Lenten Message from Rev. Helen

Dear beloved community,

Well, here we are again at the Ash Wednesday kick off a two-season cycle: the 40 days of Lent & the 50 days of Easter. It is a cycle of reflection and reliving Jesus’ journey toward his death. It is also a cycle of expectation and renewal of being a diverse, believing people at the end of the cycles, on
Pentecost. ‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from’. T.S. Eliot

So, Ash Wednesday is an important moment of both end and beginning. Take some time to reflect on Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21, our gospel appointed for the day. This reading speaks of piety and alms-giving, hypocrisy and humility, fasting and recognizing that our heart can’t hide what we truly value. It is a passage that holds somberness and encouragement, reserve and anticipation, activity and steadiness. We are called to “still ourselves” before God and assess the practices of faith we will need with us in this season of faithful worship and “re”-living.

Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them… when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing…when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret…when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret… and your Father who sees in secret will reward you… Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew separates our religious practices into human perception and God’s reception: public
performance and internal positioning. Public performance of giving is set against giving
anonymously; public prayer is set against a quieter form of centering presence before God; fasting
is not to be announced. What does this reflection on our religious practice tell us about why we do
what we do?

Lent offers an opportunity to practise a new way of drawing close to God: whether in prayer, in
giving, or in giving up (fasting). I encourage you to a new practise of some sort this Lent. Maybe
you could join us to learn about centering prayer at 9:45 on Sundays? Maybe you could commit to
weekly Sunday attendance, or attend Dinner Church to learn about Taizé, or attend a BUILD
meeting, or create a new habit of prayer, or commit to walking a daily mile in prayer for your
neighborhood, or give towards one of our mission partners, or read our Lenten devotion. Maybe
you could commit to some quiet time in Tobit’s trace or even at Gethsemane Abbey? Maybe, if you
choose to fast one day a week, the food you save could be given to our Food Pantry? If you want
any other ideas, come and have a chat!

Whatever our chosen practise this Lent, remember we are accompanied by the presence and love
of God. Nothing will ever separate us from God, but we might find a way that reveals something
new of God to us. The Ash Wednesday practise of ashes on our foreheads makes visible and
intentional our relationship to God. Maybe we can practice some new way or renewed way of
living out what is good, just, and loving towards others, and, in that way, join Jesus on his journey
and in his passion for caring about others and the world. We are entering a season intended to
deepen our identity and rootedness in God’s creative concern for the world. May we journey this
season with Jesus remembering that his religious practices were a sign of his loving God and
others. And that his journey was to death on the cross before Easter, Ascension and Pentecost.
May this year’s Lenten journey strengthen your own faith journey with deeper understanding of

God’s love in sending Jesus, His Son.
With love and prayers,

Helen
Rev. Helen