through the labyrinth
I had a conversation with one of our younger members the other day about Lent. She was talking about giving up a food item. So we talked about what Lent means in our tradition.
Congregationalists have never made it an item of piety to enter into deprivation for its own sake. Nor do we encourage spiritual desperation and negativity.
We think that rather than a season of deprivation, that the sacrifice that best serves us as we approach the high point of Easter, is that of giving.
If we give something up, it is not as a fast of deprivation, but one that allows us to give all the more to others. So what we would have spent we give to mission, local or national or world wide.
The time we spend in prayer is meant to open us to the possibilities and the potentiality God has give each of us to spread the Gospel, the serve our neighbor, to fulfill our calling to be part of the Priesthood of all believers. While we are properly penitent for the times and places we have failed God and one another, we focus on the past to learn lessons to help us better live into the future.
Thus we approach the symbolic procession of Palm Sunday filled with praise for God’s many gifts, ready to walk Holy Week with Jesus. So that on Easter Morning we can proclaim, Christ is risen indeed!
The Highs and Lows of Lent
Thursday, February 21, 2008
