of Christian faith, than any other teaching of the church. Even the birth of Jesus is second to this one week’s activities.

Holy week will be April 5 to April 12. Palm Sunday, April 5, recalls the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and entry into the Temple. Holy Thursday marks the last night the disciples gathered with Jesus before his arrest; it included specifically the remembrance of the Last Supper and the institution of the Holy Communion, April 9. “Good Friday,” April 10, is commemorated with a Tenebrae service that recalls the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. Finally, on Sunday April 12, we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, God’s great joke on Death and the Devil. I pray that you will come to the service held at the United Methodist Church here in Ashton through the week to remember, worship and receive the transforming Spirit of God.


#
We live and work across the West, from California to Washington, Arizona to Idaho, Oregon to New Mexico. We maintain that covenant through email. We miss meeting at the broken loaf of Claremont School of Theology and sitting down to share meals regularly. But now we’ve added to our reconnecting time by using Facebook just for fun. And no, you won’t find a special label on my covenant friends in Facebook.

Lent- is it about Addition or Subtraction?

Lent has often been associated as a time of self-denial, giving up something near and dear to one’s heart. It’s a private act of devotion, a special act of piety, not something that you boast about or make loud announcements about if practiced as Jesus taught his disciples. Another way to look at the period of lent is to adopt an attitude of trying something new on for size. Intentionally setting aside a short period in each day to journal, pray for the church, read from a devotional book, or learn a new spiritual practice such as centering prayer.

Are you engaging your thoughts on the twin questions?
"What would God like me to change?" and
"What would I have God change in me?"

One need not literally leave their home for forty days in order to engage in a time of spiritual reflection. One needs only to adopt an attitude applied to daily life. Engaging in such time would be adding an act of devotion to daily life.

May you travel with a receptive heart to the work of the Holy Spirit this Lent.

Gracious God, help us in these forty days of reflection and renewal to become more open to the work of your Holy Spirit. Open our hearts to receive anew the message of your saving grace, offered without price and offered to all. Prick us just slightly each time we begin to slip into believing we have done, or could do anything on our own, that would merit your love any more than you’ve already loved us. Help us recover the joy and relief we first felt when we heard and received the word of hope; when we believed only in your work testified in the resurrection of Jesus. Bring forth from us the best that your Spirit would have us do to bring glory and honor to you alone. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Lenten resources, Lenten Reflection

Lent is a season of reflection and preparation. It seems a fitting time to look at what our Annual Conference membership offers and recommends as well as looking at our own personal practices.

The 2007 Annual Conference adopted a Strategic Direction for the Annual Conference. The Strategic Direction includes a commitment to 4 key points commitments. The First Point is a commitment to Practicing Personal and Social Holiness. At the 2008 Annual Conference, Bishop Hoshibata declared the year of 2008-2009 to be the “Year of Personal Holiness”. As we enter the Lenten season now is a good time for each of us reflect on what it means to live a life of personal and social holiness.

Does it feel that this is a radical expectation? If these words grouped together leave you scratching your head wondering how to live that out in your life, I suspect you are not traveling alone in your confusion. After all, our emphasis of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ sounds like a sure fire excuse to dispel any consideration of actions.

The Apostle Paul encountered similar opposition both to the message of grace available to all through Jesus, and to his calls for purity and holiness of heart among the believers. Christian life is a continual paradox. We are expected to live pure and holy lives. And yet we know that we cannot be perfect, so we trust in the merit obtained through Jesus as a salve for our troubled consciences. As Methodists we also have a heritage derived from the Oxford Movement, John & Charles Wesley, and the practice of belonging to accountability circles. Each of these urge everyone not to take our lives in Christ for granted, instead urging us to seek personal holiness, that which we commonly call “perfection.”

The practice of belonging to a study circle, or accountability group was integral to the growth of the Methodist movement in Britain. Long in remission in the United States, the Accountability Group is once again being revived in churches throughout the United States. Our General Board of Discipleship, supported by our apportionment dollars, provides excellent resources to assist local churches in starting and maintaining these covenant/accountability groups. In the groups, a commitment to confidentiality, care and concern for one another is established. From time to time members need to ask each other tough questions about where they are falling down in their Christian Life.

What are the hallmarks of being an Accountable Disciple? I have been referring to the "three simple rules," do no harm, do good, stay in love with God for daily guidance in Christian life as a summary of Wesley's preaching. This can be applied throughout each day.

In addition, whether you belong to a small group or not, Wesley’s model of faithful living as a member in the body of Christ stressed a practice of participation in four areas of life:

Acts of Worship
Acts of Devotion
Acts of Compassion
Acts of Justice

Through these four arenas of life each person can examine one’s own progress in moving on toward perfection in Christian love. Wesley found in his ministry that belonging to a small covenant circle provided strength and encouragement on the journey of faith called life in Christ. It seems quite proven to be a timeless truth for faithful discipleship.

Living in these open spaces of the west, leads to very independent thinking, in spite of our interdependence upon one another. Belonging to a small group with the specific intent of lifting one another up on the Christian Journey may also seem very contrary to your nature. It’s certainly scary to become vulnerable to a group when we prefer to pretend we have no faults needing correction. Nevertheless, I would urge members to prayerfully seek guidance about forming a small circle of 6-8 Christian friends with a commitment to lifting up one another in a weekly meeting as an avenue to live out our call to Personal Holiness. The personal benefit you can expect is a deeper relationship with God and several brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Grace and Peace,


Pastor Barbara

Beginning the Journey

Lenten Journey

A Service of Self Guided Reflection

What would you have God change in you?

What would God want to see you change?

When we enter the season of Lent with these twin questions positioned as the main emphasis of Lent we are better able to find a renewed spirit to carry us along on the journey called life in Christ.

May this be a starting place in your journey.. The readings are those used on Ash Wednesday but can be referred to throughout the season of Lent.

Opening prayer

O God, maker of every thing and judge of all that you have made,
from the dust of the earth you formed Adam,
and from the dust of death you would raise us up.
By the redemptive power of the cross,
create in us clean hearts and put within us a new spirit,
that we may turn from our sins and lead lives worthy of your calling;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Scripture Lesson Joel 2:1, 12-17

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Psalm 51

“O Lord hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer, come and listen to me”

The Psalmist writes “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless in your judgment.” Human standards cannot come anywhere near the standards of Holiness that God holds. Knowing God to be perfect in all actions of first creating order out of the Chaos of the universe, we can fall into despair at our inability to achieve perfection. Should we then give up in such pursuit?

No.

Let us never give up in our pursuit of the perfection of Christian Love. Instead of despair, let us draw ever more closely to God through personal and social holiness. Because God has demonstrated love for all creation, we can take heart in the message of the gospel, and follow the advice that comes to us through the Gospel of Matthew.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Recalling again the twin focus for the season:
What would you have God change in you?
What would God want to see you change?
May you be renewed in spirit, finding peace and joy in the ever changing journey of devotion to Jesus, bringing glory to the One True God.

Purple Linen, people pleasing & proper responses

It seems that I’ve been quite busy of late, occupied with responding to needs in the parish and connections for my Annual Conference. With that blogging fell a bit to the wayside. I’ve been using Facebook to keep up with my friends and a couple of family members. I’ll write about the experiment using Facebook to form community in another post. I have other thoughts on my mind to share for today.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent which is the 40 day period (not counting any Sundays which are always considered mini-Easter feast days) that leads up to the celebration of Easter. In the sanctuary, we’ve changed out the colors to purple which is used among us liturgically focused worship planners and leaders to remind us that this is a season of penitence. Purple is also considered a color of royalty (King Jesus purple) and recalls the passion (from a Latin root, which mean suffering) of Jesus.

The banners were a team design by our worship committee in 2007. Seven panels using the seven last words of Jesus on the cross. The words are really statements, found in the Gospels. Of course some confusion is stirred because not all seven are contained in any one of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The finest theological minds of former years nevertheless have seen fit to refer to them as the “seven last words” and have used them for meditations and sermons during Holy week. The first year we installed this set of banners I too preached each week on one of the Words.

Because today is Ash Wednesday it would have been appropriate, according to our Book of Worship* to use less (or no) purple, to choose to focus on gray or burlap for color and texture. I didn’t, by personal preference. This year, quite honestly, this small community is already very well focused on the mortality theme which Ash Wednesday is supposed to reflect upon. I didn’t feel it healthy to over emphasize our communal condition. It was also a blessing that we had our Dog Derby festivities last weekend to serve as our own form of carnival, maybe not so unlike the New Orleans Mardi Gras, even if around a culturally unique experience.

All of this attention to the appearance of the sanctuary may seem silly. If you aren’t a visually oriented learner, or have an appreciation for symbol and symbolism, these are details which I know are simply missed. Funny, if you went to a Stage Play and it lacked stage props, most people would immediately comment about the absence. Yet, enter a church sanctuary, and people are quite likely enter as if they were blind, paying no attention to the details. I think this is the result of a failure to interpret the meaning for observers, thus the reason for my extended commentary here.

“Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!” Do you remember the old children’s game, “ring around the rosy”? The most commonly accepted interpretation of this nursery rhyme is a reference to the bubonic plague which ravaged Europe. The Black plague symptoms included a red rosy ring on the skin, and the bodies of the dead where cremated to prevent more spreading of the contagion. I always think of this rhyme on Ash Wednesday and then wonder, how it came about that children would begin singing this rhyme in such great playfulness. Ah, those British had a rather macabre sense of humor (“London Bridge is Falling Down”) didn’t they.

In Ashton this month, we’ve seen life end early due to the worst form of cancer. Heart disease and stroke took others. Several members in the community continue to courageously battle for life as long as possible. Last week I felt as if we were already in lent. In that one week I attended or officiated at three services of death, resurrection and remembrance. The first funeral we estimated had 800 in attendance. In a town with a population of 1198, not only was there an immense turnout of extended family, there were people whose lives had been touched by the deceased from his involvement in community and business. Many friends came to demonstrate their love and loss.

Last week it was not possible to deny that death is a possibility at any time. We could not deny that the impact of one person can be felt across not just a family but an entire community. We could not deny that death may suddenly pluck a loved one, despite the best care available. We could not deny that any day may be the very last time we see someone we love. With that message delivered to so many through the very personal experiences of death in our community, I just didn’t think I needed to add any more somber notes to the tune we’ve heard in town already.

In past years I have held an evening Service of Ashes. Last year myself and several of our members joined our Lutheran brethren at their service. The turnout was small, and the service was meaningful.

This year, I chose to set aside 3 hours this evening to have the sanctuary open, a self guided reflection available. I will be present to offer the imposition of ashes or anointing and prayers with individuals as they choose. I expect there will be only one or two that come tonight. I’m not deluding myself. People simply prefer to feel good all the time, rather than risk entering into a time of reflection which might lead to making any changes in personal actions. But one or two people may be feel the need to come and I will be present. Otherwise, I expect to have plenty of quite time for my own prayers, reflections and reading.

Last Sunday I gave one specific suggestion for a Lenten practice. Rather than expecting any sacrifice of denial I am asking each person to develop the habit of daily naming at least two things for which they are grateful. I believe that the Micah 6:8 commandment calls for us to develop a deeper appreciation of how very blessed we are. This is a holy sacrifice, a sacrifice of praise. With deepened appreciation and gratitude comes greater compassion for others. In counting one’s own blessings we develop the ability to reach out to our neighbor in need.