EASTER SUNDAY

by Zelda Kennedy

John (20:1–18)

Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance, so she ran off to Simon Peter and the other disciple–the one Jesus loved–and told them, “The Rabbi has been taken from the tomb! We do not know where they have put Jesus!” At that, Peter and the other disciple started out toward the tomb. They were running side by side, but then the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He did not enter, but bent down to peer in and saw the linen wrappings lying on the ground.

Then Simon Peter arrived and entered the tomb. He observed the linen wrappings on the ground, and saw the piece of cloth that had covered Jesus’ head lying not with the wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the disciple who had arrived first at the tomb went in. He saw and believed. As yet, they did not understand the scripture that Jesus was to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes.

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to God. But go to the others and say to them, `I am ascending to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Reflection

"Something About Mary Magdalene"

Even before I understood the importance of Mary Magdalene to Jesus and the spreading of the good news, she was one of my favorite women of the Bible She was both fearless and faithful, and seemed to “appear” throughout my life in challenging times.

During my year of discernment to ordained ministry, my spiritual director - without knowing of my admiration for Mary Magdalene - gave me a small icon of her holding an egg with a reddish tint. It was at a time when I questioned whether or not I wanted to continue the upheaval in my life resulting from pursuing a call to ordained ministry. As she gave me the icon, she explained that she knew I was called to ordained ministry, and that I should never doubt my call. She encouraged me to learn the story of the icon. Now, the average person would have gone to the nearest bookstore or computer to research the icon’s history. Well, I didn’t. I looked at the beauty of the artwork and left the icon in a drawer.

While in seminary, two years after receiving the gift, I finally learned the story behind the icon, and the reason, I believe my spiritual director gave it to me as a gift of encouragement.

Mary Magdalene visited the Emperor Tiberias (14-37 AD) and proclaimed to him about Christ's Resurrection. According to tradition, she took him an egg as a symbol of the Resurrection, a symbol of new life with the words: “Christ is Risen!” Tiberias responded that no one could rise from the dead, anymore than the egg she held could turn red. Miraculously, the egg immediately began to turn red as testimony to her words.

From this “miracle of Mary Magdalene,” the custom to give each other paschal eggs on the day of the Resurrection of Christ spread among Christians over the entire world.

Mary Magdalene was not the harlot alluded to in early Christian writings. She was from the town of Magdala and a woman of means, influential for her time, and based on the number of times her name appears in the New Testament, she was important to Jesus and his ministry.

She is also important to us. A closer reflection of the first few verses of the twentieth chapter of John’s gospel reveals to us a woman, who is not afraid to travel during the darkness of dawn to honor Jesus. As a perceptive woman, Mary doesn’t have to enter the tomb to conclude that Jesus is gone. She sees that “the stone had been removed” and immediately knows the body is no longer in the tomb! She looks into the tomb only after Peter and the other disciple leave. She remains because she wants to know where the body of Jesus is. We see that even before encountering the risen Jesus, Mary Magdalene is brave, undaunted, tenacious and faithful. Her faith was uncomplicated - it never wavered.

I believe it was because of her faithfulness that Jesus revealed himself to her, before he returned to the Creator and subsequently to the disciples. It was because of her faithfulness that Jesus called her by name and commissioned her to proclaim the good news. It was because of her faithfulness that we have an example of how important it is to spread the gospel – even to those who may not believe us or dismiss us. Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb in darkness to complete the end of a relationship by anointing the body of Jesus, and the truth of the matter was that her journey to the tomb resulted in the beginning of a new life – one of resurrection, reconciliation and sharing the good news.

The icon no longer rests in a drawer. It remains in a prominent space in my den. I have since purchased a larger copy for my office. They both serve to remind me of the resurrection of Jesus - through the fearlessness and faithfulness of a remarkable woman.

During the Week

I know we are not all called to ordained ministry, so, as we move towards the Jerusalem, Golgotha and the garden - where we find Jesus and Mary Magdalene - consider some of the following questions:

Where am I on my journey of faith?
What is my call to ministry – is God asking me to be hands or feet or heart?
Am I listening and finding ways to respond to that call and share the good news?
Am I faithful and fearless about sharing the good news?
More importantly, am I willing?

PALM SUNDAY

by Sharalyn Hamilton

Mark 14:32-42

Jesus and the disciples came to a place named Gethsemane. Jesus said to them, “Sit down here while I to pray.” Jesus took along with him Peter, James and John. Then he began to be very distressed and troubled, and said to them, “My heart is filled with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.” Jesus went a little further off and fell to the ground, praying that if it were possible this hour might pass him by. He said, “God, you have the power to do all things. Take this cup away from me. But let it be not my will, but your will.”

When Jesus returned he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Asleep, Simon? Could you not stay awake for even an hour? Be on guard and pray that you not be put to the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Going back again, Jesus began to pray in the same words. Upon returning Jesus found them asleep once again. They could not keep their eyes open, nor did they know what to say to him. He returned a third time and said, “Still sleeping? Still taking your rest? It will have to do. The hour is upon us – the Chosen One is being handed into the clutches of evildoers. Get up, let us be going. Look! Here comes my betrayer.”

Reflection

The image of Jesus kneeling alone in the garden of Gethsemane has been near and dear to my heart since childhood. I have fond memories of lying alone in the smooth wooden pew of the Radnor Baptist Church, staring up at the stained glass image of Jesus kneeling in the garden while I listened to my mother practice the organ. The window was massive and central to the community. Facing south it caught the movement of the sun from east to west, illuminating different parts of this biblical story board. The artist had tastefully refrained from any defined image of God in the glass, yet God was undeniably present and powerful in this scene.

For me it evokes a personal connectedness with Jesus at a very pivotal moment in the story of his life and death. He is so fully human as he agonizes over what he believes is about to happen to him. “My heart is filled with sorrow to the point of death,” he cries as he asks his companions to stay near and keep watch. Yet, he is so fully bound to the divine when he kneels and prays, “God, you have the power to do all things. Take this cup away from me. But let it be not my will, but your will.”

Faced with impending doom, being betrayed by a loved one and turned over to his enemies, Jesus is you and me praying that this is all a bad dream or a mistake. “God, you have the power to do all things. Take this cup away from me.” Who among us has not prayed that a burden be lifted or to be delivered from our apparent fate?

As a young family we moved several times, climbing the corporate ladder. Each move came with some sadness and loss, but mostly it was a new adventure, until the announcement came that we were to leave our Kentucky home and move to the Los Angeles area. For the first time I vehemently did not want to go. I was nestled in a wonderful community, close to family and deeply involved in church where I had begun to experience my first inklings of calling to ordained ministry. “God, no. Please, no.” was my prayer. I pleaded with God and bargained with my husband to avoid this move.

When Jesus went to Gethsemane in his time of need, his soul desired both human companionship and divine companionship. Jesus took Peter, James and John with him asking them three times to keep watch. Ultimately he was alone in his prayer and yet so aligned with God as to allow his prayer to evolve into a full submission to that for which he was willing to die. In his book, The Gospel According to Jesus, Stephen Mitchell writes “The more we understand how infinitely superior the intelligence of the universe is to our own tiny, conscious mind, the more we can let go into God’s will.”

Faced with a corporate transfer that would take me out of my nest of nurture and security, I gathered my closest spiritual companions: my prayer group. They sat with me in silence with occasional prayerful utterances. It was time away from the balance sheets of pros and cons, the rational attempts to make an informed and intelligent decision. We went our separate ways that night, each woman to continue to pray about this decision.

When we gathered again, we had all experienced a sense of letting go of our own will to keep things as they were. We had each experienced an opening of our spiritual arms to embrace our new path. One of my companions said it had became very clear to her in prayer that this move was different than the others, that it was not about advancing my husband’s career, but the next leg of my spiritual journey. I too had heard that message in the solitude of my prayers. Weeks later, about half way across the country on my way to California, I was able to fully submit to the intelligence of the universe and in joy and in sorrow embrace my new destination.

In the mixture of childhood memories, the words of these scriptures, and the image of Jesus kneeling in prayer, alone yet surrounded by companions, I am reminded of an old hymn sung by the voices of the past:

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in him always, and feed on his word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.

Take time to be holy, let him be thy guide,
And run not before him, whatever betide.
In joy and in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in his word.
— Words: Wm D. Longstaff 1882; Music: George C. Stebins, 1880

As you journey into Holy Week remember to take time to be “holy” – set apart for God. It is so easy to succumb to the business of the world and the temptation to cram more activity into our lengthening hours of daylight.

During the Week

Dare to schedule some time alone for prayer and reflection.

How might you take friends along to join in silence and reflection together?

Is there a place in your life that needs discernment? Who would you take with you into the garden to stand watch?

LENT V

by Lori Kizzia

John (12:20-33)

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Chosen One to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, God will honor. Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘God, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. God, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Reflection

Our Lenten journey into the desert is nearing an end. The silence, reflection, fasting, reading, prayer and meditation we have been immersed in for the past month have been delicious, inspired and safe. But our quiet Lenten experience is teetering on a big, noisy transformation.

From the heights of our metaphorical desert mesa we can see Jerusalem in the distance, Things are heating up, anguish and loss loom ahead. Life is calling us back. It’s time to start moving toward our biggest challenges…Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday … time to leave the desert and head back to town After all, Jesus is waiting there for us.

When Philip and Andrew make it known to Jesus that people from far and wide are asking for him, Jesus knows that his time is coming to an end. He knows that his notoriety and reputation will land him in the hands of the empire. He is clear at this moment, that his arrest and death are close at hand. His response to his disciples, “ the hour has come for the Chosen One to be gloried,” is an important cue to them. He is preparing them for his death. He is preparing us for our own.

Everyone has been in this horrifying predicament: the realization that our lives are turning out of control, that a horrible change has settled upon us, and that no matter how hard we try, there is no escape from what is happening.
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For me, it was the last day of June 2004, when my beloved partner Jane, was diagnosed with incurable cancer. As we were leaving the oncologists’ office that day, the doctor gripped my arm and said… get your affairs in order, she’s going to die.

The certainty of death is a vague, sub-conscious knowing that we spend most of our lives avoiding. Until it is an official announcement, until it is unavoidable. In that moment in the doctor’s office, I knew that the hour had come. There was no getting out of it, no way around it. An ominous fear settled into me as we tried to move beyond that hour, back into the essential gifts of living.

Jesus embraces death as an essential gift of living. “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Jesus is offering us the greatest of all truths in this teaching moment, a truth that resonates through the wisdom of all great prophets and teachers: Buddha, Isaiah, St. Francis…“For it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

This is Jesus’ truth: Impermanence is a law of nature and we are natural beings. Everyone will die, just each of us was born. It is through death that we attain the fullness of life.

Jane lived and died knowing this truth. Her response to her cancer diagnosis was to throw herself completely into the essential gifts of living. She let go of fear and anger, she let go of resentment and regret, she let go of the need to write her own story. She let go of all these useless things and, instead, embraced laughter and patience, forgiveness, gratitude and, most of all, love. Jane knew that Jesus was right, that he could be trusted, and that Easter would be there for her when her Good Friday had passed.

There is great comfort in knowing that letting go of expectation and time, of the obsession with control and power, of the desire to possess all that we need is the only way to get what we really want: eternal life and endless love.

So today, as Lent comes to an end and Jerusalem beckons us to come home and face the truths of life, I am ready to accept the essential gifts of Holy Week. I am peacefully certain that in every moment of every day, somewhere within the human family, Easter is happening.

During the Week

Reflect on the gifts you have received as the result of great challenge or loss.

Remember with gentleness, those moments in which you knew the hour had come in your life. What were your sources of strength and joy? Express your gratitude to God and to yourself for accepting these gifts.

Plant new seeds in your garden or in a beautiful container. Care for them until they grow into plants.

Affirm peace with every step you take today. Say the word ”peace” silently in your mind as you walk.
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LENT IV

by Wilma Jakobsen

John (3:14–21)

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Chosen One must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in the Chosen One might have eternal life.

Yes, God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life. God sent the Only Begotten into the world not to condemn the world, but that through the Only Begotten the world might be saved.

Whoever believes in the Only Begotten avoids judgment, but whoever does not believe is judged already for not believing in the name of the Only Begotten of God. On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light came into the world, people showed they preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil.

Indeed, people who do wrong hate the light and avoid it, for fear their actions will be exposed; but people who live by the truth come out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what they do
is done in God.

Reflection

God is Love alone. The heart of God is love. That is the central core of the Gospel. I believe it with all my heart and yet it’s a struggle to live it out in all its implications. I forget that God is Love when I fall into perfectionist ways that slide into criticism and judgment of self and others. I forget that God is Love when I don’t see those around me whose theology or politics I disagree with, as loved by God with an everlasting love. I forget that God is Love when I don’t reach out to someone in need with compassion and kindness and a generous spirit. During this Lent I am reminded that I forget this.

God’s love is given to the world in the form of a gift, God’s Child Jesus, who is Love, who is Light. God’s love is given not just to the church, not just to Christians, not just to those who love God, but to the world, the cosmos – that’s everyone and everything. That’s challenging, that’s difficult, that’s the radical, inclusive love of God that we strive to live in, and live out, at All Saints Church.

The text this week centers on Jesus as Love and Light. It begins in the middle of a secret, nighttime conversation between Nicodemus, a religious leader and scholar, a Pharisee who came to Jesus to ask some important religious questions. When Nicodemus does not understand Jesus’ answers because he takes them too literally, Jesus is mystified as to Nicodemus’ lack of understanding. Jesus embarks on an explanation. He uses a story from the Hebrew scriptures in which the Israelite people were healed by looking up at the symbol of a brass snake that Moses carried on a stick, and not looking down at the actual snakes that were everywhere and on everything. In a similar way, people would be healed and made whole by looking to Jesus lifted up on the cross, who would give his life out of love for the world.

Jesus continues to outline this incredible love of God, shown in the gift of Jesus, offered to all to receive this Love and Light. Light has wonderful properties – it warms and heals, yet it also shows up the dust in the corners, and when the light shines in, it exposes the dust, there’s no place to hide. Those who are unable to choose to turn towards the light, miss out on the healing and warmth and life that is offered, and choose instead to stay in dust and shadows and death.

Choosing the light is to choose life, to choose the possibility of becoming fully human like Jesus, of learning to love like Jesus, of experiencing the healing light of Jesus, of being loved by Jesus. This is the challenge of the season of Lent, to choose to turn towards Christ, towards Love, towards Light, to be open to the Spirit challenging me about the ways I forget this, and open to the Spirit at work in healing and setting me free to know once again that God is Love, the heart of God is Love, and I am fully loved by God, and able to love others.

During the Week

Re-read the passage and keep track of what you notice, where your attention goes.

What does it mean to you that God’s most loving gift, God’s greatest gift to you and to the world is Jesus, is Love and Light?

How are you being open to receive the love and light of Christ during this Lent?

In what ways does this amazing, inclusive love of God challenge you this Lent?

LENT III

by Christina Honchell

John (2:13–22)

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, Jesus drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. Jesus told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making God’s house a marketplace!”

The disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The temple authorities then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. After Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Reflection

Now here is an interesting portrait of Jesus: overturning tables with one hand, wielding a whip with the other. Indiana (Jerusalem?) Jones perhaps; not so much the Prince of Peace. If you had the kind of Sunday School upbringing that I did, chances are that you were led to believe that Jesus was shocked and appalled by what he found in the temple that day, that the sight of money changers and animals was a scandal.

What Jesus walked into could not have been unexpected; it was perfectly legitimate temple activity. Moneychangers were necessary, so that pilgrims from Greece and Rome could pay their temple taxes at Passover with local coins. Animals – sheep and cattle for the rich, doves for the poor – were for sale on site to assure that they met the requirements for sacrifice. All of this normal commerce took place in the enormous outer court of the temple, and as a regular visitor to Jerusalem (according to John’s gospel), Jesus would have seen it all many times. So why was he so angry?

Perhaps to move the plot along. The author of John’s Gospel places this story at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, within a series of transformation stories, immediately following the story of the miracle at the wedding at Cana. The other gospel writers place the story just prior to the Passion, this disruptive temple behavior becoming the seal on Jesus’ fate (in John, the raising of Lazarus fills that pivotal slot).

Perhaps to show us Jesus, fully human, and struggling with emotions and feelings out of control. But in my Sunday School class, and for many Christians for the past two millennia, this story was a seductive invitation to reject Jewish teaching, worship and practice, to set up (good) holy Christian piety against the (evil) commerce represented by the doves and the coins. Reading John’s gospel requires vigilance to recognize the anti-Semitic prejudices of the author’s voice, and will only get more challenging when we get to John’s Passion narrative.

Exegesis and history aside, I have loved the idea of an angry Jesus since the first time I heard this story. Aha! He gets mad just like I do!

Several years ago I had the privilege of attending a nine-day community organizing training by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF); the same kind of training made famous by Barack Obama’s early political experiences in Chicago. The most important thing I learned was that our anger can be holy, that it needs to be valued and respected. But only if it is rooted in our memories of injustice, in relationship with others, and leads to compassion and empathy. The trick is to take our “hot” impulses and cool them into a tool that moves us to action. To allow ourselves to deeply feel loss and grief. Cold anger leads to hope, not to despair. Every bit of Jesus’ anger was rooted in love for the outcast, for the invisible, the overlooked; his anger was with the high priest and the financial institution which was complicit with Rome’s oppression of the poor.

At the inauguration in January, our friend Bishop Gene Robinson prayed: O God of many understandings, we pray that you will….Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
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This Lent, I am angry that people that I love have to worry about losing their health insurance if they lose their jobs. That the vast majority of those being targeted by federal immigration authorities are not criminals, but hardworking waitresses and nannies and gardeners. That marriages so joyously celebrated during our great season of justice here in California are in limbo. That so many young people are living on the streets of Pasadena. I want to overturn the tables of violence and poverty and drive out the purveyors of fear and scarcity. Jesus, bless us with anger.

During the Week

Take time to reflect upon your personal anger, to understand its sources. Are you able to “cool” it down, to draw on it as fuel for action? Are you able to differentiate useful, cold anger, from the kind of anger that comes from resentment, that leads to hurtful actions and becomes uncontrollable?

One measure of healthy anger is that it is leads to empathy and to enlightenment. Reflect on your life story through the lens of the lessons and learnings you have received from your anger.

Reading suggestion: The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. My Lenten companion these past three years, widely available and very helpful – the chapter on “Monday” discusses Jesus and the money changers in detail.
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Lent II

by Anne Peterson

Mark (8:31–38)

Then Jesus began to teach the disciples that the Chosen One must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Chosen One will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of God with the holy angels.”

Reflection

Not too long after my lovely spouse and I had met, in the middle of a lovely dinner together, he told me that if I ever became debilitated, he would take care of me. I suppose I could have replied, “How sweet and thoughtful of you. I appreciate your deep commitment to me.” But I was upset and burst out, “Why on earth are you ruining this beautiful moment with such a negative, pessimistic idea!”

As one who has never been interested in anticipating future disasters, I totally understand Peter’s distress when Jesus tells his friends that he is going to suffer, be rejected and then killed. Everything’s going so well. Don’t mess up the party which this negative thinking, Jesus! Jesus’ response is strong—“Get behind me, Satan!” But Jesus has the long view, sees the big picture. And Peter is trying to hang onto the way things are in his world as it is right now. Peter’s denial could also be seen as lack of empathy for Jesus as he articulates the challenges that are ahead for him.

It’s not just my personality type that refuses to entertain negative ideas. We see now that various individuals questioned investment guru Bernie Madoff’s perfect track record of investing people’s money with never a loss to report. Others questioned the lending practices of banks bundling bad loans with good ones, of realtors putting families in homes they could not afford, and the general practice of so many individuals living beyond their means. Only now that the bubble has burst do we hear the voices who warned us of what lay ahead.

Peter is not willing to entertain the fact that his beloved friend and mentor Jesus might lose his life—let alone the fact that he himself might die. Hanging on to self preservation above all else is limiting. It is a protective stance, holding out against the fear of potential loss. People who have faced the possibility of death because of a life-threatening accident or disease frequently describe their “new life” as one released from the fear of death. Their appreciation of the world is sweeter, and their desire to do what they have always wanted to do, stronger.

As we read in last week’s gospel for Lent I, Jesus underwent this journey toward a “new life.” In his baptism, he was commissioned for a new focus for this life—and was affirmed in his very being as deeply loved by God. In the wilderness, he wrestled with the temptations we all live with, and emerged stronger and clearer about what only he could do in the world. Jesus moved beyond fear, which made him free to do what he needed to do in the world.

Into this freedom Jesus invites the crowd. “Deny yourself, take up your own cross, and follow me,” he says. If your goal in life is to hang onto your life and its material possessions, then you are not able to live freely, to do great things without fear. Release your ego, come with me, and find your true self in the true life of freedom that awaits you.

Two years ago, having been hit by a car while crossing the street, I was helplessly happy to take my husband up on his offer to care for me. In my dependent state, removed from all prior responsibilities, I had plenty of time to reassess my life. And although my “new life” is sweeter and more focused, I find myself slipping back into that preoccupation with things and tasks that distract me from feeling that I am beloved by God and realizing the true freedom this affords. My goal for my Lenten journey is to reconnect with this freedom in silence, every day, before anything else.

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During the Week

--What is your biggest fear? Ask God to help you deal with it.

--What would you do differently if you were not afraid of anything?

--Imagine a time in your life when you felt deeply loved, affirmed and fully alive. Sit with that feeling, soaking it into the core of your being. Spend a few minutes with the feelings of this memory to before you go to sleep at night and when you wake up in the morning.

Lent I

by James Walker

Mark (1:9–15)

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan River by John. Immediately upon coming out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. Then a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Beloved, my Own. On you my favor rests.” And the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels looked after him. After John’s arrest, Jesus appeared in Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God. “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Change your hearts and minds, and believe this Good News!”

Reflection

What rich – if sparse – imagery Mark gives us. The director in me runs a bit wild, thinking of camera angles, lighting, scenery, costumes, special effects, and the all-important casting calls.

This is no subtle tale. Jesus emerges from the deep currents of Jordan River after being baptized by John, the often annoying and not-so-subtle evangelist who incessantly calls us to turn our lives around. The heavens break open with incandescent light, and an enormous – albeit gentle – dove descends upon Jesus, accompanied by the all-embracing voice of God, anointing the Beloved. The Spirit propels Jesus from the water to the desert (no bon voyage party here), where he spends forty days (i.e. a long period of time) with wild beasts, tempted by Satan, ever protected by angels. After this ordeal, Jesus returns to Galilee, preaching the uncomfortable good news that now is the time for change.

It leaves me breathless. Great theater, if only in my mind’s eye, but what does Mark want us to really hear?

As we begin our 40-day Lenten journey once again, I’m drawn to contemplating the wild beasts and temptations of Satan in my own life. While not convinced of the literal presence of a devil figure, I’m absolutely certain of my capacity for evil and of the presence of bleak forces in the world.

Lent is a good time to take inventory and to confess … so here goes: These past few months I’ve been struggling with a certainty of belief that I’ve come to identify as evil self-righteousness. I now confess it, asking for the forgiveness of which I rest assured.

Is it possible to hold my strong beliefs and convictions — fervently and joyfully — while still allowing room for those with different experiences and individual truths? I know the clear answer to be a resounding “Yes!” yet this has been a huge challenge for me recently. It has been extraordinarily difficult for me to truly see shades of gray in my certitude. I feel the internal pull of arrogant thought and belief that implies that others are somehow less evolved on their journey.

Life is mystery, and we see dimly the unfathomable truth that lies before us. My journey this Lent will be contending with those forces in me that seek certitude in the ambiguity of this miraculous life, and I’m deeply grateful for this community of saints and angels, where I pray it is safe hold each of our truths in a magnificent tapestry and to confess our fears and shortcomings.

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During the Week

Write your own screenplay of this lesson in your mind. What scene of the movie is speaking to you this Lent?

What internal forces do you feel ready to confront within yourself in these forty days of Lent? Write about them; pray about them.

Who are the angels in your life, surrounding you with loving encouragement on this journey? Express your gratitude to them.

Ash Wednesday

by Susan Russell

We arrive at Ash Wednesday again – the entry point for yet another 40-day Lenten journey toward Easter.

We will hear again the words as familiar as their outward-and-visible signs etched on our foreheads: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

On Ash Wednesday, as the liturgical season shifts from Epiphany to Lent, we are called to make a shift, too. During these weeks since Christmas our lessons have focused on the “epiphanies” of those who encountered Jesus along the way and knew somehow, at some point, in some perhaps indescribable way, that they had experienced the holy: experienced what a clergy colleague once called one of the “Ahas!” of God.

And now our focus shifts, as it does every year at this time, from stories about those outward manifestations of God's presence among us to a more interior place as we journey with Jesus on the road we know leads to Golgotha – to the cross – and ultimately, to the resurrection. And so, for Ash Wednesday, here is my annual advice for the journey ahead: Don't give up epiphanies for Lent.

Let us not become so inwardly focused that we forget to notice – to give thanks for – to respond to – those encounters we can and will have with the holy in the next 40 days.

Let us not become so focused on our own “journey with Jesus” that we forget that as long as there are still strangers at the gate, walking humbly with our God is not enough: let us not forget that we are also called to do justice. Let us do an even bolder and more prophetic job of claiming “justice doing” as essential to our identity as Christian people – as Lenten pilgrims.

And let us remember that our call to do justice is rooted deep in the roots of our history as a people of God – in these words of the prophet Isaiah:

"Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?"
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

“Here I am,” our God promises – ready to lead us through whatever wilderness we face: to accompany us wherever the journey goes.

Now IS the acceptable time. And may the God who calls us into this wilderness be with us and bless us on the journey.