The week begins and we see the end of Lent. This week is the centre of our faith story, the middle of everything. Yesterday, we sang hosannas loud and clear. Kim from Nova Scotia has a little daughter who was delighted by the parade of Palm Sunday at their church yesterday. She described like this:
I’m having a tricky time looking into this week’s readings. I’m still stuck at the end of last week – the wise and foolish bridesmaids, the waiting, the kairos moment of arrival. This past week, I’ve been in Germany for the wedding of a dear friend, so last week’s text inevitably resonates with me.
This week, I picked up a book at the library about St Andrew and his cross. It’s a look across history at the stories that accumulate around the figure of Andrew, one of Jesus’ closest disciples and now the patron saint of Presbyterianism.
How are you? We have passed the half-way point in Matthew now. How has the reading been for you? Are you finding what you expected? And any surprises? What are you finding in this rich text?
Jesus’ twelve named friends are students on the road. And aren’t we all?
Isn’t that a wonderful way to look at these lives we’ve been given? Sent-out and called to learn as we go.
Monday morning and baking bread. I just got the loaves out of the pans and the house smells like home. But it was a bit of a wrestle.
I went to the garden centre this morning while the bread was finishing its rise, and came back with a great selection of seeds. So, as I was prepping the pans for the loaves, I was thinking ahead to my glorious summer garden. I buttered the sides of the pans as usual, and then forgot the bottoms.
Lent begins and, with it, an emphasis on spiritual disciplines. The big ones: fasting, meditation, silence. And storytelling.
Because reading stories is a spiritual discipline, too. We don’t label it like that at bedtime, but it is.
This story juxtaposes dramatically with last week’s leper who says to Jesus “If you will, you can make me clean.” Here, the friends say “we will!” and get rather hands-on to prove the point. The emphasis is on our own faith and therefore on our actions rather than on our ability to persuade God to act. Which is probably a good place to be as we approach Lent.
There are 32 verses in the book of Leviticus to contend with, and Jesus just hopped over all of them. Maybe by sending him to the priest, Jesus was trying to ease the leper’s re-entry into society
Lent begins on February 22nd this year – close enough that we might start thinking about it and far enough away that planning is still possible. Last year, I gave you a list of Lent readings and an idea, but this year the plot is a little more straight forward.
Society is really good at making us worry. And stressed and depressed and all-over anxious. And, of course, by society I mean all of us. Psalm 111 works against all that. The Psalmist takes you by the shoulders and shakes until you wake up sane.
Sometimes lectionary floors me. The juxtaposition of passages can be brilliant or bizarre – and when I saw what was slotted for this coming week, I had to laugh. From poor old post-whale Jonah to fishers of men…
I’ve been getting a lot of donations recently from the congregation – crafty things for the Sunday School. Each Sunday, I seem to come home with more plastic bags of squishy things to be sorted through.
Ten years ago, the Spouse surprised me with a ring. New Year’s Eve, the night of high romance and optimism, and we were already engaged.
The space above our table is perfect for our advent calendar. I mentioned earlier that we might make one, and this is what we came up with.
This past week, I was hit by love three times.
The first happened when I was at the school near our church. I was popping in for a visit, after setting up some crafts at the church, and I had my huge messenger bag over my shoulder. I have a collection of buttons pinned there, and one of them is a drawing of an anatomical heart.
The gate in the garden keeps crashing open and slamming shut. Leaves are blowing up the street at full throttle , and then come swirling back the other way again. The wind is fierce and fickle.
Thinking about performance, I came across Marni Kotak. She is a performance artist who tackles questions about the lines between life and art.
Late in October, in an art gallery in Brooklyn, she gave birth.
Advent begins. And together we wait.
Which sounds a bit tedious and pious, and anyways, it doesn’t always feel like waiting, does it? It can feel like the mad dash through an overly-full season ending with the too much of everything experience of Christmas.
But, in church, we try to slow it down a bit. Make Christmas something we can wait for. It makes sense to wait for a birthing story. Usually, that’s how these stories are lived.
Yesterday was Stir Up Sunday. Also known around Presbyterian circles as goodness-is-Advent-really-next-week-Sunday. But for our Anglican neighbours, it’s about pudding.
More or less.