Leslie’s Salt Shaker

            I think I’m coming back to life again—its nice to see the lilac beginning to bud out in the yard and the bulbs beginning to bloom.  Spring isn’t far off.  God’s plan for renewal is a gift each year the warming weather opens for us. How reviving it is.

            But there are still at least three weeks of blustery weather ahead of us with time for introspection during the season of Lent. Each Sunday I will be inviting you to add a spiritual discipline to practice. The First Sunday of Lent I challenged us all to join Jesus in fasting—not for 40 days—but for 1 meal a week or if medically and physically able for 3 meals; and to put the money that would have been spent on these meals into an offering envelop marked Homeless Ministry  to be placed in the offering plate on Palm/Passion Sunday. 

            Fasting is an ancient practice of the church which helps us remember our dependence on God from whom all good gifts come. It also helps us focus on the reality of hunger in our world as we experience what it feels like to be genuinely hungry.  In the absence of food may we seek the will of God for us in meeting the needs of our neighbors.  This is what Jesus did.

             Giving something up for Lent—such as food or a regular pleasure is a way to sharpen our awareness of the reality of life without God’s goodness at work in the world. When we give something up we can do it as an act of contrition as well. Offering something to God through self-denial is away to acknowledge our self-centeredness and misdirected living and how we regularly block out the need of neighbor, the suffering of others because we are so insulated in our affluent busy lives.

            And finally the spiritual practice of self-denial is another way for us to recall the self-giving of God in Christ who willingly gave all for us. As members of his body our tactile awareness of deprivation is a small way of recalling his wounds, his stripes, his suffering death.  A death others suffer daily in places such as Darfur, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Palestine, Iraq and in the homes of American families whose sons and daughters have paid the ultimate sacrifice in war. 

            Then, when Easter dawns we will have trod the way to the cross having meditated on its full implications for the way we live and for the work we are called to in this world. Our alleluias will be heartfelt  and fearless joy. 

                                                            Christ is Victor!  Pastor Denice Leslie

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