Lent begins today on Ash Wednesday, February 13. There will be a service of repentance, communion, and impostion of ashes outside, around a fire at the waterfront, thanks to the hospitality of Jean Johnson. The service will be held in Jean’s backyard at 7:00 p.m. The address is 5728 Bahama Shores Drive South, St. Petersburg. If the weather is inclement, the service will be held in Jean’s large, screened in porch. All are encouraged to be part of this beautiful, meaningful evening which begins the Lenten season.
Category: Kim’s Blog
Prelude to Lent
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent includes the 40 days before Easter, not including Sundays. It is a time of repentance and returning our lives to God. It is a somber, introspective season.
It is traditional to give up something for Lent. A form of a fast. What to give up? The point of giving something up has many dimensions. It can be thought of as sharing in the sufferings of Jesus. It can be reminiscent of Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness without access to the usual comforts of life. It can be a time to give something up that is getting in the way of your full discipleship. It can be an effort to overcome a character flaw or damaging behavior. In recent times, there are Christians who have chosen a form of carbon fast for Lent – giving up some form of energy usage.
Another way to look at the Lenten discipline of fasting, of giving something up, is to think about taking something on. This can be a time to do something that increases our discipleship, that brings us closer to God and others. A time to embark on some kind of service or regimen that makes a positive contribution in some way.
At Lakewood this Lenten season, we will be focussing on love: How to be more loving. What is means to love God, Jesus, ourselves, others, and the world. So as you consider your Lenten fast, the commitment you will make for this season, you may want to think about a discipline that will help you to love more fully and more deeply in some way. Is there something you can do to strengthen your ability to love? Or to love in some way that you have found difficult? Is there a relationship in your life that you may want to work on? Is there a way to show love to your enemies? Or the poor? Or someone you find difficult to get along with? As you prepare to enter this holy season, think about how you can nurture your capacity to love through your Lenten disciplines of worship, study, scripture, fasting, and giving of money, time, and talent. May our Lenten journey bring us closer to the source of Love within us and at the heart of creation.
“The Meeting” at American Stage 2/12/13
American Stage presents “The Meeting,” a play imagining what happens when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. agrees to attend a meeting with Malcolm X. It will surprise you! Pay as you can – love offering. Advance tickets: $15. Tuesday February 12 at 7:00 p.m. at American Stage 163 3rd St N St Petersburg, FL 33701
(727) 823-7529
Religion and Gun Violence
There was a letter to the editor in the Tampa Bay Times today (1/19/13) about religion and gun violence. Apparently, a Hillsborough County School Board member suggested that one way to keep children safe at school was to “introduce the children of this nation to the house of the Lord.” I completely agree with the writer of the letter that the public school system should not in any way engage in religious indoctrination. That is a direct violation of the constitutional protection of freedom of (as well as from) religion and the separation of church and state.
The writer of the letter to the editor goes on the say, “Religion is not the answer to school shootings.” Religion may not be the answer, but it certainly could and should have an impact on the level of violence in our society. Christianity teaches directly that violence of every kind is morally wrong. Violence is in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus. If the church was serious about following Jesus, many more people in our society would believe that violence in unchristian and it is against the will of God as revealed in the teachings of Jesus. If the church really promoted the teachings of Jesus to turn the other cheek and love your enemy, as well as the exhortation to love your neighbor as yourself, I think our society would be far less violent.
It seems to me that instead the church focuses on convincing people to believe that Jesus is divine and that he will get you into heaven after you die and rescue you from going to hell for eternity. If the church were to put as much effort, time, music, tracts, money, preaching, and energy into spreading the anti violent teachings of Jesus as it does to matters of eternal salvation, the world would be much more as God intended – a far more peaceable realm.
Religion, and specifically Christianity, should be playing a much larger role in eradicating violence from our communities, our society and the world. And this applies to all violence from domestic abuse, to school shootings, to war. Jesus is and ever was a pacifist. I look forward to the day when students in public school are taught about various world religions and they are told that Christianity is a religion based on following the teachings of Jesus who was a pacifist and encouraged his disciples to love their enemies and turn the other cheek when faced with violence.
Final Advent Devotion 2012
When the music at the symphony concert is stunning, tears come to my eyes. At a wedding, I cry. A touching act of kindness brings tears. A movie in which a character makes a turn around makes me tear up. In the presence of extraordinary love or beauty, yes, a smile comes, but also tears.
When we think of Christmas, this small, vulnerable, poor child being born into the world to show us God, it is moving. To think about his life, his teaching, and his death. It is compelling. To reflect on all that he has been to people through the ages, it is beautiful. Such love. A book, a story, a life, cannot contain all of the love that we see in Jesus. His love is stronger than all of our weakness, all of our evil, all of our apathy, all of our hatred and meanness, all of our selfishness, all of our cruelty and violence. There’s nothing more beautiful than that.
So, among the smiles and hugs and laughs of Christmas, may there also be a few tears. May the love and beauty of those glad tidings of great joy to all people stir our souls once more.
Prayer: Christmas will always be more than we could ask or imagine. May it work its magic on us once more reminding us that the heart of creation is love, the breath of the universe is compassion, and the soul of the cosmos is beauty. Amen.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 