Lenten Devotional – Sun, Feb 21: BLESSED
Scripture for the FIRST FULL WEEK of LENT from Matthew 5: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Daily Devotion:
Beatitudes describe a state of blessedness. In the original Greek used to write the Gospel of Matthew, the word for blessing is makarios (singular) and makaroioi (plural). It is used outline the Beatitudes offered to us by Christ.
Blessedness doesn’t mean you’re lucky, like you’ve won the lottery. It also doesn’t mean you’ve earned what is offered. In our Christian understanding, blessings are gifts offered to you. They come in the form of grace.
The scholar Jeff Stoffregen offers a history of how people used to understand blessedness. Originally, blessings belonged only to gods: supernatural entities who lived in a ‘state of happiness and contentment … beyond all cares, labors, and even death… in some other world away from the … problems and worries of ordinary people’ Later blessed ones were ‘humans, who, through death, had reached the other world of the gods… beyond the cares and problems and worries of earthly life.’ They were also denoted as saints. Eventually, blessedness referred to ‘elite … wealthy people … whose riches and power put them above the normal cares and problems … struggle and worry and labor in life.’ Finally, blessedness was attributed to people who were righteous, who then ‘received earthly, material things: a good wife, many children, abundant crops, riches, honor, wisdom, beauty, good health. A visible sign of blessedness was to ‘have big and beautiful things.’
Christ described the state of blessedness in a new, different way. He turned everyone’s expectations upside down. Blessedness didn’t belong to ancient gods or to saints who had passed beyond death into the land of the gods. Blessedness is not restricted to the elite and powerful classes or the sole province of the righteous. Blessedness belongs to everyone.
Christ teaches that blessings are available, and already part of the lives, of common people. Those who experience the challenges of human life — suffering, poverty, oppression, hunger, illness, sorrow — as well as its joys and delights. Common people like us. Blessedness is offered to you and me. — Rev Gail
Meditations:
Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.
― Mary Oliver
Gratitude lifts our eyes off the things we lack so we might see the blessings we possess. — Max Lucado
What I love about the ministry of Jesus is that he identified the poor as blessed and the rich as needy…and then he went and ministered to them both. This, I think, is the difference between charity and justice. Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another. ― Rachel Held Evans
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, Feb 20: DISCIPLES
In this season, we renew our walk along the Way. We learn again how to follow. To be guided. To become disciples of the Rabbi whose story is connected to our own.
Let this holy time be a journey for you. Choose who will lead you. Walk with you. Be your companion. Teach you. — Rev Gail
Meditations:
God has no superstars … only disciples … willing to be poured out in an endless stream of God’s love. ― Osunsakin Adewale
Jesus says to anyone … First … do the external works, let go of what binds you, give up what is separating you from God’s will! Do not say, I do not have the faith for that. You will not have it so long as … you will not take that first step. Do not say, I have faith, so I do not have to take the first step. You do not have faith, because and so long as you will not take that first step. ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Most people in America, when they are exposed to … faith, are not being transformed. They take one step into the door, and the journey ends. They are not being allowed, encouraged, or equipped to love or to think like Christ. Yet in many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is really seeking. Transformation is a process, a journey, not a one-time decision. ― David Kinnaman
… discipleship is a decision to walk in his ways, steadily and firmly, and then finding that the way integrates all our interests, passions, and gifts, our human needs and eternal aspirations. It is the way of life we were created for. ― Eugene H. Peterson
Challenge or Question: Who is a teacher or guide at this time in your life? Name one person, each day, who has taught you something. Name one thing you have learned today. Give thanks for the chance to learn.
Lenten Devotional: Fri, Feb 19: MOUNTAIN
We’re surrounded by mountains. Our lives are bounded by peaks and valleys, notches and cliffs. When we look toward the horizon, we read it through the heights and depths of the landscape. Light breaks over it, sinks behind it.
To gain perspective, we can go up those slopes. Or walk down them. The steps along the way also matter, since it’s the journey that shapes us. Yet the destination delivers its own gifts.
Summits promise a chance for respite. They serve as a reminder and opportunity to set ourselves apart with time and distance. To create space to collect and center ourselves. To focus. Or to let go .
Seeking out such places also gives us a sense of proportion. We are in the presence of elements larger than ourselves. More eternal. Without awareness or care for our presence, unchanged by our footsteps on their spines. Yet being there changes us.
Remember that self-care and spiritual wellbeing include break time. Like Christ choosing to leave behind the crowds and take time to pray on the mountain, we can follow this model. Removing ourselves from daily needs and demands. Putting aside schedules and deadlines. Permitting ourselves the chance to grow quiet, whether it’s during the walk up and down the mountain, or lingering at the top.
We are invited to find a time and place to be in the presence of ourselves. We are especially guided to also keep company with the unlimited and eternal: Godself. — Rev Gail
Meditations:
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. ― John Muir
If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options.
You can climb it and cross to the other side.
You can go around it.
You can dig under it.
You can fly over it.
You can blow it up.
You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there.
You can turn around and go back the way you came.
Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.
― Vera Nazarian
Kid, you’ll move mountains. ― Dr. Seuss
Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing. ― Barry Finlay
Challenge or Question: What part of your day, and what space, can you set aside as a sacred place and time to grow quiet, focused, and centered, in communion with self and creator? Make it a practice through Lent to honor the same few moments, in a consistent place if possible, to create this set-apart time.
Lenten Devotional – Thurs, Feb 18: CROWDS
Right now, the term ‘crowds’ feels like a bad word. A no-no. As if it comes with fines and punishments. Don’t be caught in a crowd!
We’ve become somewhat accustomed to keeping apart from each other. To distancing. To isolation.
Yet as humans, we’re designed for socialization. For connection. For interaction. In a way, many of us will probably welcome crowds when it’s safe to gather again.
And yet, we’ve been connecting, one way or another, all along, haven’t we? Digital and virtual connections: email, messages, texts. Cards and letters. Phone calls. Zoom chats. Walks outside. Drive-by drop-offs and visits. Small quaran-team circles of connection.
Don’t you find, there’s a crowd in your mind and heart, even if you’re alone? Voices from the past. Personalities from the present. Your memory and your imagination populate life with folks that have something to say to you. Who have shaped your life. Influenced you.
Within that crowd, who do you choose as a leader? Mentor? Guide?
To whom are you listening? A crowd can be a mob. Or it can be a team and a community. Cultivate relationships that lead you away from the crowds that become mobs, and connect you to teams that form community. — Rev Gail
Meditations:
Walking into the crowd was like sinking into a stew – you became an ingredient, you took on a certain flavour. ― Margaret Atwood
I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! ― Oscar Wilde
The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. ― Osho
Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players. — Larry Bird
Two’s company and three’s a crowd, but seven can be an uprising. And the seven can become 70 or 700 or 7000 very quickly if the sense of being wronged is felt broadly and truly enough. — Michael Leunig
Challenge or Question: What word of kindness can you offer each day? Find at least one person you can compliment, praise, or thank. Try it again, every day, through Lent.
Beatitude Devotional: Wed, Feb 17 – SAW
WEEK 1: Scripture from Matthew 5: When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them …
Reflection on words from Beatitudes
Wed, Feb 17 (Ash Wednesday): SAW
To see. To be seen.
Today we burn palm leaves from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration. We burn away the innocent cheerfulness and euphoria — the ‘pomp and circumstance’ — of last year’s Hosannas. Truthfully, we may have a tough time remembering hosannas from last year — it has been a long twelve months. Symbolically, we burn away outer layers, veils and masks, and the external armor that hides us.
As we burn the leaves, we let go of something. We also reveal something.
The green leaves have dried and yellowed. They are only the memory of some portion of our lives that we’ve clung to — preserved for a year — now released by flames. In the flames, they curl and shrivel. Grow black and gray. Change to charcoal, soot and ash.
Today we gather up whatever is left, whatever didn’t go up in smoke. We scoop ashes. Combine them with the oil of anointing, and wear them.
Today is a confession. It’s a submission. It’s a surrender.
Today we bow our heads or fall to our knees, so we can rise again. Rise: known, named, claimed. Rise: beloved.
Oh, to be sure, we don’t become suddenly perfect as we confess. We’re as imperfect as ever. We’re as messy and broken as before, and also as beautiful and possible, as before. Yet we are also accepted and forgiven.
In this moment, we drop our guard. Look into the face of God, or ask God to look upon our faces. Doing so, we invite the experience of being fully seen, fully known.
Afterward, sooty leftovers grace our skin as thumbprints, crosses, or circles. We wear Christ’s fingerprints. Mark ourselves. Allow ourselves to be marked.
Thus, at our best, we are honest in these moments when we bare ourselves to holy Love. After all, what’s the benefit of hiding from Godself? We’ve been seen and known all along. The only ones from whom we really hide are ourselves, and maybe other people. God knows us, whether we choose to be known or not.
Yet it makes a difference, when we choose to participate, and to offer ourselves to the Love that sees us. Especially when we then turn toward the world, bearing the mark of being seen and known, and loved. — Rev Gail
Meditations:
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ― Confucius
The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. ― Meister Eckhart
Challenge: Look in the mirror. And with kindness, with compassion, meet your own eyes and tell yourself you are loved. If you have the chance, look someone else in the eye, and hold that gaze for 10 seconds, and at the end of it, tell the other person, “You are loved.”