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Tag Archives: Lent

A Different Palm Sunday

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by judykbrandon in Uncategorized

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Hope, Lent, Palm Sunday, Unity

Matthew 21:1-11

Today I invite you to think about Jesus on that day long ago…

He must have known or suspected what was coming. He’d been hearing opposition from the very beginning. He knew about John’s run-in with Roman leaders. He himself had fielded all sorts of questions from leaders of the temple; from those who were afraid, who perhaps felt threatened, just trying to protect the people, paying the bills, putting food on their own tables. They worried, he knew. He timed his entry as a protest. Echoing the scriptures, his preparations were planned to help the people remember the words of the prophets. Remember that there was hope to stand against the mighty and the powerful who abused their power.

Think about the people on that day…

They must have known or suspected what was to come. They knew all too well the might of their Roman occupiers. They could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves and chariot wheels from across the city. They knew the oppressive taxes that funded Herod’s many castles. Lifestyles of the rich and famous did not just originate in our day. It’s been a theme running throughout history.

In spite of knowing, of harboring a fear of what might come, the people joined with Jesus and his disciples making noise, celebrating in the streets of Jerusalem, bringing joy tempered by fear, but choosing hope, however slim, that somehow their day was coming.

Looking back they may have wondered at their brash parade. Just how had they expected the ragtag crowd of followers that they were to succeed in the face of such a mighty obstacle? But in the years to come, the parade would take on new meaning. Their hopes of one who would be present in challenging times would be realized in countless ways great and small.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead said, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Today, we face a mighty threat. It is made evident in the face of a global pandemic. But it has shown its face in opportunists who use the suffering of others to their advantage for fame or power or profit.

But there is another way…the voice of the people lifted up in celebrating the heroes among us; the health care workers and support teams, those who provide transportation of people to hospitals, of food to market, those who deliver mail and babies. In places around the world people under stay at home orders gather nightly on balconies to cheer their heroes, medical staff applaud as those who recover are sent home, restaurants whose business is floundering turn instead to sending food to those on the front lines in hospitals or deliver food and beverages to police and ambulance corps.

And in this community of faith, the work of caring for one another goes on. Your Leadership Circle and those who make telephone contact check-in weekly so we can continue to meet the needs of the people in this time and place.

What will people say of us in that far distant time when COVID 19 is but a memory? They will say that the people followed faithfully in the way of Jesus shouting out their hopes, and yes, their fears. They will say the people trusted in God knowing that in this community of faith, whatever comes, God will be present in the work in the hands and feet, hearts and faces of those who gather here in God’s name. May it ever be so.

The Gift of Time in a Season of Mourning

29 Sunday Mar 2020

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Grief, Lazarus, Lent, Relationship, Uncertainty

John: 11:1-45

I imagine today many of us are feeling more than a little bit like Mary and Martha, and the other mourners gathered at the tomb of Lazarus. We may simply be mourning the changes this new event of a pandemic in our time has brought to our lives, or we may be mourning very specific people and relationships that are of concern to us.

When the time of parting comes, what can be hardest for those to whom it comes suddenly is the inability to say the final words we would like to have said. Now when we are stuck in our homes it is difficult to impossible to reach out and touch those with whom we might like to make amends. But we have do time, time to think and reflect, time to consider what we would like to do and say to those for whom we are concerned. It is a real Lenten moment.

I wonder if it crossed Jesus’s mind as he delayed going to the side of the grieving sisters that they and Lazarus too might have needed some time for reflection and working on their relationships. I wonder how they made use of it? Did they tell each other the stories of the best times they had shared? Did they take time to say “Thank you”, “I love you”, “I forgive you”? Did they share what they had learned from one another? These are the words we would all wish to remember as we say our final farewells.

Jesus did arrive, and he stood at the entrance to the tomb and he wept, and he’s weeping now with us and beside all the mourning peoples of the world, in China and Italy, in Spain and Iran, in Washington and New York,… and In the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania.

When Jesus wept the falling tear in mercy flowed beyond all bounds.

When Jesus groaned a trembling fear seized all the weary world around.*

One of the sayings or memes on the internet this week was “This is the Lentiest Lent I’ve ever Lented.” No doubt this is true for the vast majority of us. This Lenten season is calling us, no demanding of us that we put that time to good use. So take time in these days we’ve been given, to reflect on your life and relationships. Share your thoughts with your loved ones, in person when you can, on the phone or in a card or letter. Make this a time of growth and renewal of spirit. Most of us will come through this time, but things will be different. Let’s work to make our lives on the other side of this crisis better, even more loving and dedicated to all the world and its people.

We do not know what tomorrow holds. Truth is, we never do. But, by faith, we do know this: Jesus walks with us into tomorrow, standing beside us in sunshine and shadow, in joy and in sorrow, and he always will.

*William Billings, When Jesus Wept, 1770

Christ Jesus, Bearing the Darkness

14 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by judykbrandon in Uncategorized

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Lent, Passion of Jesus

2017.4.14cross for post

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13: 31-35 (NRSV)

What are we to make of Jesus’ passion and death?
The leader chooses to take basin and towel in hand,
to bow down as a servant to wash the feet of his followers.
We might describe the poignancy of the task
and the meal he shared as anticipatory grief
for the gospel writers let us know the intentionality
with which each moment of the evening is observed.
A simple meal is given new meaning
through the charge to remember in its repetition.

And then, they move on,
out into the gathering darkness of the night,
to face the darkness of the world mired in sin.
As he has so often on a mountain or by the sea,
Jesus stops to pray, this time in a familiar garden.
It is an olive grove hundreds of years old
that will go on for generations to come, even to this day.
He is not alone. The disciples are nearby,
but he feels the abandonment of those who betray and deny him,
who cannot or will not watch with him.
It is the loneliness he has experienced in observing the least, the lost,
those who have been rejected and misunderstood.
These are the ones for whom he will stand trial.

In the courts, he stands alone, endures the taunts of the crowd
who sneer at one who claims power, a strength
that is not defined by greed – enforced by any means.
He stands silent as they mock him and inflict brutal pain.
He bears the despair of those whose hope is dim,
who are not valued but rather used and abused.

He is mourning for the world that cannot see or understand
that in all creation are other real living beings loved by God and worthy of care.
He chooses to confront injustice in its most stark and raw form,
exposing just what it is, a lie that assigns blame to the innocent.
The choice he makes in laying down his life is done in the hope
that holding up a mirror to humanity will reveal the senseless suffering.
His greatest desire is that all will grasp the immensity of this gift of grace
and be inspired to another way of living.

And so we remember and pray for strength to listen, to hear, to look,
and to resist turning away from that mirror held up for us
so we might learn once again to live as he taught,
loving God, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Journey through Lent 2016

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

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Lent, Spiritual Practice

prayer for Lent

The season of Lent begins Wednesday, February 10. It is a time to pray and reflect, to forego some of our extravagances; a time to learn simplicity; to practice gratitude by living in just relationships with all beings. In this newsletter you will find a calendar that offers ideas for living into these practices.

In successive weeks of the Lenten journey you are invited to choose yourself, someone you know, the earth, or God as the focus of your week’s Lenten activities. The church has long encouraged three aspects to this journey of self-discovery, personal growth, and tending relationships. Those are the act of prayer, the act of giving of self, and the act of fasting or restraint.

I invite you to choose one day each week to reflect on your life and relationships with the suggested recipient of your caring. Devote a bit of time this day for a prayer, an act of giving, or an act of giving up (restraint) in your relationship with that recipient.

You may want to make a copy of the calendar. Use it as a diary for your journey through this season of Lent. Write on it what you have chosen to do or forego, how you have been in prayer for the person or some aspect of your relationship.

Try for a minimum of the three days. As you become more comfortable with this discipline you may want to extend the practice to other days of the week as well.

As we come to Easter consider how have you been blessed by trusting in God to walk beside you. Think about how you might share what this journey meant to you as it proceeds and when we come to Easter and the days beyond.

I offer my prayers for Lenten blessings, learning, and peace for your journey.

2016.2 Calendar for Lent

 

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