Lenten Devotional – Mon, Mar 8: HUNGRY
In the Gospel of Luke, the blessing extended by this Beatitude is offered to the appetites of the body. “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” Yet the author of Matthew deliberately deepens and extends the intention of Christ’s blessing. He suggests that it is given to those who hunger for righteousness.
What does that word, righteousness, even mean to us? What are we yearning for, if we desire righteousness?
In simple terms, it means right relationship. We use the language of longing for God, if we are Christians. We might reach for other ethical expressions, if we don’t come from this faith tradition. Such a desire for a bond with the sacred — to relate to something or someone beyond ourselves — seems intrinsic to humanity: we were created to be connected.
Relationships are essential to humans. Our brains are wired that way, our communities are shaped that way.
Of course, just because Matthew points us toward the spiritual aspect of our longing, doesn’t overlook bodily needs During his life, Jesus first addressed the most immediate physical requirements of people in his company: food and drink, healing and respite. Only then did he teach and preach, offering a different sort of satisfaction that sated and quenched the soul, too.
We, in turn, are tasked to meet the fundamental needs of our brothers and sisters in this world. It’s an ethical imperative taught and practiced among all faith traditions: care for those who are vulnerable.
We should pay attention to this category. If those who are hungry in their bellies are vulnerable, then those of us who long for righteousness are also vulnerable. In our longing, we sometimes turn to other forms of comfort or fulfillment. We feed cravings and appetites in dangerous or destructive ways rather than healthy ones.
Constantly, God calls us away from habits, passions, hungers and thirsts that interrupt our holy relationship with Godself. Christ is known, to us, as the Bread of Life. As humans, we’re forever re-committing ourselves to our holy and holistic connection to God, then breaking the promise, straying away or even turning completely aside, only to find ourselves once more in a place of need and hunger.
Did you know that repent means to turn in a new direction? During Lent, we repent. This season, repenting turns us — or returns us — to a holistic connection with Love, meeting the needs of body, mind, and spirit. — Rev Gail
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry. — Simone Weil
It has been well said that a hungry man is more interested in four sandwiches than four freedoms. — Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. — Mahatma Gandhi
We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. — Mary Oliver
Challenge or Question: What are the appetites in your life? Which ones are unhealthy or out of control? Which ones do you want to adjust for greater wellbeing?
Mar 7 Worship with Communion – Lenten Season
Worship
Message
Lenten Devotional – WEEK THREE of LENT
Beatitude texts for this week: Matthew 5:6-7
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Sun, Mar 7: BLESSED
If you’re a fan of the poet John O’Donohue, you may have learned the Gaelic word beannacht as another word for blessing.
This week the blessing is given to those who hunger and thirst, and then again to those who are merciful. Again, this overturns ancient expectations that blessings were primarily available to people who were especially upstanding or powerful. These Beatitudes are offered, by Christ, for those who hold the least social standing in the community, and yet who embody the compassion that Christ strives to offer all of humanity.
Ironically, the conditions that cause people to be categorized as hungry and thirsty — especially for righteousness — or to be considered merciful, may not be ones that are desirable. We do not aspire to know bodily or spiritual hunger. We want to be the ones with the power to feed and help others, as opposed to receiving such gifts. Yet in Christ’s eyes, all people hold value, including the most unexpected among us. When we are placed in that upside-down position of needing mercy from another, or of receiving nourishment from another, we gain a new point of view about what it means to belong to each other, and to Godself. — Rev Gail
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. — Camille Pissarro
Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. — Charles Dickens
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. — Robert Brault
Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather. ― Alexandre Dumas
Challenge or Question: Identify a blessing within your life. One aspect of your life for which you are grateful. Give thanks for it. Say a prayer, write it in a journal, or light a candle to acknowledge this blessing.
Lenten Devotional – Sat, Mar 6: EARTH
As heirs of earth, we are called to a sustainable view of our role. God has given the home of humanity into the keeping of those who are humble and nonviolent, yet those who will stand for what matters to all of us.
Indeed, the fate of our human home, God’s creation, is at stake.
Martha Stortz writes that in the Beatitudes, Jesus envisions and offers a home for all people. One of the Biblical figures exemplifying meekness, according to most commentators, is Moses. He led his people out of slavery in Egypt toward the promised land. At the end of his life, he was shown the land where his people would find home and sanctuary. It took a lifetime to make that journey and he died without entering the promised land. Stortz says, “Jesus uttered this blessing with Moses in mind, restoring to him the land he never got to enter. In this blessing, Moses finally makes it to the promised land. Jesus gift to Moses is also ours. All we have to do is say yes.”
The meek seem to have a generational view of how to care for themselves, each other, and the earth. They (we) aren’t scrambling for immediate rewards and riches. They (we) are looking at the long-term impact and consequences of how humans interact and live together and care for the planet. — Rev Gail
… That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. — Carl Sagan
We are all passengers aboard one ship, the Earth, and we must not allow it to be wrecked. There will be no second Noah’s Ark. — Mikhail Gorbachev
Vine Deloria, Jr. spoke of the Seven Generations in very practical terms. In his cantankerous way, he would express extreme annoyance at the romanticism of the concept as it was popularly used. Because, as explained to him, the generations we are sworn to protect and revere are the seven we are most immediately connected to. Think about it for a moment. It is possible that many of us have known or will know our great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Even if we aren’t fortunate enough to have been in the physical presence of those who came before us, we usually have stories, songs, and photos that have been shared so that we feel a connection. We also want to make sure our kids and grandkids are healthy, safe and aware of where they come from. So, counting our own generation—ourselves, siblings, and cousins—we are accountable to those seven generations. — David Wilkins
Challenge or Question: How do you care for the earth? What else, in this Lenten period, can you choose to do to tend our human home?
Lenten Devotional – Fri, Mar 5: INHERIT
Inheritance is another form of God’s welcome. It utters a proclamation of belonging. We are fully acknowledged. The blessing of this Beatitude becomes one of responsibility.
In essence, our attitude causes us to become stewards of God’s creation, which includes the planet and cosmos, and all the beings and ecosystems within it. We are given the earth
Isn’t it fascinating that gentleness and self-discipline — wherein we remain humble and kind, even when we respond to a cause that requires our participation, support, and nonviolent advocacy — becomes the way in which we are offered the wholeness of creation? John Stott writes about this startling over-turning of our expectations. He says, “One would think that the meek get nowhere because everybody ignores them or rides roughshod over them and tramples them underfoot. Isn’t it the tough, the overbearing who succeed in the struggle for existence? … but the condition on which we enter our spiritual inheritance in Christ is not might but meekness, for everything is ours if we are Christ’s.”
This echoes the idea that the ‘poor in spirit’ or the dispossessed are those who actually become the ones claimed by heaven. Eknath Easwaran wrote, “To live simply is to live gently, keeping in mind always the needs of the planet, other creatures, and the generations to come. In doing this we lose nothing, because the interests of the whole naturally include our own. . . . In claiming nothing for [ourselves, we] have everything, for everything is [ours] to enjoy as part of the whole.” Although the term ‘meek’ sounds, to our modern ears, as if this group of people are powerless and disenfranchised, they are actually those who have experienced a deep sense of accountability and connection.
The meek also seem to have a generational view of how to care for themselves, each other, and the earth. They aren’t scrambling for immediate rewards and riches. They are looking at the longterm impact and consequences of how humans interact and live together and care for the planet. — Rev Gail
We have not inherited this earth from our parents to do with it what we will. We have borrowed it from our children and we must be careful to use it in their interests as well as our own. — Henry Moses Cass
[In] Jesus’ day … Nobody possessed land except by violence, by oppression, by holding onto it and making all the peasants pay a portion of their harvest. Jesus is turning that around and saying no, it’s you little ones who are finally going to possess the land. I can hear implicit critique in his voice, but also hope. — Richard Rohr
I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul. — Mahatma Gandhi
We are all gifted. That is our inheritance. — Ethel Waters
Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him. — Johann Kaspar Lavater
Challenge or Question: For what do you feel responsible here on earth? Beyond yourself and family, what tugs at your heart and mind? How does being concerned for, and feeling responsible over, part of the earth then give you a sense of belonging?