Lenten Prayer - The Suffering

Lord,

You know suffering – a human experience that is both universal and distinctly individual. You became flesh and experienced it in the same way we do.

For this season some of us invent suffering, we force it, by denying ourselves some things we most enjoy.

Meanwhile we are surrounded by those who suffer more than we will ever understand. Not only do they lack comforts, they live without essentials and feel pain we may never know. Sometimes their suffering is so intense we become blind to it.

Open our eyes that we may recognize the circumstances of those around us and move us to serve as you would have us. Help us not be overwhelmed by the scope of suffering, but focused on the ways we can impact it. The scope of suffering is great, but you, Lord, are greater.

In this season when we focus on suffering and even seek it, help us find ways to bring comfort to those who know suffering too well.

Amen

Lent 2013

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Isaiah 58:1-12 Psalm 51 2 Corinthians 5:20 – 6:10 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Today’s Reflection: (Originally written for and based on the scriptures for Ash Wednesday, 2013. Due to the deaths of a family member and a co-worker that interrupted timely posting, I have adapted it as an overview of Lent 2013)   Growing up in a church that never mentioned the liturgical calendar, I was always fascinated by my friends’ talk of what they had to give up for Lent. (I also liked that we had fish in the school cafeteria every Friday.) It seemed like a very depressing time with all the pleasures taken from life. As I learned more about the purpose of the Lenten season, I learned to use it as a time of personal reflection and growth. It is about as adding on as much as it is about giving up.   Just as the Lenten season is shaped by Christ’s fast in the dessert which was a time for him to draw closer to God, we have the opportunity to draw closer to God as we refine our spiritual practices. The passages today help us see the way to grow in fellowship with God. All the passages unite in guiding us toward the right behavior in public and private worship.   My friends, in their childhood understanding of sacrifice in Lent got it entirely wrong. There is an either-or to rewards for our actions. The passages concur in that message: we can either have our rewards now through public recognition of our pious behavior (by bragging about all that we are doing without) or we can have our rewards for eternity by exercising our faith in a way that only strengthens our relationship with God and brings glory to him (sacrificing in quiet with a smile on our face in public). Isaiah, Psalms, and Matthew state as clearly as possible that we are to worship in a way that builds up the relationship without drawing any attention to ourselves.   During Lent we give up excess(es) in our life in order to take up a spiritual activity that helps us grow our relationship with God. It is not about bragging that I am going without chocolate until I break out the chocolate bunnies on Easter morning. Lent is our time in the wilderness developing our spiritual practices not our six weeks of misery developing our frown. Let’s smile as we celebrate (privately) our growing connection to God.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

 

First Sunday in Lent

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Psalm 91 Romans 10:8-13 Luke 4:1-13

Today’s Reflection: While many people often think of Lent as a time of personal sacrifice, my pre-Lenten reading and preparation had turned me toward a focus on growth and seeking. In the five days before the start to the Lenten season, two young people who were fairly new, but important parts, of my life died unexpectedly. Whether I had planned it or not, those deaths and the following grief, forced me into a mood of seeking and growing.   The Gospel passage in Luke provides the traditional framework for Lent: Christ spending forty days in the desert, fasting and focusing on the work of God with the Holy Spirit. Christ gave up food and the comforts of home to spend the time hungry and exposed. The devil thought he picked the best possible time to tempt Jesus – the end of the forty days. He perceived Jesus’s hunger as the key to vulnerability. He could not have been more wrong. Jesus had spent forty days in close communion with God and the Holy Spirit; he may never have been stronger and more resilient to temptation.   The Psalms and Romans passages promise us protection from evil, scourges, natural dangers, and shame. They make life sound like a stroll through Candyland, yet, the two deaths in five days lead me to ask; why then do we have hardship? The best way I understand this is to consider it in eternal versus temporal terms. When God makes a promise it is assured that the promise will be kept: it will be kept in God’s time. It may not be fulfilled in human time. We will be protected for eternity, but we may indeed face difficulty in our lifetime. The difficulties we do face though will not destroy our faith or our connection to God. We may question why things happen, but eventually we find peace from God.   During the Lenten season struggle is permitted. The time we spend working out and building up our spiritual muscle is as important as the things we give up. Lent is not meant to be easy, but it allows us a unique time to grow spiritually. As we go through the forty days of seeking and growing in fellowship with God and the Holy Spirit, may we, like Christ, come out of the struggle stronger than coming into it.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org