A Word from Pastor Nathan

Dear Friends:

The season of Lent is here! I know you’ve been looking forward to it all year, right? Depending on your religious upbringing, you may have heard that Lent is about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Still, others have heard that Lent is about eating fish on Fridays. Or, you may have heard that Lent is about giving up something (like chocolate). All of these things point to different Lenten practices, which may or may not be transforming and liberating.

Walter Brueggemann, one of my all-time favorite scholars, wrote the following in his book, A Way Other Than Our Own: “I imagine Lent for you and for me as a great departure from the greedy, anxious anti-neighborliness of our economy, a great departure from our exclusionary politics that fears the other, a great departure from self-indulgent consumerism that devours creation. And then an arrival in a new neighborhood, because it is a gift to be simple, it is a gift to be free; it is a gift to come down where we ought to be.” What would happen if we reframed Lent as a departure and arrival? From what should we depart? And where should we arrive? I don’t know how you will answer these questions, but the queries have made me sit and reflect in silence.

Not one of us departs not knowing where we plan to arrive. We check the gas tank to make sure we have enough fuel to get where we are going. Twenty-four hours prior to check-in for a flight, we confirm the gate and calculate what time we’ll need to leave home in order to check a bag and make it through security.

What would our 40-day Lenten journey be like if we made a departure from all that entraps us and gave up knowing the arrival point? I know this is crazy, but follow me. What if we gave up our control of the destination? Talk about giving something up! I think I’d rather forego chocolate!

I don’t know where you or I—or our church—will arrive at the end of Lent, but this I trust: There is One who will be with us throughout the passage, leading us, transforming us toward the liberation that is found in the resurrected Christ. It’s a simple gift, and we will arrive…we will come down where we ought to be.

Departing with you,