Dear Friends,
Remember last Wednesday, 23 February when the high temperature of the day was 74 degrees? It was so good! Some places nearby got to 77 degrees! The warmth of that sun! A mere twenty-four hours later (24 hours!) the high temperature was 39 degrees. The shift from the season of Epiphany on Sunday to Ash Wednesday today feels just as abrupt.
Last night our Boy Scouts (Troop 1257) joyfully made and served quite the meal for Shrove Tuesday. What a selection of pancakes: blueberry, chocolate chip, cinnamon, or plain, and bacon and sausage and fruit! Parishioners came to celebrate, perhaps welcoming a night free of cleaning the kitchen. Maybe they came to get a taste of more than pancakes. Maybe they came to get a taste of the kinds of gatherings from which we’ve been so long fasting.
So now what? We fast again? Just like that? Maybe. Maybe fasting is not only what we think it means. This year, I invite you to reimagine Lent. One of my favorite theologians, Walter Brueggemann wrote a poem a few years ago which I’ve decided to lean on for my personal Lenten devotion (it is below and will be in our bulletins each week). I invite you to join me. It might just fit well with the Living Compass devotionals we are providing this year: Letting Go with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind.
I’m captivated this week by the poem’s line, “Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us.” This line is like a prayer, a petition akin to a liturgical reversal to the meteorological turn we experienced last week. I wonder what it would take for us to be Eastered, as individuals, as families, as communities, as nations?
Come. Pray with me. Wonder with me. Let’s begin by being Marked by Ashes together and praying all the while for God to Easter us.
In Peace,
Rev. Dina
Marked by Ashes
Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.
This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday, but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises, of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.
We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.
On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.
We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.
– Walter Brueggemann from Prayers for a Privileged People
Some upcoming events to engage the season together:
- Today! –“Drive-by” Ashes are back! We will host “drive-by” ashes from 12:30 PM to 1 PM by Door #1, and after-school from 4 PM to 4:30 PM by Door #2. We will have an in person (and live streamed) Ash Wednesday service with Holy Eucharist that evening at 7PM.
- Starting March 9, every Wednesday night from 7 – 8:00 PM through Lent, Adult Learning Series with John Rybicki – Join us in person or on Zoom as our resident theologian, John Rybicki, begins a series titled “Development of the Concept of God through the Scriptures.” Learn more on the roadmap.