Of all the seasons in the church year the lessons of Lent in the past few years at Creator have given many of us a new perspective on what the Bible teaches.
Prior to 2020, Lent was often a time for many to talk about what to give up as a discipline. I would hear things like, "I'm giving up sweets" or "I'm giving up social media." Lent is traditionally understood to be our time to turn away from sin and turn back to God. While what we give up for Lent may be a helpful discipline, this has not been my focus for several years.
The concepts around Refugia better articulated to me what that focus has become. I keenly feel a shift from self-restraint and repentance that opens up other possibilities. I feel my biggest challenge this year is to lament the continued loss of what we, in the past, have always treasured within our community, as a nation and as a world.
During Lent 2020, our community started experiencing multiple crises. Pastor Ray died. We were plunged into the years-long pandemic quarantine. Our habits and traditions of dealing with grief and loss were stripped away from us, both personally and collectively. The tragedy of George Floyd’s death a couple of months later brought a new immediacy to the simmering, longstanding social injustices we face in our nation. And, later in 2020, devastating local wildfires made the threat of a climate change crisis a close by and real problem that apparently was not being urgently addressed or acknowledged by many.
You just heard a reading from a chapter in the Refugia Faith book, that the author associates with Lent. That chapter is titled “From Avoiding to Lamenting.” During Lent we often talk about repenting. When we repent, we feel remorse for our actions and actively seek to change them. We acknowledge the ongoing wrongs that continue to be done. We take responsibility and attempt to make efforts to make amends or improve ourselves. This is what repentance means and yet the change we may long for is imperceptible to us. Rather than repenting are we choosing to avoid our problems. Perhaps we should pause and try better ways to express our sorrows or regrets over the threats that persist in our lives.
Repenting can effectively address individual sins we fall into as individuals. Now these three years have gone by and repenting feels like an inadequate as either a response or solution to the many calamities we face. Metanoia is the Greek word commonly translated as “repent”. A better English translation is “to change your mind.” How this relates to death, pandemic and climate change is not obvious.
Instead, Refugia Faith emphasizes the importance of lament. Expressing sorrow or grief over a situation or circumstance first may be unaccustomed for us. Acknowledging that something negative is continuing to affect us and is beyond our control may help us.
Lament does not need to involve immediate action to change the situation. We can express our pain or loss to God without hiding or being fearful of what we feel inside emotionally. We can communicate our humanity to God and to each other. We can reaffirm our trust in God by placing our complaint humbly before our Creator rather than assuming we have arrived at some solution by ourselves.
Lamenting can give us reasons to repent, particularly when it involves corporate or social brokenness. Lamenting is difficult. It can require us to confront past behavior that we might have considered was beneficial, but now exposes our weaknesses and vulnerabilities as a community. We are likely to encounter disagreements amongst ourselves. We may need to consider the different perspectives that we have as individuals.
Our desire to feel we are right and in control can lead us to miss the mark as Christians. Lament doesn’t allow putting pretty bows of quick and tidy resolutions to our problems. Perhaps that might consider a blessing God gives us.
Instead lament gives us humility and offers insights into our humanity, our shortcomings, and can provide, over time, an understanding that moves us to repentance and healing.
We are now on our familiar Lenten journey and yet we simultaneously know this journey is new and unknown. We have never been on this year’s path before, despite the familiarity of our habits and traditions. I have confidence that many of us will continue to look for what is new about this year’s path and learn how to be the body of Christ more fully.
We started Lent with our postponed Ash Wednesday service last week. The ash on our foreheads reminded us that we are dust. This journey will end on Good Friday. We will strip the altar. The book will be closed. We will leave the table bare of each reminder that we found meaningful to our church experiences of the past.
After Good Friday the next celebration this year will be our sunrise Easter Service. Our opportunity to celebrate resurrection will be outside our sanctuary. We will be given new chances, new spaces, and new insights into what is important to us as a community. We may discover new meanings in everything we want to bring back into the sanctuary and keep. And there may be new reminders for us to add.
We likely do not recognize this every day, but God continues to gracefully give us ways to express our faith and trust in divine mercy and knowledge through love.
he church year the lessons of Lent in the past few years at Creator have given many of us a new perspective on what the Bible teaches.
Prior to 2020, Lent was often a time for many to talk about what to give up as a discipline. I would hear things like, "I'm giving up sweets" or "I'm giving up social media." Lent is traditionally understood to be our time to turn away from sin and turn back to God. While what we give up for Lent may be a helpful discipline, this has not been my focus for several years.
The concepts around Refugia better articulated to me what that focus has become. I keenly feel a shift from self-restraint and repentance that opens up other possibilities. I feel my biggest challenge this year is to lament the continued loss of what we, in the past, have always treasured within our community, as a nation and as a world.
During Lent 2020, our community started experiencing multiple crises. Pastor Ray died. We were plunged into the years-long pandemic quarantine. Our habits and traditions of dealing with grief and loss were stripped away from us, both personally and collectively. The tragedy of George Floyd’s death a couple of months later brought a new immediacy to the simmering, longstanding social injustices we face in our nation. And, later in 2020, devastating local wildfires made the threat of a climate change crisis a close by and real problem that apparently was not being urgently addressed or acknowledged by many.
You just heard a reading from a chapter in the Refugia Faith book, that the author associates with Lent. That chapter is titled “From Avoiding to Lamenting.” During Lent we often talk about repenting. When we repent, we feel remorse for our actions and actively seek to change them. We acknowledge the ongoing wrongs that continue to be done. We take responsibility and attempt to make efforts to make amends or improve ourselves. This is what repentance means and yet the change we may long for is imperceptible to us. Rather than repenting are we choosing to avoid our problems. Perhaps we should pause and try better ways to express our sorrows or regrets over the threats that persist in our lives.
Repenting can effectively address individual sins we fall into as individuals. Now these three years have gone by and repenting feels like an inadequate as either a response or solution to the many calamities we face. Metanoia is the Greek word commonly translated as “repent”. A better English translation is “to change your mind.” How this relates to death, pandemic and climate change is not obvious.
Instead, Refugia Faith emphasizes the importance of lament. Expressing sorrow or grief over a situation or circumstance first may be unaccustomed for us. Acknowledging that something negative is continuing to affect us and is beyond our control may help us.
Lament does not need to involve immediate action to change the situation. We can express our pain or loss to God without hiding or being fearful of what we feel inside emotionally. We can communicate our humanity to God and to each other. We can reaffirm our trust in God by placing our complaint humbly before our Creator rather than assuming we have arrived at some solution by ourselves.
Lamenting can give us reasons to repent, particularly when it involves corporate or social brokenness. Lamenting is difficult. It can require us to confront past behavior that we might have considered was beneficial, but now exposes our weaknesses and vulnerabilities as a community. We are likely to encounter disagreements amongst ourselves. We may need to consider the different perspectives that we have as individuals.
Our desire to feel we are right and in control can lead us to miss the mark as Christians. Lament doesn’t allow putting pretty bows of quick and tidy resolutions to our problems. Perhaps that might consider a blessing God gives us.
Instead lament gives us humility and offers insights into our humanity, our shortcomings, and can provide, over time, an understanding that moves us to repentance and healing.
We are now on our familiar Lenten journey and yet we simultaneously know this journey is new and unknown. We have never been on this year’s path before, despite the familiarity of our habits and traditions. I have confidence that many of us will continue to look for what is new about this year’s path and learn how to be the body of Christ more fully.
We started Lent with our postponed Ash Wednesday service last week. The ash on our foreheads reminded us that we are dust. This journey will end on Good Friday. We will strip the altar. The book will be closed. We will leave the table bare of each reminder that we found meaningful to our church experiences of the past.
After Good Friday the next celebration this year will be our sunrise Easter Service. Our opportunity to celebrate resurrection will be outside our sanctuary. We will be given new chances, new spaces, and new insights into what is important to us as a community. We may discover new meanings in everything we want to bring back into the sanctuary and keep. And there may be new reminders for us to add.
We likely do not recognize this every day, but God continues to gracefully give us ways to express our faith and trust in divine mercy and knowledge through love.
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