Lent 1

A thousand thanks to Heather Munn and her amazing team for a stellar pancake supper last Tuesday. After so many years coordinating this endeavour, Heather knows what she’s doing, so feeding more than a hundred people pancakes, sausages, ham, homemade baked beans, devilled eggs and desserts went off without a hitch. The best part was hearing the blessed clamour in the Community Centre as folks chatted, visited and laughed. It’s been a long winter, and I think everyone was glad to get out!

On Wednesday, Pastor Janaki and I co-officiated a joint Ash Wednesday service for St. Edmund’s Anglican and Tobermory United. As I said during the service, we are not only celebrating among ecumenical friends, but among actual friends, such are the bonds of a small community. It is surprising to me how moving the Ash Wednesday service was. I used to avoid saying the traditional words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” during the imposition of ashes. I thought it was too harsh, too representative of classifying human souls as sinners, when I feel that part of my call is to love people and encourage their identity as beloved of God. I have come to a new understanding, however, of the sacredness and relevance of dust. Science and Joni Mitchell both say that we are stardust, and how cool is that. It can be liberating to think of oneself as dust, dust spanning our days in this world from the beginning to the end. In the book I’m making my way through for Lent, Wilderness and Wonder: A Lenten Guide to Dismantling and Reimagining, by Gregory Simpson, Simpson writes about a new understanding of dust: “For the ones who fear dust means shame: dust is not trash. Dust is the beginning. It is the soil where Divine breath still makes life.” Through Lent, then, we will light a candle each week with relevant words from contemporary thinkers, and rather than prayers of confession, which can be shame-inducing, we’ll offer prayers for healing. After all, isn’t that what our hearts truly yearn for?

So, as is the tradition for the first Sunday of Lent, we will encounter Jesus in his time in the desert – fasting, tempted by the Tempter, becoming one with his faith and his relationship with God.  And, we’ll share in Communion, food for the wild journey that is ahead in the next six weeks.

To prepare, read Matthew 4:1-11 and ponder the following:

1.      “. . . and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” What do you think this means for Jesus? What would it mean for you?

2.      Are you intentionally journeying through Lent? If so, how?

image: Jeremy Mueller, pexels.com