GOOD HOPE PARISH

Pastoral Ponderings

Pastoral Ponderings for March 2025

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LENT: the season of prayer, fasting and giving.  We soon enter the Season in the Church Year known and observed as LENT. No, you don’t have to go look in your dryer for it- that would be lint.

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It is a season of praying for those who are struggling with life, which in one way or another would include all of us. Each of us carries burdens, hurts, fears, and struggles that are known only to God. Lent is a time to pray for us, others, and our world. It is a set-aside time for fasting from our sometimes-glutinous participation in the material world in which we live. It is a time to fast from judging and condemning others, gossiping, or bearing false witness of one another. Lent is a time to slow down and truly focus on how Jesus walked to the Cross, suffered and died for us, and is leading us to his resurrection.  AND, how Jesus is calling us to follow him through the giving of our time, talents and increased love, caring and comfort to everyone of God’s children. Here are some ideas from a book by Justin Whitmel Early titled The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction.

 

Don't Give Up Chocolate, Give Into Communal Habits

 

Reason 1: Preparation for Easter Means Rearranging Your Life

​Lent is not an experiment in personal discipline. It is a season of preparation for the awe of Easter. Lent is a season to focus your worship on the Jesus who came to die on Good Friday and Rise on Easter Sunday. As such, Lent is sort of rhythmic, annual reminder that to live our lives in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus means to rearrange our lives accordingly. When we use Lent to prepare for Easter, we are reminding ourselves - not just intellectually but totally (heart, mind, body, soul, etc.) that Easter should change how we live. Let us prepare for it. The tradition of 40 days of restraint mimics Jesus' days in the desert, where he prepared Himself for ministry. He rearranged his life dramatically in light of the work that was before Him. During Lent, we do the same. 

 

Reason 2: You are not alone

The Christian life is a communal life. It also happens to be true that communities and belief are two essential ingredients for habit change (see Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit for a fascinating commentary on this). This means that even the simplest habits – let’s say giving up chocolate for 40 days – are way more likely to succeed in community, and specifically in a community who believes that there is a reason for doing it in the first place. This is because community practices are what make and break habits and lifestyles. Because to love God and neighbor, we need each other.

 

Reason 3: An Outward Life

The direction of the Christian life is outward. It’s worth noting that Jesus spent his hermit-like, inward, solitary days in the desert so that He could go be public, communal and outward. He was prepared for ministry. If our love of God doesn’t push us into the love of neighbor, we’re not loving the right god. This is why the metaphors of the Bible push towards blessing to neighbor: the light is given so that it might be shone into the world. How do we love and glorify God? By “doing unto the least of these,” by “feeding his sheep.” 

 

Reason 4: Making Way for Justice

I believe the biggest threat to our ability to “do justice and love mercy” are our modern habits of media consumption. Not only does the constant consumption of media deform our perception of what justice is, the endless static of streamed video silences the already quiet cries of the vulnerable who need our attention.

 

It is hard to imagine letting justice flow like a mighty river when the stream that actually forms our lives is the endless stream of mainstream media which keeps us heads down and doors shut to the world of suffering and need. The inward habit of restraint is directed towards freeing us to the outward cultivation of justice.

 

Reasons 5: The Easter Imagination

Busyness silences the imagination. It is hard to imagine a world renewed by the resurrection when we walk the narrow hallways of rush, hurry and too much to do. I think one of the church’s greatest challenges in contemporary America is to be a sabbath light to this anxious and depressed world of constant busyness. Being an Easter people - or being a people prepared for Easter - is then a process of taking on spiritual habits that cultivate a presence in time, and an openness to new kinds of time. Where the unexpected things like resurrection suddenly change everything. To live in light of the resurrection is let Jesus renew everything, even your smallest habits.

 

During this season of Lent, I hope you will work Wednesday worship into your schedule as one more way to be in community together as Good Hope Parish.

 

I give thanks for each of you daily,

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Pastor Peg ​